Super Mario Brothers: Peach-hime Kyuushutsu Daisakusen!

Greetings MAL readers! Since today is 4/20, I might as well review something that you would have to be high out of your mind to enjoy or even sit through. This is the Mario movie that Nintendo quickly shat into theaters in 1986 to immediately capitalize on the overnight success of 1985's Super Mario Bros for the Famicom/NES. The live action American film would remain in production Hell until 1993, when it was finally released to less than glowing reviews. Unfortunately, this film makes the live action Mario look like a masterpiece! Don't get me wrong. The American live action Mario is bad. However, it's ... at least charming in how cheesy and misguided it is. It also has a hilarious performance by Dennis Hopper and is quite quotable. The Mario anime from 1986 is just a cheap, soulless cash grab. People worry that's what the upcoming Mario with Chris Pratt will be, but this film did it first!

This film was written by Hideo Takayashiki, who is best known for writing the series composition for Ashita no Joe Part 2, Kaiji, and One Outs. He's one of the best script writers to have ever worked in anime, and yet this movie still sucks because he didn't care. It really seems like nobody who worked on this shit cared. Luigi wears blue in this movie because they couldn't be bothered to research that he's supposed to wear green! This isn't an instance where he was blue in the Famicom version and green in the NES version. He was always green! I've looked at the footage of the Famicom Mario from 85. This movie just cared THAT little! Did I mention the Mario Brothers are Japanese and run a small grocery store? They're supposed to be Italian plumbers. It says so in the first fucking sentence of the game manual! I know the first Mario game didn't exactly have as much story depth as The Witcher 3, but they didn't open the God Damned game manual!

The movie opens with Mario up at 3 AM in the morning playing Paper Boy for the Famicom. I find this hilarious because Nintendo's official mascot is a traitor. Paper Boy is an American made game by Atari that was ported to the Famicom in 1985. This film was made in late 1986, so Mario could have been playing Legend of Zelda, Ghosts and Goblins, Duck Hunt, or Gradius. Instead, he's playing a shitty port of an American Atari game. Luigi comes down wearing a sleeping cap and holding a candle because he thinks he's in a 1930s cartoon, but Mario yells at him and tells him to fuck off. Then Princess Peach comes out of the TV like Sadako and tells Mario to help her before being dragged back into the TV world by Bowser. Luigi tells Mario it was all a dream, but Mario is convinced it happened. Then an obnoxious blue dog that's not in any of the games shows up and the Mario brothers try catch it, which leads to a GOD-AWFUL musical number.

The brothers then climb through a construction pipe at the garbage dump, and this sends them to the Mushroom Kingdom somehow. The God of the video game world, who just looks like the stereotypical Western portrayal of God, tells Mario and Luigi that they must rescue Peach, but Luigi is only interested in money because he's a greedy bastard in this film. This was before the Mario Brothers really had distinct personalities in the games, because the only games out at this time were the arcade game and Mario Bros 85. So, Luigi's personality in this film is that he loves gold coins and he's an asshole. Ironically, this may have inspired the creation of Wario, who didn't show up until 1992.

What we get next is an extremely aimless adventure to try fit in cameo appearances of the basic enemies from the 1985 video game. We also get another awful original song that will make your ears bleed. Thankfully, they only had the budget for 2 original songs, so the rest of the OST and all the sound effects are just ripped directly from the 1985 game. They didn't get an orchestra to play the Mario theme or anything that makes it feel like a film adaptation. It's literally just the NES audio files because this anime is cheap as hell. Did I mention it looks like absolute garbage? Anime movies are supposed to look better than TV series where Toei has to rush out 1 episode a week. Nintendo was swimming in money back in 1986. Yet, this movie looks like a C-tier television anime from the 1970s. This was made by a brand-new studio named Grouper who had never made an anime before. After this movie they went radio silence for 5 years until finally reemerging and redeeming themselves in 1991 with their 2nd anime called "The Sensualist". That film is an arthouse hentai BTW. Then they made a couple shitty children's anime and seemingly liquidated in 1995.

