Let's be realistic, should Super Mario-kun get an english adaptation?

Vivian

Vivian

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Would it not sell well, or is Nintendo missing out on some big money gain?
Is it "appropriate for America"? As when it comes to some art products from Japan, I often hear they worry Americans "just wouldn't get it".
Do people love Super Mario Adventures? Would that be a tell if people would love Mario-kun?
Are the other Nintendo comics/manga doing well? I hear there's Zelda ones on the market.
 
Wallop said:
Would it not sell well, or is Nintendo missing out on some big money gain?
Is it "appropriate for America"? As when it comes to some art products from Japan, I often hear they worry Americans "just wouldn't get it".
Do people love Super Mario Adventures? Would that be a tell if people would love Mario-kun?
Are the other Nintendo comics/manga doing well? I hear there's Zelda ones on the market.
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I feel right now that Kun would sell good in America. Super Mario Maker gave the first incite to this manga and I feel people are interested to find it translated.

Some part of the manga are a bit about Japan and I don't fully get it but the Japanese jokes (I guess that's what I'll call them) are few.

Super Mario Adventures was a big hit in America so that could also help Mario Kun. But, some things are different between the two. Mainly how Peach is portrayed. Peach in Adventures is independent and will fight against Bowser. In Kun Peach sometimes just lets herself get kidnapped.

I believe the international release to the LoZ manga is doing pretty well. Well enough to be at my library which doesn't have many video game related materials.
 
At first, I would've said yes, since France and Spain got their own versions, and the chibi designs did interest me.

But then yesterday I caught wind from here that the manga kinda goes overboard with the toilet humor... And that ain't my cup of tea... So while I'm not completely against an English release, my personal interest in reading it has considerably gone down due to this revelation (unless that's exaggeration; every screenshot I've seen doesn't display such jokes, so I'm really confused about the whole thing).
 
Mcmadness said:
You'd probably be disappointed by it to be honest. It's a very short adaptation.
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It spans three volumes. There's plenty of fan-service.

I've owned all three Partners in Time arcs and I love them all.
 
Should? Yeah, why the hell not.

Could? I suppose the emphasis on toilet and crude humour (cue naked Burt the Bashful pic) might have scared off western licensers, esp. considering Mario's target audience. France is the 2nd biggest manga market in the world and is much less uptight about bodily humour so I'm not surprised they were the first to official translate it (don't know about Spain though).
 
They should localize Dr. Mario-Kun instead so people can finally adopt the headcanon of Count Bleck having long claws, Luigi turning into a haunted house, and Waluigi cooking a strange cuisine.
 
Redshift said:
They should localize Dr. Mario-Kun instead so people can finally adopt the headcanon of Count Bleck having long claws, Luigi turning into a haunted house, and Waluigi cooking a strange cuisine.
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where can find this glorious manga
 
Google Dr. Mario-Kun. I don't know how allowed it is to share the link to the article though, but you can find the listing as one of the first results.
 
Redshift said:
It spans three volumes. There's plenty of fan-service.

I've owned all three Partners in Time arcs and I love them all.
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Thats still pretty short.
 
Long enough to sustain a Mario plot.
 
Glowsquid said:
Should? Yeah, why the hell not.

Could? I suppose the emphasis on toilet and crude humour (cue naked Burt the Bashful pic) might have scared off western licensers, esp. considering Mario's target audience. France is the 2nd biggest manga market in the world and is much less uptight about bodily humour so I'm not surprised they were the first to official translate it (don't know about Spain though).
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Couldn't they just censor/cut out those moments?
 
It's a series that thrives on low brow humour.

I mean for example in the partners in time arc at the end
Baby Bowser instead of Bowser eats Elder Princess Shroobs remains and just as they are about to fight he shits her out into a cartoon poop with her face on it and thats the end of her.
 
There's one volume I have and that kind of humor is gratuitous.
Princess Mario said:
Super Mario-Kun volume 22 is probably the most disgusting Mario media I've looked at. It's disgusting, even for Super Mario-Kun standards. Super Mario-Kun usually does bodily humor occasionally, but I think volume 22 has a lot of it.

