Wario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the video game character. For the video game franchise starring the character, see Wario (series). For other uses, see Wario (disambiguation).

 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/Wario.png/250px-Wario.png
 First appearance
 Designed by
 Voiced by

**Wario** (Japanese: ワリオ, Hepburn: *Wario*, pronounced [waꜜɾio]; English: /ˈwɑːrioʊ, ˈwær-, ˈwɒr-/) is a character in Nintendo's *Mario* series, designed as an arch-rival to Mario. He first appeared in the 1992 Game Boy game *Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins* as the main antagonist and final boss. His name is a portmanteau of Mario's name and the Japanese word *warui* (悪い), meaning "bad". Wario was designed by Hiroji Kiyotake, and is voiced by Charles Martinet, who voices many other characters in the series, including Mario, Luigi, and Waluigi.

Wario has become the protagonist and antihero of the *Wario Land* and *WarioWare* series, spanning handheld and console markets. In the former, he is usually portrayed as a greedy treasure hunter, while the latter follows his exploits as a video game developer. In addition to appearances in spin-offs in the *Mario* series, he has appeared in other Nintendo properties, such as in the *Super Smash Bros.* series of crossover fighting games. He has also been featured in other media such as the *Super Mario Adventures* graphic novel. The character has received a largely positive critical reception.

## Concept and creation

A possible inspiration for Wario first appeared in the 1985 game *Wrecking Crew* in the character of Foreman Spike, or simply Spike, a construction foreman who bears a slight resemblance to Wario. He was designed by game artist Hiroji Kiyotake, who imagined him as "the Bluto to Mario's Popeye". The first named appearance of the character occurred in 1992 for the game *Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins*. Wario's design arose from *Super Mario Land*'s design team's distaste of making a game based around someone else's character. The creation of Wario allowed them a character of their own to "symbolize their situation." Nintendo originally considered making him a German character before he developed into an Italian much like Mario.

Wario is portrayed as a caricature of Mario; he has a large head and chin, huge muscular arms, a wide and short body that is slightly obese, short legs, a large, pointier, zig-zagging moustache, and a bellicose cackle. He also wears a plumber outfit with a yellow and purple color scheme, which is a short-sleeved yellow shirt and purple overalls along with a blue W on his hat. He also wears green shoes and white gloves with blue W symbols as well. However, in his early appearances Wario wore a yellow long-sleeved shirt and fuchsia overalls. The name "Wario" is a portmanteau of "Mario" with the Japanese adjective *warui* (悪い) meaning "bad"; hence, a "bad Mario" (further symbolized by the "W" on his hat, an upside down "M"). Official Nintendo lore states that Wario was a childhood rival to Mario and Luigi who became jealous of their success.

Wario was originally designed to be German. Accordingly, his voice actor from 1996–2001 in Japan, German Thomas Spindler, gave him several German lines. When his voice actor for international markets, Charles Martinet, who has also voiced Mario since 1995, started voicing him on all markets, this was dropped. During the audition for the part, Martinet was told to speak in a mean and gruff-sounding tone. He described voicing Wario as a looser task than voicing Mario, since Mario's speaking manner and personality are more free-flowing, rising from the ground and floating into the air, while one of Wario's cornerstones is jealousy.

In video games in which Wario makes a cameo appearance, he is often portrayed as a villain. However, the development team for *Wario Land: Shake It!* stated that he was not really a villain, and they did not consider him one during development. They focused on his behavior, which alternates between good and evil. Etsunobu Ebisu and Takahiro Harada, producers on *Shake It!*, considered Wario to be a reckless character, who uses his strength to overwhelm others. Tadanori Tsukawaki, the design director of *Shake It!*, described Wario as manly, and said he was "so uncool that he ends up being extremely cool". Because of this, he wanted Wario to act macho rather than silly and requested that the art designers emphasize his masculinity. During an interview with Kikizo, a video game designer Yoshio Sakamoto, which was a member of R&D1 since its early days has stated that the project only centered around Wario because the team "couldn’t think of anyone else best for the role, which he was then described as "unintelligent" and "always idiotic", which is why he was chosen as the star of the *WarioWare* series. According to an early 1990s Nintendo guide, Wario was Mario's childhood friend, which *Kotaku* later contested in a parody article. Afterwards, it was stated that they were not being related to each other, and both were considered childhood rivals.

