Super Mario-kun is by far the most unique official interpretation of the Mario franchise. It has recently become not only my favorite Mario thing, but it’s also one of my favorite pieces of video game literature, and also one of the few mangas I’ve gotten into. In this article, I would like to go into why I love this series, and why you should give it a look.
Firstly, let's have a little history. Super Mario-kun is a Japanese manga that is written and illustrated by Yukio Sawaba. The manga has been printed in CoroCoro Comic magazines monthly since 1991. The manga retells the story from multiple Mario games in a comedic way, as well as retelling stories from some spinoffs, mainly the RPG games. Some games span multiple volumes, while some span for only one volume. The manga is on volume 58, having an arc focused on Mario Golf: Super Rush.
The manga has had a rough history getting localized outside of Japan. France got a French localization titled Super Mario: Manga Adventures, on December 3rd, 2014, and so far spans to volume 24. Spain also got a Spanish localization titled Super Mario Aventuras, on November 29th, 2016, and also spans to volume 24. Those two are the only official localizations from direct volumes for Super Mario-kun, and they weren’t in English. This means that the majority of the West hasn’t been able to experience this series. Most importantly in my case, the series hasn’t really seen a release in the U.S., with one exception. On December 8th, 2020, VIZ Media published a collection of 9 chapters from Super Mario-kun, localizing it for English speakers. This book is called Super Mario Manga Mania and is my introduction to Super Mario-kun. The rest of this article will be focused on this release, because it’s the only thing I have fully experienced before, and can give an opinion on. However, this book does give a great sight into the series and represents Super Mario-kun fairly well
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Before I go into why I love this book, and why I think it’s a great introduction to those who aren’t knowledgeable of Super Mario-kun, I should address what is in this book. There are 9 chapters, or stages as the book calls them, all of them being a random volume from the manga. This book features stories from multiple Mario games. The games that are featured are Paper Mario, Super Mario Sunshine, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. There’s also a bonus stage titled “Super Mari-Old,” which isn’t based on a particular game but instead, it’s based on a moment in the author’s life This random selection of chapters presents a problem I have with Super Mario Manga Mania. This is just a grab bag of chapters, there’s nothing connecting them together, outside of the games they are based on. There are no complete arcs in this book, which is fine, but I feel that it would turn some people off if they want complete stories. but I do feel the book does its best to make these chapters stand out on their own, without needing prior, or future chapters to make sense of the chapters in the book, but if you’re looking for full stories, you should skip this book.
Now let’s get into the writing. I should mention that I don’t know how much of the translation is directly from Yukio’s original writing, so I got to judge the writing based on the book’s translation. With that being said, the writing is excellent. The writing is mostly in the form of slapstick comedy, but not in a bad way. I find a lot of the humor to be funny in a clever way. It’s hard to really explain the humor without directly citing quotes, and spoiling anything. Stage 2 is in my opinion the funniest stage in the book. It focuses on Mario collecting red coins for Strollin’ Stu. Strollin’ Stu’s dialogue is amazing because everything he saids ends in Stu. He can say something threatening, but it becomes laughable due to Stu ending the sentence. The story also has an obvious, fun twist at the end, that I won’t spoil. The writing can be seen as childish at times, but I think some adults would get a kick out of it.
The artwork is also amazing. It’s stylized, but not over-stylized. Mario and the crew still look like themselves, they just have more facial expressions, and look cuter due to that manga style. The artwork also adds to the comedic value. One way it does that is in the facial expressions, which are overexaggerated in order to tell a character’s mood, but also show it in a comedic way. I really enjoy the artwork, and I think people who don’t like the traditional anime/manga style can still enjoy it.
Super Mario Manga Mania is an amazing book, and something I would’ve never bought on my own. I don’t typically shop for new books, so my book collection is small, and I don’t get to see this stuff often. I didn’t even know this book existed until a friend of mine got it for me as a gift. I appreciate it, if I didn't get that gift, I wouldn’t have bothered looking into Super Mario-kun, and discovering this series I enjoy.
Super Mario-kun is my favorite interpretation of the Mario franchise because of how different it is from the games. Mario games normally feel the same to me now. That doesn’t mean I hate the games, I just feel the games don’t take a risk anymore, outside of a few expectations, such as Super Mario Odyssey. Super Mario-kun gives a unique take on the franchise, while not going too far away from the source material. That is why I like Super Mario-kun, it’s a sense of fresh air. I recommend Mario fans to pick up the Super Mario Manga Mania book, or just look into Super Mario-kun. You will discover something new, and even if you end up not liking it, it’s still a fascinating thing to learn about. I wish we get more localizations released here in the West, whether in being more Super Mario Manga Mania books, or even direct releases of localized volumes of the manga itself. Super Mario-kun deserves to be shown to a wider audience, especially since the West has become more accepting of Anime and other Japanese media. Super Mario-kun is my favorite interpretation of the Mario franchise, and I want to see more of the comedic series over here in the U.S.
Special thanks to the Super Mario wiki for some of the information in this article. If you need information for various Mario-related things, I’d recommend starting there
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