Thursday, September 30, 2021

Super Mario Issunboshi (One-Inch Boy)


I bet most of you guys heard the news of the cast of the upcoming Mario movie in 2022. Speaking about Mario, I be discussing about the Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros 2nd story. I already discuss 1st story.

The Amada Anime Series retells popular fairy tales with Mario characters in it's place. The 2nd story is called Issunboshi aka One Inch Boy. I found a 7 minute video that tells the story of One Inch Boy if you want to know the original story. I should point out the story got retold several times with various differences.

It begins with a married couple wishing to have a child.
Just like the 1st story of these fairy tales, Mario copies the Superman/Goku/Hercules origin story yet again.

Also the fansubbers should rewrite it to "Fell into backyard" cause that house is still there.

Their newborn baby Mario(with a full grown mustache) was no bigger than their thumb. Many many years has passed and he was still the same size.

One day, he climb a tree and saw how vast and beautiful the world is. This inspire him to go out into the world and become his own man. He tells his parents.


A rare moment that you actually see Mario's father


A rare moment that you actually see Mario's mother

Well there are other moments throughout the Mario franchise that you see Mama Mario.
Yes, that Lou Albano playing as Mario's mother from that Mario cartoon/live-action show from the 80s.

To help him in his journey, the father hand crafted several stuff for our hero. A sword made from a sewing needle, chopsticks as oars, and a tea cup as a boat with rockets.
Now I don't know why Mini Mario here needs a boat. Everyone who plays the New Super Mario Bros Series knows the Mini Mushroom power up makes you have the ability to run on water.

His boat ride stops when it lands on top of a Dry Bones(skeleton turtle). Mario uses the boat rockets to fly away.
Yeah, this scene serve no purpose other to drag out the runtime.

Mario was then attacked by a Lakitu on a cloud and rained lightning on our tiny warrior.
He's already tiny, your thunderbolts won't make smaller.



The storm causes the stream to run rapid and knock over Mario's makeshift boat.

Sometime later, Mario wakes up on a couch with Princess Peach watching over him. 

She tells him she was outside and found him washed ashore at the stream. She took him to her house, so he can recover.


Eww! I can easily see fanfic writers and fan artists getting ideas. Gee, the 1st story had them as "siblings", now this.


They go out on a nice stroll in the city until Bowser shows up. He forcefully asked Peach to married him but she refuses. Mario seeks to defend her.

It's kinda weird seeing Mario with a sword. It's not as downright jarring as seeing him with a gun from the 1st story.

The villainous reptile picks up Mario and eats him. Going all Bowser's Inside Story decades before that game came out.


Mario battle his way out by jabbing his sword all over the lizard's stomach. He's lucky the stomach doesn't any digestion liquids right now.


Dude seriously acts like he really needs some Pepto Bismol.

He falls down and spits out the tiny man. Our hero goes out with needle in hand. He cuts off the lizard's horns.

And the animation repeats these footage three times. How lazy. 


He looks weird without his horns.

Embarrassed on his new look, he runs away crying.

Peach notice Bowser dropped something.

When I looked up the video link I posted on the beginning of the article to read up on Issunboshi. The scene where the princess finds the magic mallet, it hit me. That it would be used to make the tiny man into a tall one. All those RPG games like Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy where the playable characters get cursed with mini status and you have to use magic mallets to restore, it seems it was all inspired by this fairy tale.

There's alot stuff in Japanese media that westerns may not understand that it's references to stuff from their culture.

Anyways back on topic, they used the mallet to make Mario tall.

But your still short Mario.

They got on a Jetsons flying car.

Funny it has Mario's face on it. Did she tell people to custom build her Jetsons car with the face of some dude she found washed ashore.


And for 8 long seconds, the camera slowly slowly panned left to right of them starring at each other.




They drive off into the sunset to lived happily ever ever.





Or not if Mario is man-sized now and never drove a car in his life and possibly crashed into a building. Unless those flying cars have an auto-flying setting.


The story is kinda cute. Animation is very noticeably lazy. The next and final story will be about an popular Western story that your average person has heard. Till next time

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