Mario Monday - Going Japanese Now

Mario Monday returns with a look at another classic game in the legendary Mario series, but today we take a look at some classic Japanese commercials to star the Italian plumber.

The first is a joint commercial for a pair of classic Famicom Disk System. The games of course are the original version of Super Mario Brothers 2 and The Legend of Zelda, itself the first in a classic smash hit series. If you recall, in Japan there was the Famicom, which was the original form of the Nintendo Entertainment system, and the Famicom Disk System, which would read specially designed diskettes for the games much like a computer game. The Disk System was a separate add-on in Japan to the Famicom and the idea was never released in the United States. Instead the NES game library would use passwords and codes, or battery back-ups within the game cartridges in order to save a player's progress.

I can not translate exactly what the two are saying, but I would guess the guy is saying something along the lines of "Super Mario Brothers 2 - it's hard!". As Mario says something in Japanese ("Don't hurt me!" perhaps?) the girl probably says something along the lines of "Come on!"

Poor Link is sentenced to the same fate as Mario in his half of the commercial.

The Japanese commercial for Super Mario Brothers 3 is a little bit more traditional. Set to a classical sounding tune you would think Mario is frolicking through an open field by people having a nice picnic. Instead stairs are crumbling beneath him and the Koopa Kids make their first appearance.



Finally today, a look at the Japanese commercial for Mario Paint on the Super Famicom. Much like in the US the innovation of the SNES Mouse was new to Japan so I can only guess that the following commercial makes mention of the new tool. Mario enters the commercial riding the mouse as a way of introducing the peripheral, and I only assume there is a comment about it.



Check back next week for a new edition of Mario Monday as we get back to looking at the actual games. We return to the land of the 16-bit genre with a look at a legendary game in the Mario series, the last Mario classic before making the jump to the 3D world offered by the Nintendo 64.