The release of The Super Mario Bro. Movie (2023) is practically 5 months old now and I still can’t stop belting out “Peaches”. With Super Mario already being the legendary franchise it already is, you can’t help but notice the resurgence the series has had on the lead up to the movie’s release, and of course, beyond. Sometimes new media can catalyse the digging up of old media, for better or for worse.
On that note, a theatre re-release of 1993’s Super Mario Bros.: The Movie will land in Japan in 4K starting 15th September, to celebrate the movie’s 30 year anniversary. Super Mario: Goddess of the Demon Empire, as the movie goes by in Japan, is not very popular with western audiences, despite its cult classic nature and maintained its status as the only Nintendo IP to receive a live-action adaptation, until Detective Pikachu in 2019. However, Japanese manga artist Kawai Ikkei took the movie’s existence one step further and created a condensed adaptation of the movie in manga form.
The manga had an unofficial “scanlation” (fan-made scanned translation) into English thanks to Miloscat on Tumblr. As for the movie itself, there isn’t currently any news of a re-release heading to western audiences as of yet. It may be a great opportunity to expand its following, especially in a year where Mario has already hit the big screen.
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