Toad Town Gazette

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Blargg's Identity (Lava Dragon or Elemental Spirit?)

A very uncommon enemy nowadays, Blargg, the lava dwelling yoshi-esque dragon appears only in 8 games, perhaps even more or less depending on your definition of blargg.

And confusingly, almost all it's appearances use a different design. In Super Mario World, it takes on the appearance shown above, and retains this look in Mario & Wario, as well as Super Mario RPG, sort of.

Super Mario RPG features not "Blargg", but the Czar Dragon (pictured below), a blargg-like creature made of smaller fire-like enemies named Lava Bubbles. Perhaps this is just a specific blargg named Czar Dragon, or a mimicry of a blargg made by lava bubbles used to scare off intruders?

And finally there's Blargg in the Yoshi's Island series, possibly the biggest departure from it's original design by far. It is instead named "Gargantuan Blargg" here, being larger than normal. It looks like another enemy in the game, Nep-Enut, a water dwelling creature, instead of it's usual dragon-like form. (Gargantuan Blargg and Nep-Enut shown below)

They look even more odd in Yoshi's Story, but still more akin to the Yoshi's Island version, shape-wise and size-wise. (shown below)

So is this the same species, or just a different creature altogether with a similar name? In the real world, animals are given names based on other things they resemble despite not being in the same genus, but perhaps there's something deeper here that makes the former idea stay true. These might all truly be "blarggs" after all, not just in name alone.

It seems nep-enuts are actually composed of water, as shown in some games, and blargg in Yoshi's Island is shown as being made from lava as well. And as I mentioned already, it's also shown Czar Dragon is made of smaller fiery creatures. With this information I have a theory...

The Elemental Theory

It's possible every creature mentioned here are simply elemental spirits, using elemental matter as their bodies. They usually assume the standard ghost-shaped form in Yoshi's Island (which seems to be their modern design nowadays), but also taking on a more dragon-like shape in Super Mario World. That game is chronologically set after the Yoshi series, so it's possible the spirits "learned" how to appear more dragon-like over time. But this is merely my personal idea of how it may work.

Another point of proof to this theory though, is the existence of another "blargg", also in Yoshi's Island, called a Blarggwich. (shown below) This seems to be a "non-elemental" version of a blargg, as seen by the fact that it's a colorless, phantom-esque creature that simply ferries around the player. Perhaps when elementally charged (like the spirits in Luigi's Mansion), they become the creatures we know as blargg and nep-enut.

Addendum

This is a shorter post, I wanted to talk about Blargg because I recently realized how inconsistent it's design is, and how strange it is that it barely appears anymore in any core Mario game. I also just like talking about lesser known Mario things, so this was an excuse to do that, thanks for reading!

[toadtowngazette]

Humans in the Mario Series

In this post I would like to talk about the presence of humankind within Mario's universe, since it is a strange topic that isn't directly addressed much in the games.

General Information

It seems that most intelligent life seen throughout the games are non-human, such as Toads, Koopas, Shy Guys, Beanish, even intelligent versions of real-world animals like Penguins! Humans however, aren't shown nearly as much, although this doesn't mean they are rare in-universe, they just aren't the focus.

The only recurring human characters are: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Pauline, Wario, Waluigi, and E. Gadd. The WarioWare series has many human characters however, making up most of the main cast of those games. The main Mario series seems to be limited to the ones mentioned above though, with rare exceptions.

Nintendo themselves have talked about this subject before, stating in an interview why humans are not featured much outside of the main cast:

"If other characters looked too human, for example, you may end up with a world where Mario seems superfluous as a protagonist. When creating original characters, it's important to develop characters and a world that Mario wouldn't feel out of place in."

It seems that Nintendo wishes to make Mario, as well as a few other select characters the sole humans, in order for them to appear more unique from the rest of the various characters throughout the series. It also implies that they try to design characters to be less humanoid in general.

The Sports Games, and the "Real-Life Earth vs Mario's Earth"

Before mentioning any of the following information, I must first state that "Mario's Earth" is a different place than the "real-life Earth". Shown in Super Mario Odyssey, none of the real-life continents appear on the world map alongside the Mushroom Kingdom, establishing that world as being separate from the real one. Mario and co. still visit the real-life Earth on rare occasions, and it is sometimes mentioned as being a separate world from whatever world the Mushroom Kingdom is located on.

In the older Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games, a numerous amount of human characters appear, and seem to look similar to how Mario and Peach do, with the same cartoony art style as them.

One may think this implies humans are numerous in Mario's Earth from this alone, however further inquiry shows that many of the humans from the sports games originate from the real-life Earth, as many of their countries of origin are real-life ones. For example, Bird (bottom right in the image above), is stated to be from Ireland on the JP Camelot website. It appears the humans from real-life Earth visit the Mario universe often for various reasons, and vise-versa.