In his earliest appearances, namely *Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins* and *Wario's Woods*, Wario displays considerable magical power, using spells on the population of entire islands to turn them into his minions, creating duplicates or changing his size to that of a giant. However, these traits were discontinued starting with *Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3*, where he begins to experience rejuvenating effects from garlic in a similar manner as Mario is powered up by mushrooms. In the *WarioWare* and *Super Smash Bros.* games, consuming garlic transforms him into “Wario-Man”, a superhero with powers relating to garlic-induced flatulence and bad breath. In other games, he also uses a fart as his special attack. Wario also often uses bombs as tools and weapons, as seen in *Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3*, *Wario Blast* and *Mario Kart: Double Dash*. The *WarioWare* series prominently uses bombs as a visual motif to represent the time limit of a microgame.

### *Wario Land* series

Wario made his first appearance as a villain in the 1992 Game Boy video game *Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins*, in which he captured Mario's castle. Tatanga, the villain of the first *Super Mario Land* game, is shown to be a henchman of Wario in the second, implying that Wario was responsible for the events of both games. He also served as a villain in the 1993 Japan-only puzzle game *Mario & Wario*, in which he drops a bucket on the head of Mario, Princess Peach, or Yoshi. This was followed by the first game in the *Wario Land* series, *Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3* (1994), a platform game which marked Wario's first appearance as a protagonist and introduced his first villains, Captain Syrup and her Brown Sugar Pirates. His next adventure, *Virtual Boy Wario Land*, plays similarly and incorporates the ability to move in and out of the background. A sequel for the Game Boy game, *Wario Land II*, was released in 1998; it featured Captain Syrup's return as the antagonist. This game also introduces Wario's invulnerability, allowing him to be burnt or flattened without sustaining damage. In 2000 *Wario Land 3* was released to the Game Boy Color as another sequel; it used the same mechanics and concepts of its predecessor. The following year, the sequel *Wario Land 4* debuted on the Game Boy Advance, incorporating Wario's ability to become burnt or flattened and reintroducing the ability to become damaged from standard attacks. In 2003, *Wario World*, the first console *Wario* platform game, was released for the GameCube; it features three-dimensional graphics and gameplay and does not incorporate any major elements from previous platform games. *Wario: Master of Disguise* was released for the Nintendo DS in 2007. The game introduced touch screen control of Wario and incorporated puzzles into the gameplay. The series' most recent release, *Wario Land: Shake It!*, was released for the Wii in 2008 and reintroduced Captain Syrup. The game uses a hand-drawn animation style, and Wario's design required more than 2,000 frames of animation.

### *WarioWare* series

link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wario\_WarioWare\_Gold.png|alt=An overweight character with pointy ears, a pink nose, thick eyebrows, muscular arms and a wavy moustache. He wears a navy blue shirt with a light blue jacket, pink pants with a red belt, blue shoes, and yellow biker gloves with a blue W. On his head, a yellow biker helmet with a blue W, goggles, and a red strap.|thumb|Wario has a heavily altered design in the *WarioWare* series, depicting him as a biker. (here: promotional artwork for *WarioWare Gold*).
In 2003, the *Wario* franchise introduced a new series of games, the first of which was *WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!* for the Game Boy Advance. The game's premise involved Wario's decision to open a game development company to make money, creating short "microgames" instead of full-fledged games. The game's gameplay focused on playing a collection of microgames in quick succession. *Mega Microgames!* was later remade as *WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games!* for the GameCube; it featured the same microgames but lacked a story mode and focused more on multi-player. In 2004, two sequels were released for the game. The first was the Game Boy Advance game *WarioWare: Twisted!*, which used the cartridge's tilt sensor to allows microgames to be controlled by tilting the handheld left and right. The second was the Nintendo DS release *WarioWare: Touched!*, which incorporates the DS's touch screen and microphone in its gameplay. One of the Wii's launch games in 2006 was *WarioWare: Smooth Moves*, which used the Wii Remote's motion sensing technologies in a variety of ways. The Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi have offered two new releases, 2008's *WarioWare: Snapped!*, which can be downloaded with the DSiWare service and uses the DSi's built-in front camera in its gameplay, and the 2009 Nintendo DS game *WarioWare D.I.Y.*, which allows players to create microgames. *Game & Wario* for the Nintendo Wii U was released on June 23, 2013.  Although it does not use the *WarioWare* name, it incorporates gameplay and characters from the *WarioWare* series. The game also pays tribute to the original *Game & Watch* games. In 2018, the Nintendo 3DS game *WarioWare Gold* was released, featuring 316 microgames and combining elements from *Twisted* and *Touched*. He also appeared in the 2021 Nintendo Switch game *WarioWare: Get It Together!* with 222 microgames.