  • Page 12 has a Hammer Bros., perched on a cloud and pooping out projectiles
  • Page 21 has Bowser surprise farting
  • Page 42 Mario, before getting hit in the head by a spear, slides his head and his head goes through his crotch. I think this gag is repeated in the manga, but I'll note that anyway.
  • Chapter 6 is probably the worst thing here. Mario, Wario, Luigi, and Yoshi are on a tightrope, in that order. Mario sprays something on Wario's eyes, I don't know. After this, I think Mario accidentally farts and Wario falls off. Later on, Luigi sees Mario pokes Mario's butt and Mario is seen straining. Mario then takes a big dump on top of Luigi and Luigi falls off. Mario starts crying afterward so I also think it's accidental. Then, I think some giant slime monster shoots cannonballs at Yoshi. Yoshi eats them all and is filled up. Mario fights this slime monster, but how he defeats the monster is by jumping on Yoshi and having a lot of stuff spew out of Yoshi's rear end into the monster's face.
  • Page 85; Mario is involved in a crane game and Bowser holds Luigi and Wario hostage as toys in there and Yoshi controls Mario. At page 85, Mario is lowered into Wario's face and kisses him lip-by-lip. Wario has heart eyes and Mario has complete disgust.
  • In page 99, there is Wario (transformed into a machine) bending over and opening a hatch and letting loose poop., cannonballs coming from his nose, and I think farting and afterward, there is a panel that's extremely low-res, you can see individual pixels. IDK if that's censorship or not.
  • In page 115-117, a friendly Bob-omb jabs a pump into Bowser's rear end and pumps Bowser until Bowser explodes, akin to that Mario Party minigame of blowing up Bowser balloons.
  • In page 124, Mario pisses on tied-up Bob-ombs. When characters piss in the manga, they never take their pants down, so I guess thank goodness for that?
  • In page 132, Yoshi takes a big dump on Spinies after the other Yoshis fight the Spinies.
  • Farting Boo at page 149.

Though there are some better stuff in there like Mario teaming up with Wario and Wario slams onto Mario to transform him into Bouncy Mario. Mario even imitates the Bouncy Wario artwork from Wario Land II. I also like how there is a narrative spun into some of the minigames, like the minigame where you fish for coins. In that one, the characters pull up a giant Cheep Cheep who essentially eats everyone.

Oh and I guess I'll add that in volume 37, Francis eats Mario. Bowser, who I think can control Mario by picking up a Wii Remote, shakes the Wii Remote really hard. You then see Mario's face poking out of Francic's rear end, page 150.

Anyone more versed in manga, especially children's ones, know how the possible French and Spanish translations will work out? I don't think this stuff jives well for the more "Western" audience. But again, there is a cross-dressing Wario in page 167.
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I think it's a pity that for Mario comics (which include the manga for generalisation), Super Mario-kun is the only one that kept going. Not because of its content, since I appreciate that they covered Colour Splash (for example), but it's a pity because this is the only option over a possible Western coverage. It's the Japan focus that Mario series coming into play.

Even on the Japanese side of things, the KC Deluxe manga included out-of-focus things like Princess Daisy, Pauline and Donkey Kong Jr. That was back in the early 90's when those characters weren't in the spotlight too! Plus, even if somebody considered it shoehorning, I am fond of Mario's involvement in adaptations of games that he didn't appear or is inactive in. So for example, Mario appeared in a Donkey Kong Country 1 adaptation and the Wario Land 1 adaptation.

I do think that realistically, they would do best to have a new comic series using their local publisher, since local talent are better tuned as to what's tasteful and acceptable in their territories. That would make it simpler for the Mario series to flourish. Ideally their publisher is not Marvel or DC mainly because they prefer to do properties of their own or their family series (e.g.: Disney for Marvel and Looney Tunes for DC).

Thank you for reading.
 
Hype. People are saying that it's "handpicked" so that assumes that there's only a select amount of volumes? I can imagine some volumes not getting translation because some jokes do get a bit much.
 
Plus some of the jokes are very much "you'd have to be in Japan to get it"
 
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