Character Profile: Waluigi

For 1992's Game Boy game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Nintendo wanted to create a new villain for Mario to fight, and they came up with Wario. Greedy, ugly, fat and evil. He’s the complete opposite of Mario, except for the fat part. Gamers loved him and Nintendo started putting Wario in more games and even giving him a few of his own. Nintendo then teamed with Camelot to make a Mario-themed tennis game called, what else, Mario Tennis. Wario was in it, and Camelot thought it would be cool to have a new character to be Luigi’s nemesis, as Wario is to Mario. Enter Waluigi, one of the crappiest game characters ever made.

My problem with Waluigi is not in his actual design, as it fits perfectly with Luigi and Wario, no, the problem is his name. In Japanese “warui” means “evil”, so Waruiji literally means “evil Luigi”, which I guess it’s fine, but it doesn’t mean shit in English. An inverted “M” gives you a “W”, but there’s no letter for an inverted “L”, so why not name him something else entirely? It makes no sense to have an inverted “L” on his gloves, because his name starts with a “W”, so why not have him wear a “W” on his gloves? Because Wario already has the “W”, of course. It’s so stupid!

Even though Waluigi is in various games, like Mario Party, Mario Kart, Mario Strikers, Mario Golf and a few others, he still doesn’t have one of his own, leading me to believe that Nintendo doesn’t like him that much. Please kill him off silently, Nintendo. I’m sure after a few Mario games without him we’ll all forget he ever existed.