Waluigi

About

Waluigi is a character from the Super Mario video game franchise. Despite having appeared mainly in spinoffs of the franchise, he has gained popularity in the Mario fandom due to his mischievous, cunning nature. Due to his popularity, he has become a popular requested character to be playable in the Super Smash Bros. video game series.

Origin

Waluigi's first appearance in the Mario franchise was in the Nintendo 64 game Mario Tennis, released in 2000. He was created by Fumihide Aoki, with Shigeru Miyamoto being consulted with the design, because there were very few human characters in the series, and Wario needed a tennis partner for Doubles. He was designed to be the Luigi's rival in the way that Wario is to Mario, with exaggerated physical traits.

Contrary to most people's belief that his name is just a poor offshoot from his partner in crime, Wario, his name actually comes from a pun based on "Warui", the Japanese word for Bad, and "Ruigi", since Japan substitutes the letter L for R, which makes his name literally "Bad Luigi". Waluigi's japanese name (ワルイージ, Waruīji) is also an anagram of ijiwaru, which in japanese can mean several things, such as mean-spirited, mean, nasty, vicious, cruel and ill-tempered.

Appearances in Games

Since his debut, Waluigi has appeared in over 40 games (mainly spin-offs), including Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Party and Super Smash Bros. Although he, for the most part, has just been a playable character with no special role, he has had some more prominent appearances throughout the years.

In Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, Waluigi was the main villain of story mode and the first boss. In the game, he takes over Truffle Towers and spreads the four music keys across the world so he could become the best dancer in the world. He did this so he would be able hypnotizes people with his moves, spread chaos and, eventually, take over the world. Although he was the main villain, he doesn't appear again after the player defeats him.

In Mario Party 3, after the player has gotten all but one Star Stamp, Bowser challenges the player to fight him over the final Star Stamp, the Mischief Star Stamp. However, while the player and Bowser were distracted by each other, Waluigi steals the Star Stamp. Bowser and Waluigi fights and Waluigi emerges victorious. Waluigi then challenges the player to fight him for the Star Stamp on his own board, Waluigi's Island.

In the Game Boy Advance version of Mario Tennis: Power Tour, Waluigi appears as a playable character while Wario does not. This is his only appearance in a game where Wario does not appear.

In the Mario Kart series, Waluigi has had two racetracks named after himself. The first was Waluigi Stadium, a track modeled after a dirt bike course that appeared in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and in Mario Kart Wii as a Retro Course. The second was the semi-famous Waluigi Pinball, a track inside of a humongous pinball machine that appeared in Mario Kart DS and again in Mario Kart 7 as a Retro Course.

Spread

Anti-Fandom

Upon the debut of Waluigi in Mario Tennis, he was almost universally panned and still receives a lot of hate. Some of the complains are that Waluigi is a cheap rip-off of Wario and that his name is stupid. Cracked put Waluigi at number 3 in their article The 15 Most Annoying Video Game Characters (From Otherwise Great Games)^[1] stating that, "instead of digging into the Mario achieves to find a villain to be Wario's tennis partner, Nintendo instead just put "wa" in front of Luigi, made him purple, stretched him out and gave him a silent film-era villain mustache." Kotaku editor Mike Fahey later shared this article while commenting that Waluigi was his all-time most annoying video game character.^[2] Gamesradar called Waluigi a "lame-o villain" in their article "Top 7 Mario spin-offs".^[3]

Fandom

However, throughout the years, Waluigi's popularity has been steadily growing. Gamervision writer Coop made an article called "Ten Reasons Waluigi is Awesome" stating "it became apparent that the internet needed a lesson exactly how awesome Waluigi is." they listed such qualities like his height, his self-hating personality and his mustache.^[4] Unwinnable published an article called "Waa! in defense of Waluigi. The article states that Waluigi's weirdness and outlandish makes him a humorous character and that he is a great character due to his ability to often make people laugh.^[5] Venture Beats published an article entitled "Know Your Role: The Greatness of Waluigi" that states that Waluigi stands out due to his design, his various abilities and skills and his personality.^[6] An article on Gamerranx called "Waluigi: Unwrapping the mystery" delved into Waluigi's character, his relation to Luigi and theories around his creation.^[7]

Waluigi also gained popularity in the fandom thanks to his over-the-top appearance and voice. Several Tumblr Ask Blogs have impersonated Waluigi, such as WAAAAAAAH^[8], Ask Waluigi^[9] and Ask Waluigi and Wario, which also features Wario.^[10]

On TV Tropes, Waluigi is listed as an example of an Ensemble Darkhorse^[11] character; one who becomes very popular despite not being in the main cast.