The upcoming Mario film has gotten a lot of flak over its odd casting. However, the original Mario movie from 1986 has it beat. They hired a female K-pop singer to play Bowser and told her to voice him with the most nasally, high pitched, ear grating voice possible. Bowser's voice in this movie is cancer in audio form. Quite possibly the worst casting/ voice direction combo I've ever heard in anime. I will never understand why they thought Bowser should sound like that. This is possibly why Nintendo didn't give Bowser a human voice actor during the N64 period when all the other characters got voices and held off on giving him actual lines until the Game Cube era. Bowser is still mostly a silent character who just roars and growls, quite possibly as the legacy of this bad casting!

In summary, this anime is extremely boring, looks like shit, has terrible audio, and is a complete waste of time. It was made on dirt cheap to make a quick buck and that's about it. Is anything good about this anime? Actually...yes. They decided it was too mean to have Mario cast Bowser down into fiery lava like the games, so they had Mario defeat Bowser by grabbing him by the tail and doing a spinning toss to send him into the sky. Mario 64 then decided to use this as the way to defeat Bowser 10 years later! This movie gave us the gift of "So long, gay Bowser!" At least it finally did something right!

In all honesty this anime is by no means TERRIBLE. The story was awful and the music was 80's awful. But it's Mario, so it gains a few points in key departments!
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Story: While the story was terrible, it remained true to the Mario standards of "save Princess Peach, then we're done!" It also managed to include the power-ups we all remember, such as the Red Mushroom, Fire Flower, and the Star! So it definitely tries hard to please we who played the games. It's very comedic as well, and I actually managed to chuckle a few times. A few scenes were extremely boring, having only ... the two Mario Bros. walking through different back droppings. Big minus!

Art: The art isn't half bad! All of the Mario baddies we all know and love were involved, and they looked very good! Hammer Bro ftw! :D It does indeed shine in a few areas. The only drawback is that it's only (to the best of my knowledge) available in VHS form. So it's not exactly perfect viewing. Of course this isn't the fault of the artists!

Sound: The SFX were awesome, the only reason sound scored an 8 in my review, as the music was awful. The random "Denim, denim, denim" or the warp tube sounds were extremely nostalgic, and they honestly kept me watching it. You could also hear other familiar sounds that come from the Mario NES series of games! The music was terrible though, so there's your fair warning.

Character: It's Mario, so naturally it's good. But the lack of originality stopped me from giving it a higher rating.

Enjoyment: Besides the random fun SFX and the nostalgic sight of Koopas, Hammer Bro, and Bowser this really isn't too exciting to watch. Without the nostalgia I really doubt this would have gotten any bit of enjoyment out of me. IF you enjoy Mario you'll definitely find some satisfaction SOMEWHERE.

To sum it up, you may as well watch it! If you're a Mario fan you'll definitely have a laugh or two or maybe a "W00T!" during the final battle. From someone who doesn't look back to the NES Mario days as the best of their lives, however... You should probably pass this one up. :D

When people think of a Mario movie, they immediately look to the horrible live action movie. However, hardcore fans of the series will know of the existence of an obscure anime film from 1986. I'm willing to bet that 95% of Mario fans will wonder what I'm talking about. In 1986, Grouper Productions secured the rights from Nintendo to produce an anime film based upon the immensely successful Super Mario Bros. for Famicom/NES. The anime was called Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen, or literally Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach.
With this being a rather obscure movie, very little ... is known about what went on during production. To what extent Nintendo and series director Shigeru Miyamoto had to do with this film is not at all clear, but my guess is not much. The film saw a very limited theatrical release in Japan and was quietly distributed on VHS by VAP Video a short time later. VAP made the dumbest mistake possible by only releasing the anime on rental cassette. Because of this, the film is highly sought after by collectors and fetches high prices on Japanese auction sites. And before you ask, no the film was never released outside of Japan. This somewhat surprises me, as Mario is marketable to a worldwide audience. We can only hope that an anime distributor will pick up the rights to this title someday, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Luckily with the age of the internet, the film is available for viewing or download on sites such as YouTube. There's even several fansubs that exist, though they vary in translation quality and character name accuracy. A fandub exists as well, though we all know about the quality of such productions.
Despite poor choices in distribution, the anime actually had a wide variety of tie-in products such as a manga adaptation, an official soundtrack release, wrist-watches, ramen noodles, and phone cards. As expected, these products are even rarer than the film itself so don't bother looking for them unless the planets align or something.
With all this being said, is this film a hidden gem? The short answer is no. Going into this film, it's clear to me that this anime was never a high priority among the studio. The main reason it exists is to make a quick cash grab based upon the Super Mario license. It was directed by Masami Hata. Never heard of him? Me neither because his most well known work is Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. That being said, the movie isn't completely terrible and actually has its share of enjoyable moments.

