Super Mario Mushrooms Have A Terrifying Origin
According to a manga from the 1990s, the 1-Up mushrooms in Super Mario games grow directly out of the corpses of dead Marios.
Everyone loves a good origin story, as we get to see a hero—and a villain—being made. However, the origins of Super Mario 1-up mushrooms have been revealed, and we have to admit—it’s a bit disturbing. Luckily, this won’t be part of any Nintendo promotion for the upcoming film; we can already smell like a Super Mario game and admire the real-life Super Mario boots, but the line is drawn at 1up mushrooms, which, as recently revealed, grow from the bodies of dead Marios.
According to a Twitter handle @MarioBrothBlog, an account dedicated to finding and highlighting obscure Mario-related content and facts, discovered an interesting but equally disturbing concept about Mario Mushrooms. This explanation originates from the 1996 Super Mario 64 manga and explains how these life-awarding mushrooms are created in-universe. In fact, it’s quite graphically explained; a deceased Mario is buried underground, and a mushroom has sprouted above his burial place, with its roots connecting to the protagonist’s dead body.
This actually perpetuates the cycle of life and death within the game, suggesting that dead Marios create extra life for the living ones currently in the game. Disturbing and perhaps a little sickening as well once you actually ingest one to gain an extra life. Strangely enough, though, it somehow makes sense, despite the grim nature of the Mario mushrooms’ existence and coming into the world.
It’s also worth mentioning that the manga was never officially endorsed by Nintendo—which is a pretty family-safe-oriented company.
However, the eccentricity doesn’t end there either. @MarioBrothBlog shared several other manga clippings of Mario opening coins filled with air, which allows him to extend his time underwater. For those who aren’t familiar with this concept, players were able to recover air underwater by collecting coins in Super Mario 64—the most valuable game collectible ever—and the mange depicts him cracking a coin open and inhaling its contents to prolong his time underwater.
Of course, it goes without saying that the new concept surrounding the origins of Mario Mushrooms has captured the interest of many fans of the Italian princess-saving plumber. The shared post has over 145,000 likes on Twitter, with some of the most amazing commentary ever. Some are complaining that they can’t unsee what they saw, while others think that the cycle of life and death is pretty well depicted here.
There are also those who are more familiar with mycology—a branch of biology that studies fungi—stating that this is somehow believable.
While on the subject of Super Mario Mushrooms, there is other fantastic news that has recently popped up. A Super Mario 64 player has recently found a way to obtain the impossible 1-Up Mushroom without dying. Though it doesn’t sound like a big feat, it actually is; Super Mario 64 was released 27 years ago, and in that time, no one has managed to collect the impossible 1-Up Mushroom without dying but that one player.
Given the massive popularity of Super Mario, highlighted by the upcoming movie starring Chris Pratt, it’s likely that more details similar to Mario Mushrooms are going to appear online in the coming days.
