Waluigi

Waluigi is a supporting character in the Super Mario franchise. He is Luigi's lanky rival, as well as Wario's partner.
From 2000 to 2022, he was voiced by Charles Martinet. Ever since 2024, he is currently voiced by Kevin Afghani.
==What Makes Him an Ensemble Dark Horse?==
*Waluigi merely started off as a rival character for Luigi in several spin-off titles, completely lacking any personality outside of just being overconfident and full of himself. Additionally, he had never made any appearances in the mainline titles. Despite this, he is highly popular amongst the Mario fanbase.
*Believe it or not, Waluigi started out as a Scrappy, mostly thanks to people deeming him as just an annoying, generic evil copy of Luigi or a lazy rehash of Wario. Despite this however, his time as a Scrappy is mostly forgotten, and far more overshadowed by people that like the character. His infamy as a Scrappy would also ironically serve as one of the sparks to his EDH status, given the amount of jokes fans made about it.
*Waluigi's popularity was primarily thanks to the webcomic Brawl in the Family, where he was depicted in a different light than his canon counterpart, depicting him as crazier and funnier.
*Over the years, Waluigi was given more characterization than just being Luigi's evil rival, being portrayed as a michevious trickster with added bits of being a clumsy oaf and having hilarious mannerisms.
*His popularity was also helped by the fact that he got stages and memorable music attached to his name (especially Waluigi Pinball in Mario Kart DS)
*He became so popular that there had a time where there was increasing demand for him to appear as a playable character in a Smash Bros. game, appear in a WarioWare series alongside Wario, or to even have his own game.
*As a result of his exaggerated design, which includes his lanky build and his long face, it isn't uncommon for fans to deem him as "sexy", both ironically and unironically.
**Those in the former camp often depict Waluigi in erotic settings, with the overall image intentionally being unnerving, such as tacking his head on a woman's or "chad" body, or to have the character himself in suggestive clothing.
**Those in the latter camp often depict Waluigi as far more handsome than he was intended to appear in-gme. Fangirls of the character are also known for cosplaying as him.
**Several of his later official appearances even highlight this fact, often portraying him as attempting to come off as endearing by posing with a rose.
**He's the most requested Mario character fans want playable in a Smash Bros Game.
**He got an fan-made game called Psycho Waluigi.
==Trivia==
*A fairly common misconception surrounding Waluigi is how he's the main antagonist of Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, thanks in part to how well-known his part in the game was. In actuality, he's the boss of the game's first world. The actual main antagonist of the game is of course Bowser.
*Another likely factor that played into Waluigi's popularity was a rumor surrounding Super Mario 64 DS, where he is one of the unlockable characters. The rumor had started in 2005 when deviantArt user King-Bowser-Koopa posted an image scan of an article titled "Purple Prizes" as an April Fool's joke. Nonetheless, the picture had perimated around the internet, with sources claiming that it was featured on IGN or an official Nintendo Magazine. As a result of how the character would have completed the thematic set of unlockable characters of Mario, Luigi, and Wario, his absence seemed suspicious, which made the rumor permeate more easily. It had therefore become popular for fans to speculate and make up all of these different possible means of unlocking Waluigi, not too different from claims of ways to unlock Luigi in the original Super Mario 64.
*Adding onto his EDH status, he is also a surprisingly common subject of shipping. Common shippings include him being with Rosalina or Daisy.
*Entire Change.org petitions had been made just to support Waluigi as a playable character, many of which had garnered thousands of supporters.
==External Links==
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