Story and Characters: 6/10
The mentality of the Mario series has always been gameplay over story. Rescue Princess Peach from the evil Bowser. That's it. To accommodate this paper-thin story into a watchable movie, much had to be added to the script. The film opens with Mario playing a Famicom game late at night. You heard me right. The Italian plumber, from Brooklyn, created by a Japanese guy that symbolizes the video game genre itself, is playing a video game in an obscure Japanese anime based upon a video game. Wrap your head around that one. Mario's brother Luigi asks him if he wants tea, but is curtly ignored. Ah, social commentary on the current state of modern-day video gamers. Suddenly, Princess Peach jumps out of the screen being chased by Bowser. After introducing herself to Mario and her current situation, Mario vows to defend her. Bowser then grabs Peach and takes her back into the TV. What surprised me the most is how Mario handles the whole situation. Although he's surprised at first, he just seems to go with the whole thing shortly after. Seriously? If I were him, I'd question what drugs I had just been smoking to see such an intense hallucination. When Mario tells Luigi of what just happened, his response is the same as mine. (Okay it's not exactly the same. He tells Mario that the whole thing was a dream.) Mario then sees that Peach left her necklace on the floor, and realizes that what he just experienced was all too real. The next day, Mario constantly daydreams about Peach and is distracted from his job. By the way, in this film Mario and Luigi are grocery store workers and not plumbers. A strange looking dog named Kibedango (a pun upon Japanese millet dumplings called dango) rushes in and steal the Peach's necklace from Mario's hand. The two brothers chase after the dog and who leads them down a warp pipe. They are greeted by the most stereotypical old man/wizard who tells them that they must rescue Peach from Bowser, who intends to marry her on the upcoming Friday the 13th. They must procure the mushroom of strength, the flower of courage, and the star of invincibility (this is Mario we're talking about) to stand a chance against Bowser.
And that's the setup for the story. In order to fill the huge gaps in storytelling that Nintendo left, much emphasis is put on slapstick humor and longer chase/fight scenes. Is the story still pretty basic? Yes. Is it at all entertaining? For the most part, yes. Even though its clear that this film was meant for children, I still found myself smiling at some of the film's comedic scenes. Despite the efforts to inject substance in the script, by the end of the day it's still a save the princess story. One thing that kind of annoyed me is the shameless plugs for ramen noodles that appear throughout the film. Gotta love those noodles, right? Surprisingly, some of the actions that Mario performs appeared in later Mario games like Jjumping on a Lakitu and riding its cloud (Super Mario World), eating a mushroom and growing humongous (New Super Mario Bros.), and spinning Bowser by the tail and throwing him (Super Mario 64). Coincidence? I guess that's left for the viewers to decide. Overall, the film really hasn't aged well in terms of story or animation (more on that in a bit) but the nostalgia factor will probably make up for this.
The personalities of the characters in this film are completely different from what the series would later portray. Keep in mind that games were still limited in what they could accomplish in 1986 and Super Mario Bros. had no character development. The anime fills in the void by creating its own versions of the characters. Mario is still the humble and typical hero who wants to save the girl. While this is okay, he is dreadfully boring as a character offering nothing interesting to the table. Luigi steals the show by being a greedy and selfish miser. Sound familiar? He's pretty much Wario. While Mario is the boy scout who wants to save Peach, Luigi is only in it for the promised gold along the way. If you're wondering why his color scheme seems different from the games, that's because he had no set color pattern at the time. As for the rest of the cast, they're exactly what you'd expect. Peach is the stereotypical damsel-in-distress, just like her in-game counterpart and Bowser is the evil villain. With the running time only 60 minutes, there's really not that much room for character development. Not that there was ever character development in the Mario series.
The cast consists of somewhat well known and somewhat obscure Japanese seiyuu. There's really not much else to say, because I won't call this film the high point of any of their careers. The voices aren't bad in the slightest, (Japanese voice acting rarely is) but noting really stands out as notable expect for the fact that Bowser is played by a female Japanese pop singer. I'm dead serious.