Many humans are confirmed to be from Mario's Earth however, meaning that humanity likely independently exists in both worlds. We know the Mario brothers are from the Mario Earth because of Yoshi's Island's story showing them being delivered by the stork there, and it seems that Peach and Wario were born here as well, as they appear as infants in Yoshi's Island DS. Other human infants are seen in the intro of this game alongside them too. Rosalina also appears on Mario's Earth in Super Mario Galaxy as a child. As for others, it is mostly left ambiguous.

As for the strange connection between Mario's Earth and the real-life Earth, it seems that the two worlds can be visited by plane travel as seen in the story of Mario Tennis: Power Tour. How this seemingly interdimensional travel is accomplished I am not aware of, but we do see the real-life Earth again in later games such as Mario Kart Tour, so it's more than just an older game "one-off" sort of thing.

New Donkers

The New Donk City locals, known as "New Donkers" by the game's brochure, are characters that appear in the Metro Kingdom in Super Mario Osyssey. These characters are humans, albeit depicted very realistically, as opposed to the usual cartoony ones we've seen before.

This not only confirms humans are indeed numerous within Mario's universe, but also that many of them look much more realistic than Mario and Peach's "type" of human does. Nintendo has stated New Donk humans are a separate race than the Mario styled humans, meaning there is in fact an actual difference that isn't just an art style.

This does not mean that the New Donkers are originally from the real-life Earth, though. As stated above, many of the sports games feature cartoony humans that are from the real-life Earth, so the New Donkers' realistic look seems to be unrelated, and could imply they were always a part of Mario's universe. This is purely speculation however.

Final Thoughts

While Nintendo seems to have phased out the more frequent human appearances in the games, they aren't completely absent outside the main cast, as shown with the New Donkers, and a few other obscure examples. This post was made to show that the Mario Earth is still a lot like ours, even having full human civilizations, despite them being far from the main focus of the series. I hope you all learned something, thanks for reading!

[toadtowngazette]

Mario Misconceptions: Baby Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Koopa Kid

This will be a new series where I discuss common misconceptions in the Mario franchise! This time I'm talking about the still very common idea of Bowser Jr. being the same entity as Baby Bowser, as well as the Koopa Kid from Mario Party causing confusion relating to these two.

Now, most seasoned Mario fans will know the difference between the two, but I will clear up any misconceptions here, with images provided, as the designs are often one of the main reasons people get confused.

In short, "Baby Bowser" is Bowser as a young koopa in the past, and "Bowser Jr." is Bowser's son in the current day and age.

Here you can see the differences between them. Note that in older depictions of Baby Bowser, he isn't wearing a bandana, meanwhile Bowser Jr. always wears one, showing the obvious differences in their design. Confusingly, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time depicts Baby Bowser with a white (albeit featureless) bandana. This design alone is most likely the main reason so many have confused the two, since Bowser Jr. wears a similar bandana. However, Bowser Jr.'s bandana always features a face of some sort, whereas Bowser's bandana as a child has nothing drawn onto it.

Finally, I want to mention the "Koopa Kid" from the Mario Party series. Introduced in the first game in the series "Mario Party", they act as helpers to Bowser during the games.

They appear similar to Bowser, but only younger, leading some to think the main Koopa Kid (featured on the left in the image above) was either his past self, or alternatively his son, thinking it was merely an early design of Bowser Junior. The name of the Koopa Kid in some instances is actually "Baby Bowser", causing much of the confusion. They are still called "Koopa Kids" almost everywhere else, however.

While it's almost certainly confirmed that none of them are Bowser Jr. or Bowser himself, it is still unknown whether not they are related to Bowser in some form, if at all. The Super Mario Wiki mentions more specific details of this topic in the image below:

As one can see, the game's dialogue and naming has caused a large amount of the confusion. Koopa Kid's nature seems to imply they may either be split off from Bowser, like a copy of some kind, or simply just his son.

The main Koopa Kid's ability to split into three beings (featured on the right of the Koopa Kid image) as shown in Mario Party 5 may possibly imply the original's origin to be Bowser's copy. His Japanese description being 「クッパさまのぶんしん」 seems to partially support this theory, as 「分身」 can mean "one's other self" as shown in the wiki screenshot. None of this is 100% confirmed however, and is simply speculation on my part.

Koopa Kids as a whole have since stopped making appearances in games, most likely due to the redundancy of now having Bowser Jr. existing as the "Bowser's young helper" role. This is shown by the fact that any remakes of old minigames featuring them now replace them with Bowser Jr. instead. They may also have stopped appearing to not cause further confusion on this subject.

One final thing: "Koopa Kids" is a phrase that many official sources call the Koopalings, but this is largely phased out and is mostly used in the older media, although still used in other languages today. The Koopalings are not confirmed to be related to the Koopa Kids from Mario Party, despite the similar naming in some places.

I think that's all I really have to say on this topic, so I hope this cleared up any misconceptions on these characters and their relationships with one another! Thanks for reading.

Credit goes to Nintendo and all affiliated parties, and to the Super Mario Wiki.

