While most people will know the Super Mario series for its video games, there has actually been a long-running manga running alongside it for over 30 years. The manga follows the same storylines as the games, but with a strongly distinctive style. The sense of humour is very different to anything you’d expect from Nintendo, and Mario is portrayed as comically dumb and aggressive (even if still generally heroic).
Over all these years, Yukio Sawada has been writing the Super Mario-kun manga and it’s never been officially translated into English until this collection. Though you only get a few chapters taken from larger story arcs, anyone who’s played the games won’t have any difficulty understanding what’s going on in the samples included – and even those who haven’t played them can use the brief summaries included before each chapter to get the gist (it’s never anything too complex).
I was particularly pleased to see that it included a chapter from the Super Paper Mario arc, as that is quite possibly my favourite Mario game and I think it has one of the most interesting storylines. I wish it had included some of the more serious moments from Super Paper Mario though, or even Super Mario Galaxy – it’s usually just wacky takes on fairly standard parts of the games.
Having said that, the most interesting thing in this collection (and to my mind, the best) was the story called Super Mari-Old. This story is not based on any of the games, but rather, the author’s life. In it, Mario finds himself starting to grow old, and as he does, he finds it harder to be so constantly happy and full of life. He becomes so depressed that he even needs to admitted to hospital – which the author notes, is a parallel of his own life, where he fell into a depression after his father died and then struggled to write funny, silly Mario comics while it was happening, ultimately being hospitalised himself.
I love the Mario series, I always have, but one critique that I’d aim at it is that it sometimes lacks a level of emotional depth that I’d like to see more of. This story had exactly the kind of depth that I like, and it used Dr. Mario in a very cool and interesting way too. It’s such a unique piece of Mario media that I think any fan would enjoy reading it.
Don’t get me wrong though – it’s mostly very fun and silly. You’ve got Mario obnoxiously dismissing people as losers and using his friends as bridges to get over lava, and you even have a scene of Bowser peeing on someone. It’s quite juvenile, really, but I still had a good time reading it and I’m sure I’d have had an even better time if I read it as a child or teenager.
Altogether, it’s a fascinating slice of both Mario and manga history, and I think it will be enjoyable to anyone with even a mild interest in Mario. I wish it had more serious moments (or at least a bit of Donkey Kong content) but I still loved it.
Rating: 8.7/10
