Okay, here’s a rewritten version for you:
So during the rollercoaster of crafting Mario Kart World—or whatever Nintendo magic is conjured there—something wild came up. Does Mario even eat mushrooms? I mean, do those Super Mushrooms actually get gobbled down by Mario and Luigi, or is it like, they just touch them and—poof!—superpowers activate?
You might think this is pretty clear-cut, but nope, not even for seasoned Nintendo dude, Shintaro Jikumaru, who’s been around the block for 20 years. He starts questioning the whole mushroom power-up gig. So Jikumaru and the game’s producer, Kosuke Yabuki, decide to bug Nintendo exec Takashi Tezuka for the lowdown. Tezuka’s like the Mario wizard, having a hand in all things Mario since forever, so if anyone knows, it should be him, right?
Why even ask this, you say? Well, Jikumaru got this idea, kind of out of nowhere, to throw food—like hamburgers—into the new open-world thing they’re cooking up. And for that, they gotta have the characters chomping down in the game, which means creating all these food-eating animations. I guess it makes sense?
“Why not have them do a drive-thru and eat while racing? Maybe get a new outfit or turn into another character after munching?” Yabuki pondered. Yup, pretty out there, but there you go.
So, with hamburgers now part of the Mario Kart buffet, Yabuki and Jikumaru hit this big “a-ha” moment about Mario’s world rules. They spilled the beans in a Nintendo interview:
Yabuki laughed about it, as they recalled asking, “Does Mario really eat mushrooms?”
Jikumaru pops the question to Tezuka: “So, like, is Mario actually eating those mushrooms?”
And boom, Tezuka’s like, “Yup, he is.”
Now, die-hard Mario fans might start pointing fingers at stuff like the Mario & Luigi series, where you see them munching on power-ups, or even that Super Mario Bros. Movie scene. Clearly, there’s chomping happening for sure, but with things like Fire Flowers? They’re just touched for powers. Got it? Maybe. Or does it matter? I don’t know.
In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, when Mario grabs a Super Mushroom, he doesn’t bite into it. It’s more like, the kart itself gets the mushroom, like a speed boost injection. When did that start?
So, yeah, the whole bit about which power-ups Mario eats or just high-fives is, well, kind of up in the air. A real head-scratcher.
And if by some cosmic fluke, I get to chat with Takashi Tezuka? Oh, you bet I’d barrage him with more questions, probably enough to make him regret ever answering the mushroom one. Lucky for him, though, that chat’s probably not happening!