[toadtowngazette]

Every Country in the Mario Universe (so far)

I wanted to make a "little" compilation of all the different Kingdoms, Lands, and other countries within the Super Mario franchise that have been shown or mentioned, so here is is! This is mainly meant to be an informational post for anyone researching Mario stuff. Only the video game locations will be mentioned, as well as only things canonically within the Mario universe, meaning I will not include crossover material or real life locations, although some of the names of locations may originate from external material, and is only added for clarity. Anyways, here we go!

Countries

In order of introduction:

Metro Kingdom (Donkey Kong) - Mushroom Kingdom (Super Mario Bros.) - Subcon (Super Mario Bros. 2), Grass Land, Desert Land, Water Land, Giant Land, Sky Land, Ice Land, Pipe Land, Dark Land (Super Mario Bros. 3) - Sarasaland which contains: Birabuto Kingdom, Muda Kingdom, Easton Kingdom, Chai Kingdom (Super Mario Land) - Mario Land (Super Mario Land 2) - Jewelry Land (Yoshi's Safari) - Dinosaur Land (Super Mario World) - Jungle Kingdom (Donkey Kong Country) - Koopa Kingdom (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island) - Lethal Lava Land, Shifting Sand Land, Water Land (painting world), Snowman's Land, Tiny People Country/Giant People Country (Super Mario 64) - Nimbus Land (Super Mario RPG) - Sherbet Land (Mario Kart 64) - Banana Fairy Kingdom (Donkey Kong 64) Pirate Land, Western Land, Space Land, Mystery Land, Horror Land, Bowser Land (Mario Party 2) - Dry Dry Kingdom (Paper Mario) - Cheese Land, Snow Land (Mario Kart: Super Circuit) - Cookie Land (Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) - Beanbean Kingdom (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga) - Waffle Kingdom (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door) -

Banana Kingdom, Orange Kingdom, Watermelon Kingdom, Apple Kingdom, Strawberry Kingdom, Pineapple Kingdom, Lemon Kingdom, Grape Kingdom, Cherry Kingdom, Peach Kingdom, Melon Kingdom, Durian Kingdom, Pear Kingdom, Lychee Kingdom, Chili Pepper Kingdom, Star Fruit Kingdom (Donkey Kong Jungle Beat) - Squirpia, Flora Kingdom, Sammer's Kingdom (Super Paper Mario) Honeyhive Kingdom (Super Mario Galaxy) - Baseball Kingdom (Mario Super Sluggers) - Pi'illo Kingdom (Mario & Luigi: Dream Team) - Sprixie Kingdom (Super Mario 3D World) - Item Castle Land (Mario Party: Island Tour) - Sweet Sweet Kingdom (Mario Kart 8) - Cap Kingdom, Cascade Kingdom, Sand Kingdom, Lake Kingdom, Wooded Kingdom, Cloud Kingdom, Lost Kingdom, Snow Kingdom, Seaside Kingdom, Luncheon Kingdom, Ruined Kingdom, Bowser's Kingdom, Moon Kingdom, Dark Side, Darker Side (Super Mario Odyssey) - Kingdom of Bask (Mario Tennis Aces) - Remote Kingdom, Boost Kingdom (Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit) - Cat Kingdom (Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury) - Flower Kingdom (Super Mario Bros. Wonder) - Concordia (Mario & Luigi: Brothership)

I'm pretty sure that's all of them, but if you think I missed any, drop a message in the submissions box!

Notes

Bowser seems to have at least 4 distinct kingdoms in the games: Dark Land, Koopa Kingdom, Bowser Land and Bowser's Kingdom. I will still count these as separate countries since nothing in-game states they are part of the same domain, despite being ruled by the same individual.

Although there are many "king" characters in the Mario series, many are not shown to have their own kingdoms in-game, so none of those were included, as it is merely speculative.

Some locations listed are depicted as small areas within spin-off games (Mario Kart courses and Mario Party boards), and may not be actual countries in-universe. I listed them anyways because it is still technically possible, and the names of these locations in other languages use the terms "country" and "kingdom" as well.

The "Cat Kingdom" is the Korean name of Lake Lapcat in Bowser's Fury, so that was included as well as "Tiny People Country, Giant People Country" as they are the Chinese name for Tiny Huge Island from Super Mario 64. Additionally, "Water Land" is used as the name of World 3 in Super Mario Bros. 3 as well as the Japanese name of Dire, Dire Docks, and the painting worlds are stated to be separate from the regular world in the Mario series, so I listed both as distinct countries.

The "Jungle Kingdom" was the name given to Donkey Kong's domain in the Super Mario Bros. Movie. While the film is not canon, I included the name as the term for his region, as Donkey Kong is known as "King of the Jungle" in multiple games.

Credit goes to Nintendo and all affiliated parties, and to the Super Mario Wiki for most of this information.

[toadtowngazette]

Welcome to Toad Town Gazette! This is a Super Mario fan blog where I post/reblog fanart, theories and other Mario content.

Enjoy!