Title- Super Mario Momotarō
Voices
Toru Furuya as Mario
Miyako Endou as Princess Peach, Toad, Morton Koopa Jr., Wendy O. Koopa
Masaharu Satou as Bowser, Larry Koopa, Iggy Koopa
Naoki Tatsuta as Luigi, Papa, Roy Koopa, Lemmy Koopa, Ludwig von Koopa Toshiko Sawada as Narrator
Right. This is the first of my reviews of the three Amada episodes made in Japan. First a bit of background. Each of these specials were based upon various Japanese fairy tales (one of which is the widely known ‘Snow White’) As such if you’re expecting a full on Mario tale, with the Mushroom Kingdom etc forget it. That’s not to say of course that the characters have different names, they are essentially the same, but are used in the various roles, such as Bowser being an Ogre king, and Peach becoming Snow White. This is important to take into account before seeing these movies.
This first one, is actually probably my favourite so far (although I have yet to see the full Snow White one, and my version of episode 2 has no English Subs.) I enjoy it most, for the fun action and the sheer wackiness of it. Not knowing the Japanese fairy tale, I don’t know how the stories meant to play out, but highlights for me include Mario just appearing one day out of the sky to these elderly couple of Hammer Bros, the fact that they are supposedly Peach’s grandparents (does she have a shell under that dress?) and finally Mario preparing for his adventure by packing a piece.
Me being a geeky sad loser saw three rather humorous things about this film which relate to games which came out a long time after this film. Firstly they all live on small floating planets, (Mario Galaxy) secondly Mario teams up with three characters of an enemy species (Paper Mario) which are a Boomerang bro, Parabuzzy and a Spike. Finally Mario’s aforementioned gun which actually looks slightly similar to a Super Scope (Yoshi’s Safari)
Overall this is the most action packed of the three films, and features Bowser at his most gamelike, trying to force Peach to marry him. Also the Koopa Kids appear, a rarity, but they really are so expendable in this that it’s not really exciting. The fight at the end is pretty good however, especially with Mario and friends fighting all the different Koopas.
Overall my favourite of the three (so far) and a pretty nice film. I really enjoyed the amount of cameos.