Animation: 7/10
I'm probably being generous here, but the animation in Mario isn't half-bad most of the time. Backgrounds pop out with various colors, and I enjoyed the cartoonish looks of the characters. That being said, I can't deny the significant age this anime shows. But like the crude graphics of the NES days, I can look past this for the most part. I should note though, that the Hayao Miyazaki film Castle in the Sky came out a mere two weeks later. Yeah...

Sound: 6/10
The BGMs used in the game is directly taken from Super Mario Bros., and is slightly enhanced by the NES synth. This isn't really a bad thing, because I can't imagine a Mario film being accompanied by anything else. Like every single anime ever created, Mario includes several vocal songs. Nothing really stands out here as the songs are pretty forgettable.

Overal: 7/10
Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach is a mixed bag overall. It has its moments, but it isn't a masterpiece buy any means. I'm sure that one could give it a quick look for curiosity's sake, but is no way worth the high prices its going for right now. The anime won't even take too much of your time, seeing as it's only an hour long. Despite its short length, it surprisingly does not feel rushed at all. I'd say watch it once, but don't bother again after that.

It was pretty poor and pathetic, but you can't really hate this movie. You could even be watching the best movie ever and you wouldn't facepalm (or the classic anime faint) yourself out of major stupidity. You'd only do that if you were over-upset in the ending. It's a terrible suprise. Luigi sets off a lot of humor.


"We're gonna be SOOOOOOOO RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICH!" Mario is trying to get across lava to save the princess once and Luigi looks for gold.

"Gold! Gold!! WHEEEEHEEEE!" He literally says that.
You can't NOT enjoy Luigi... LOL.

You can try to hate it or you can just hate it. ... But at the end of the day, you'll AT LEAST somewhat enjoy it.

I’m sure many people know or at the very least have heard of the infamous live action Super Mario movie. One of the most often brought up examples of why all or at the very least most movies that are based on a videogame suck and there are barely any good ones. I personally disagree with this, considering how the medium of anime brought us some great movies, some I do plan on talking about in the future. And if there’s one thing I can easily say about the Super Mario movie (obviously not talking about the Illumination one) is that, while flawed and pretty ... cheesy overall, it’s still a pretty fun ride all the way through and I really enjoyed my time with it.

The story keeps it pretty simple, Bowser kidnaps Peach and Mario and Luigi get isekaid to her homeworld to save her. And they need to do this by collecting three special artefacts, before Peach marries Bowser. Again, it’s a pretty simple plot, but one that’s more focused on bringing in characters from the game (and actually representing them correctly) and doing some fun scenarios with them. Add to that some cheesy, but still fun 80s rock montages and honestly, it gave me a time that I found myself enjoying pretty much despite how simple it all really is.

The animation is honestly nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. Besides that, I also really enjoy the colours and the more…I guess cartoony style. It just fits so well in this world of 80s montages, princess that need savings and plumbers that have to fulfil a prophecy. So it definitely could be better, but it still gets the job done.

As for the characters…well, they’re all as simple as you would expect from their game counterparts, with Mario being a brave hero rescuing the princess, Peach being that kidnapped princess and Bowser being the evil villain that wants to forcefully marry her. The only character with any kind of…unique personality is Luigi, being the more greedy of the two brothers, caring more about the money than anything else. So yeah, these are not the most developed or complex characters, but they still feel like accurate representations of the games own characters and how these characters would act in a movie.

So yeah, all in all, if you’re looking for a more silly, but still fun animated movie, whether you’re a fan of the games or not, I can recommend it. Same if you’re looking for an animated movie that just shows you “80s” then you won’t be disappointed either.