### Other appearances

In *Wario's Woods* (1994), Wario appears as the main antagonist who wants to take over the forest and is defeated by Toad. That same year, Wario was also in the video game *Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!*, a remake of a Bomberman game for the Game Boy which incorporated Wario as a playable character. Wario has been a playable character in the *Mario Kart* series starting with *Mario Kart 64*. Wario has also appeared in 30 *Mario* sports games, including the *Mario Tennis*, *Mario Golf*, *Mario Baseball*, *Mario Strikers*, and *Mario & Sonic* series. Wario has also appeared in all installments of the *Mario Party* series except *Mario Party Advance*. Wario is a playable character in two platformers for the Nintendo DS, the remake *Super Mario 64 DS* (2004) and *Yoshi's Island DS* (2006) as an infant version of himself, as well as the 2001 puzzle game *Dr. Mario 64*. Sporting both his traditional attire from the *Wario Land* series and *Mario* series, and the biker outfit from the *WarioWare* series, Wario also appears as a playable character in *Super Smash Bros. Brawl* as well as its follow-ups, *Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U* and *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*. Wario's cameos include aiding protagonist Starfy in the video game *Densetsu no Stafy 3* and being present in the scenery of *Pilotwings 64*. Wario also aopears in *Dr. Mario World* as a Baby Wario. The *Super Mario Adventures* graphic novel, which is a collection of comics originally serialized in the video gaming magazine *Nintendo Power*, features Wario in two of the stories. One of the stories focuses on Wario's past, explaining his rivalry with Mario. In the comic, it is revealed that Wario was Mario’s childhood friend, and Mario was his idol. Interested in many things that Mario did, Wario endured heavy amounts of abuse to see how to become like Mario until he got disheartened with the process and swore revenge.

### In other media

Jack Black has stated his interest in a potential sequel to *The Super Mario Bros. Movie* where Pedro Pascal (who had previously played Mario in a *Saturday Night Live* sketch) voices Wario, who would serve as the film's main villain.

