Waluigi

**Waluigi** is a recurring character in the *Mario*franchise designed to rival Luigi. Since his first appearance in *Mario Tennis* for the Nintendo 64, most of Waluigi's appearances are in the spinoff *Mario* games, in which he is frequently partnered with Mario's rival Wario. Despite this, Waluigi has very rarely appeared in the *Wario*franchise aside from a few cameos. Waluigi has been portrayed by Charles Martinet.

The details of Waluigi's past are unclear since he has no confirmed background, although he was evidently been antagonizing the Mario Bros., especially Luigi, for quite some time before his debut as seen in the opening of *Mario Tennis*, where he and Luigi confront each other.

Originally, Waluigi was established as Wario's younger brother. However, Mario Super Sluggers depicted them as friends in 2008,and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Gamesstated they were unrelated in 2009. Charles Martinet describes them as "two nice, evil guys who found each other", leaving their contemporary relationship ambiguous.

## Powers and abilities

Waluigi is skillful in various sports. Waluigi can perform various skills. He can summon cyclones and thorny vines.

Waluigi is usually a technical character in most of the *Mario* spin-offs, valuing precision and finesse over power. These range from simple actions, such as jumps, punches, and kicks, to unusual actions, such as spinning to make a small tornado, creating thorny vines, and swimming in midair. In *Mario Kart: Double Dash!!*, *Mario Kart DS*, and *Mario Kart Arcade GP 2*, Waluigi is a medium weight, balanced character, but since *Mario Kart Wii* Waluigi is one of the heavyweight characters. In the *Mario Strikers* series, Waluigi is an offensive character in *Super Mario Strikers*, and a defensive character in *Mario Strikers Charged*, boasting high run speed and tackling, but low kicking power and passing. His speed is doubled when he uses the Wall-Luigi! skill, enabling him to cross the field in a very short time. Due to his good reach, he is classified as a Defensive character in *Mario Power Tennis*. However, some games portray Waluigi as slow and weak, for balance purposes.

Waluigi's legs are shown to be particularly powerful, as he easily defeats Bowser with a kick in *Mario Party 3*, and he is able to stomp characters into the ground in the Super Smash Bros. games. He shows his leg strength in *Super Mario Strikers*, with his Drop Rocket technique. In addition, Waluigi is demonstrated to be an great jumper. His stats are seen to come close to Luigi's jumping skills, if not surpassing it.

## Personality

Waluigi is personified as a comic relief character and a boastful, ill-tempered foil to the more humble and gentle Luigi. He has bad chemistry with most other characters besides Wario, and is an openly rude and mean-spirited troublemaker. He has a perpetual scowl and is quick to anger, with earlier bios stating that he dislikes others being happy. In his one outing as a central antagonist in *Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix*, Waluigi claims that his reason for obtaining the Music Keys is to be the best dancer in the world, while bragging about using his power to spread chaos and control "the masses". In *Mario Tennis Aces*, Waluigi points out that his and Wario's reasons for attaining Lucienwas so that they could become the best tennis players in the world. Waluigi's original bio in Mario Tennis also pointed out that he seeked to become as popular and as beloved as the Mario Brothers. His victory celebrations often highlight his self-aggrandizing nature and vanity, and occasionally contain vulgar elements as well, such as in *Super Mario Strikers* where one of his victory animations involve him performing a pelvic thrust.

In the *Mario Party* series, as of *Mario Party 4*, Waluigi abandons his arrogance to play fairly against his opponents, something that is also the case for Wario. However, Waluigi's victory animations still depict him as somewhat of a boastful character, due to him ranting about "being a superstar."

However, despite his overconfidence, Waluigi is also characterized by the great amount of self-pity he displays at other times. According to his voice actor Charles Martinet, Waluigi feels that good things are always happening to others and not to him, causing him great frustration. Martinet considers his self-pity to be "the cornerstone of Waluigi's character", such as how he constantly points out his own disadvantages and is quick to attribute his losses to his opponents cheating, while hypocritically taking pride in his own cheating. While Waluigi has many unsavory characteristics and appears aggressive at times, Martinet has nevertheless stated that he prefers to play up Waluigi's more conceited and self-pitying traits, as he feels that direct hostility is unfitting for *Mario* villains. In *Mario Super Sluggers*, Waluigi shows a bit more sportsmanship; after his scout mission is cleared, he subtly states the gang cheated but commends them for their sneakiness, and congratulates them when they beat the Wario Muscles in a ball game along with accepting the player's decline for one.

As a comic relief character, he is often given comical and nonsensical animations, often displaying very poor sportsmanship, being quick to taunt his opponents and cheer for himself, while at the same time scowling in resentment for any progress made by his opponents. In Wario's Warehouse, Wario often portrays Waluigi as extremely stupid, often making idiotic and foolish decisions. However, this contrasts with most of his other descriptions which depict him as the more cunning of the two.

In Waluigi's trophy description for *Super Smas Bros. Melee*, it is said that he puts a lot of effort into his antagonistic schemes, although in the end, he never manages to succeed against his rivals. In *Super Mario Odyssey*, the Waluigi Suit's description claims "This outfit makes you want to lurk in the shadows, waiting for a turn in the spotlight.", either further defining Waluigi to be envious of the Mario Bros, or a likely reference to Waluigi never being a major, or important character. The Waluigi hat's description also says "It's rarely worn", likely alluding to Waluigi's few and insignificant appearances.

Waluigi has been shown as quite secretive about his personal life and has demonstrated a more cynical and skeptical point of view compared to the other characters, as even his oldest descriptions mentioned his egotism and his outsider status in the Mushroom Kingdom. However, recent games have played up Waluigi's hardworking and less malicious personality traits, as shown in *Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games* when he sardonically warns the player that people will not cheer on them forever just because they win medals, and in *Mario Golf: World Tour* when he interacts with the player character to either tell them to not let their victory get to their heads, or that they should be honest with themselves and happy because they earned it. Additionally, he remarks that his favorite thing to do in between rounds is just to relax and have fun.

## Trivia

* According to the official guide to *Mario Party 5* and *Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games*, Wario and Waluigi are not brothers however the Guide for *Mario Kart Wii* says otherwise. Additionally, the official websites for *Mario Tennis* for the Nintendo 64 and *Mario Kart DS* state that they're brothers however Waluigi's trophy in *Super Smash Bros. Melee*states that their relationship is unclear.
* Waluigi appears in every *Mario Party* game since *Mario Party 3* as a playable character except *Advance*.
* In *Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door*, Mario is able to change his clothes into Waluigi's by wearing both the L Emblem and the W Emblem badges.
* In *Super Smash Bros. Brawl* and *Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U*, one of Luigi's costumes is based on Waluigi's outfit. Mario also has a Waluigi costume in *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*.
* Waluigi's trademark "Г" or upside L symbol, is the Cyrillic and Greek letter for G.
* Waluigi was featured as a recurring character in Wario's Warehouse, a series of articles on the Nintendo of Europe website dealing with various games on Nintendo platforms (not necessarily games with Nintendo characters).
* Waluigi is the only human, commonly playable in spin-offs, who does not have an infant form.
* In *New Super Mario Bros. Wii*, some of the coin formations resemble the "Γ" on Waluigi's cap. This is mostly noticeable in World 9-8.
* Waluigi was rumored to be a playable character in *Super Mario 64 DS*, due to a certain "Purple Prizes" sheet that was made as an April Fool's joke by Electronic Gaming Monthly back in 2005. It stated that one must complete a certain task to unlock him. However this was proven false.