This OVA is an adaptation of the first Mario game's story at a time where the characters and world weren't well-stablished, and it's not like that matters in a Mario movie, but it's atleast better than the bad 1993 one and god knows what Illumination is going to do with the new one.

The only new additions were some old guy telling Mario and Luigi their destiny, Mario getting cockblocked by a dog, besides that it's mostly a roadtrip movie, makes sense considering the game.

It even does the whole "Mario being some normal 30-something year old getting Isekai'd into fantasy land" that I liked about old ... Mario media in the 80's but Nintendo scrapped because they hate good ideas, except they're store-runners instead of plumbers for some reason, but still fitting as Mario has the same amount of jobs as Barbie, and Luigi changed his clothes that day, he's also become a greedy bastard like Wario... hooray?

I swear this movie is mostly montages and a bunch of cheap walk-cycles (like a wise pirate one said), and you better like it's single, Doki Doki Do It!, an admittedly catchy rock and roll tune, because you'll hear it for most of the movie's run time.

Animation is cheap and stilted, sound is fine but Bowser's voice doesn't fit the character at all, Overall, it's a mediocre film, watch the Sonic the Hedgehog OVA instead, that has action, fanservice and Sonic givving the middle finger, Genesis Does What Nintendon't, baaaaabyyyyy!

This is lost Nintendo media wrapped in gold, with a little bit of dust on it. Glad it's available on YouTube for free.

While some parts of the movie were expected as if from a typical Mario storyline, I must admit the ending gave me a good chuckle - it was totally a twist. However some parts felt like they were dragging on, and the voice acting was a bit annoying... and you can tell it was made in the 80s just by listening to the soundtrack!

If you're a Mario fan, or just wanna watch something ridiculous, I would recommend this - maybe even under the ... influence for some extra fun. Don't take it seriously or else you're gonna be disappointed. I am not giving it an abysmal rating because 1) I love the Mario franchise and 2) Despite all its flaws, I've seen worse. To me, I was watching for pure nostalgic reasons and I love the corniness of this film.

For being one of the very first video game anime adaptations as well as being based off the original Super Mario Bros., I'd say they did as well as they probably could have in this case. The whole production is very cheesy, very distinctly 80s, but they managed to nail a lot of the character designs right out of the gate and you can see where a lot of this OVA later influenced the games and even the 2023 movie to some extent.

I'd say probably the most oddball thing is that Luigi is a completely different person than he is now. To be fair, Luigi ... at this point in the franchise was no more than just "green Mario" and didn't get his modern personality traits until the American Super Mario Bros. 2, so he was pretty much a blank canvas. That being said, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Wario in this OVA; he dons primarily yellow, not green, and more importantly seems to prioritize riches over his own personal safety.

The animation is a little rough but it's perfectly serviceable, and the music tracks, albeit repetitive since they play so often (especially the opening theme), are good. The use of sound effects from the games is a cute touch too, and there's even some arranged versions of SMB1's music!

If you like the Mario games, it's well worth the roughly hour-long watch, even if at the very least to see how far we've come with the Mario series. Heck, watch it with some of your Mario-enjoying friends, they might get enjoyment out of it too!

Maddie Manga strikes again by showing me another bad anime. This has just taken place as my least favorite anime I've seen to date. There's hardly anything to spoil beings it's just the generic "Mario saves the princess but gets friendzoned" storyline. That story alone would be fine, if they hadn't done it so poorly..

For one, they made everyone jerks. Literally. When your most likable character is your villain, you really bunked up on your protagonists.
I'm not kidding. Bowser is the most likable character in this trainwreck. He seems to legitimately love Peach and want to marry her, and while yeah he kidnapped her ... and that's not okay, everyone else are straight up HORRIBLE PEOPLE or have no character to speak of.

Second, HOW DO YOU MESS UP LUIGI'S COLORS THAT BADLY?!

Another thing, what was with the weird music? I mean some of the songs were catchy but they don't fit in this at all, just use the traditional Mario soundtracks, we know they were able to because some of them were in this.

Also, the ending. Oh my GOD the ending. It's the worst thing.
The dog... THE DOG CATERPILLAR THING... GOT THE GIRL.

I'm done with this fever dream.