## Reception

Since his appearance in *Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3*, he has received a largely positive reception. Wario has become a well-established mascot for Nintendo. *Computer and Video Games* found the levity of Wario's games "liberating" compared to big Nintendo franchises such as *Mario* and *The Legend of Zelda*. They also mention that, regarding the character, they "empathise more with the hopelessly materialistic Wario than goody brown-shoes Mario. Deep down, we'd all rather chase pounds over princesses." *IGN* editor Travis Fahs comments that while Wario is not the most likeable character, his strong confidence overshadows his flaws and makes him entertaining. *IGN* said "all this weird dude seems to care about is amassing as many material possessions and shiny things as possible". He was also described as one of the best video game villains. KhalidEternalNigh of *Destructoid* has praised the character described him as a "fat, lazy, greedy and a cheater. He said that "despite all of this I can’t help but love him. Wario is, in my humble opinion, the most perfect “evil twin” in the history of video games. During Wario’s career he has worn many hats – a game designer, a biker, a treasure hunter, and a hat that spits fire for some reason. Yet no matter what he does, no matter how mean he is, somehow Wario manages to charm his way into our hearts while picking our pockets." James Troughton of *TheGamer* has claimed that Wario is the best *Mario* character, and further stated that Wario is an icon of both fashion and villainy. Ryan Gilliam of *Polygon* described Wario as the "ultimate Italian American" and said that "Wario captures so much more of the Italian personality that resonates with me". He further said that "Wario trumps Mario as my family mascot, born with a crucial, relatable need to be louder and larger than life." Mike Scholars of *Kotaku* made a defense of Wario in his essay and said that "Wario Isn't Evil, He's Honest." Scholars further concluded that "Wario was conceived out of a desire to put a twist on the familiar, but his creators tapped into a powerful, universal constant: The Unrepentant Asshole." In the book *A Parent's Guide to Nintendo Games: A Comprehensive Look at the Systems and the Games*, Craig Wessel described Wario as a "sinister twist" on Mario. In *Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares, Volume 1*, S. T. Joshi cites Waluigi and Wario as archetypal examples of alter egos. Edwin Evans of *Eurogamer* praised Wario for being "repulsive" and "brilliant" as a character. He said that "in general, Wario isn't the star he used to be, but he remains a crucial component of the Nintendo pantheon, the counterbalancing touch of malevolence and cunning without which Mario's star wouldn't shine quite so brightly." William Hughes of *The A.V. Club* described him as a "Nintendo’s stinky, cheating genius." He said that "Wario captures the split at the heart of Nintendo. All we know if that Wario would have loved the possibilities the smash hit console presents, and that the absence of a new WarioWare game on the handheld remains a real shame to the legacy of all the things—good, bad, flatulent, weird, and more—that he means to the company." Cass Marshall of *Polygon* said that he "was institutionalized as a teen, and Wario was my only friend." He stated that he "find Wario kind of soothing. He’s just got a friendly face."

Magazines have also praised its outfit, particularly in *Mario Golf: Super Rush*. A professional stylist, Peter Nguyen, of "The Essential Man," commented on a Hiking Wario outfit in *Mario Kart Tour* in September 2021, calling it "stylish" and further said, "I think this is the most wearable and strongest appearance for Wario." He was also described as a "fashion icon." A screenshot of *Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020* showing Wario in his swimwear appeared to depict him without nipples, leading fans and video game website *Polygon* to jokingly speculate about his lack of anatomical features.

In the *Super Smash Bros.* series, Wario has received mixed reviews. *Den of Geek* criticized and noted that "It would have been so easy to make Wario just another Mario knockoff in *Smash*. "But Nintendo didn't do that. Instead, he's much wilder in the fighting series, a gross psychopath who runs over people with motorcycles and chomps down on people," Conversely, Jeremy Parish of *Polygon* lauded the character and stated that "Wario is great because his maniacal lust for gold has led him to become Nintendo's greatest and most creative entrepreneur." Ian Walker of *Kotaku* also claimed that Wario is one of the "decent" character to play in *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*.

### In popular culture

Wario also appears in *South Park*: "Imaginationland Episode III", and is one of the characters from the "dark side" of Imaginationland. The TV series, *MAD*, makes multiple references of Wario, most notably on Season 3, Episode 16, where Wario chases three orphaned lemmings. In May 2021, the episode of *Saturday Night Live*, host Elon Musk starred as Wario in a sketch in which he was put on trial for murdering Mario in a kart race. In 2022, Charles Martinet’s Wario in full voice was used for the game advertisement that ran ahead of its release at Tesco.

### Merchandise

Outside of video games, Wario has been featured in a large variety of merchandise, spanning plush toys, clothing and action figures. Wario has also received several of his own Amiibo, that can be used in a wide array of games, including his own.

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Categories:

* Characters designed by Hiroji Kiyotake
* Fictional bullies
* Fictional businesspeople in video games
* Fictional criminals in video games
* Fictional explorers in video games
* Fictional Italian people in video games
* Fictional treasure hunters
* Male characters in video games
* Mario (franchise) enemies
* Nintendo protagonists
* Super Smash Bros. fighters
* Video game bosses
* Video game characters introduced in 1992
* Video game characters with superhuman strength
* Wario (series)