Mario Creator Shigeru Miyamoto Turned Down "Walupeach" Pitch

Over the last two decades, Wario and Waluigi have become staples of the Super Mario family. The duo are basically villainous versions of Mario and Luigi, and fans have been wondering for years if Nintendo will ever make similar variants of Nintendo characters. According to a newly unearthed interview with Shugo Takahashi, that was very nearly the case! Speaking with Nintendo Dream back in 2008, Takahashi revealed that the team at Camelot pitched Shigeru Miyamoto the idea of making a "Walupeach" character. However, Miyamoto nixed it, fearing she would be too similar to the character Doronjo, from the anime series Yatterman. 

Translations from the Nintendo Dream interview were shared on Twitter by @gosokkyu, and can be found in the Tweet embedded below.

buoyed by the OK & the knowledge that Nintendo was open to good ideas, they tried to pitch "Walupeach" for their next game, but apparently Miyamoto vetoed it before they could even show him their design, on the lines that "I know it's gonna be just like Doronjo, so don't bother"

— GSK | https://cohost.org/gosokkyu (@gosokkyu) January 17, 2023

It's interesting to think what could have been! Takahashi says that the character design would not have actually looked similar to Doronjo, but clearly things did not go beyond those early planning stages. Perhaps Nintendo will revisit the concept one of these days, but for now, Wario and Waluigi will just have to rely on one another.

Wario was first introduced in 1992's Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins. The Game Boy game positioned him as a villain, but he went on to become more of an anti-hero in subsequent games, starting with 1994's Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. The character would become a staple of Mario family games in the following years, appearing in titles like Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party. In 2000, Camelot's Mario Tennis introduced Waluigi, and the two have appeared in countless games together since. While fans assumed that the two were brothers like Mario and Luigi, Nintendo has established that the two are merely friends. Despite their popularity, the duo are two of the only major Mario family characters that have not been announced for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but it's possible we could see them appear as antagonists in a sequel, should the film prove successful enough!

Would you like to see a "Walupeach" introduced in the games? Are you a fan of Wario and Waluigi? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!

[H/T: Nintendo Everything]