Waluigi started out as a character solely to mirror Mario & Wario's rivalry by giving Luigi an enemy and completely lacking a personality beyond being overconfident and narcissistic. Since then, Waluigi has steadily increased in popularity over the years, even earning himself an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an Assist Trophy. The biggest reason he's so popular is thanks to Brawl in the Family, where the fans of the series were able to see Waluigi in a different (crazier and funnier) look. He also became more of a mischievous trickster with some bits of Tragic Villain and Butt Monkey as more games came out, giving him an overall better characterization other than just being a "rival to Luigi", got awesome music and stages to his name (particularly Waluigi Pinball in Mario Kart DS), and got more hilarious animations and roles in the games he appeared in. All of this with the Mario series constantly pulling in new fans who didn't have to deal with his early Scrappy moments, have been responsible for his more positive reception, even if he still is a Base Breaker.

TV Tropes also has two articles that are based around Waluigi.

On deviantART, there are currently two groups dedicated solely to Waluigi, Walu-club^[12] and Wa-lu-i-gi.^[13] There are also groups dedicated to Waluigi shipping. These groups include RosalinaXWaluigiCLUB^[14] and Waluigi-Daisy-fans^[15]

Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi has stated that he would love a game with Waluigi as the main protagonist, saying; "I'd love to see a Waluigi game where you have to cheat to win, ya know. That would be funny."^[16]

A poem called "Ode to Waluigi" was one of the winners in the 2012 Book Week Writing Contest in Canada. The poem, written by Sam Daly, praises Waluigi by calling him "sneaky, secretive and tricky" and asks why he doesn't have his own video game yet. One of the judges praised Daly for "making an hero out of an often ignored secondary character, something we all sometime feel like".^[17]

On August 5th 2014, Zelda64 forums user Russmarrs2 released a hack for the game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.^[18] The hack allows the player to play as Waluigi, replacing Link's model with a Waluigi model. The hack was covered by several gaming websites including IGN,^[19] Polygon,^[20] Kotaku,^[21] Dorkly^[22] and Destructoid.^[23]

Brawl in the Family

Brawl in the Family is a webcomic featuring characters from the Super Smash Bros. series of games, though mostly focusing on Kirby and King Dedede from the Kirby series of video games. The webcomic is drawn by Matthew Taranto. Waluigi's first appearance in Brawl in the Family was on April 1, 2009 where he took over the webcomic and renamed it Waluigi in the Family^[24] as an April fool's joke. The original Waluigi in the Family featured 17 comics, though later Waluigi comics would bring the total up to 47. The comics featuring Waluigi are usually strange and makes little to no sense. Brawl in the Family is also the origin of the popular quote "Too bad. Waluigi Time". The Waluigi comics were well received by fans and Waluigi later made more appearances in the webcomic.

Since his first apperance, Waluigi has appeared in every April fool's comic, even if they didn't revolve around him.

In 2010, Waluigi faked a letter from Nintendo of America which informed the comic writers of Brawl in the family that Nintendo were to shut down the comic because they were "shocked and appalled" by the "distortion" of the characters in the comic. There were also additional Waluigi in the Family comics.^[25]

In 2011, the comic was invaded by the spirits of the Zelda and Mario CD-I games. Waluigi, after coming home from vacation, drove the spirits away by using drastic means. ^[26]

In 2013, Brawl in the Family was changed into B.Royale in the Family which focused on characters from the video game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Near the end of the comic, Waluigi appears and announces to Mario, Link, Kirby and Pikachu that he will be in Super Smash Bros. 4. Mario, Link, Kirby and Pikachu then goes to the characters from PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale to ask them if they could be in their game instead.^[27]

2014 featured a 2-part story arc. Waluigi returned once again to take over the comic, only to be stopped by Princess Daisy. However, Wario was waiting at Waluigi's home and convinced Waluigi to take over games instead of comics.^[28] The next part featured the pair taking over a couple of Nintendo games including Mario, Pikmin and Kirby.^[29]

In the webcomic, Waluigi is portrayed as a wacky and bizarre person who, while crazy and creepy on the outside, is actually very lonely and whose only friends are Wario and Princess Daisy. Waluigi's character profile^[30] on the website states the following:

Hide your daughters and your modern art: Waluigi’s in town!

Waluigi is a poorly-understood individual who has difficulty fitting in with others. His only friend in the world (aside from Wario) seems to be Daisy, who has more patience and compassion than even Waluigi is capable of wasting.

Sometimes, Waluigi goes on some short-lived adventures. This isn’t common because it quickly becomes tiresome.

Waluigi dislikes many things, but he especially dislikes Luigi, musicals, and Brawl in the Family. He enjoys dancing by himself and relaxing in massage chairs.

Brawl in the Family has helped Waluigi become popular and is one of the main reasons for his popularity.

Super Mario 64 DS Rumor

Released on November 21st, 2004, Super Mario 64 DS was a remake of the popular game for the Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64. Unlike in the first game, where you could only play as Mario, the remake lets you also play as Yoshi, Luigi and Wario. After release, rumors began to circulate that Waluigi was a secret playable character, similar to the rumors that Luigi was a secret playable character in the original Super Mario 64 game. The rumors were started by a deviantART post titled "Waluigi in Super Mario 64 DS"^[31]. The post and the rumor soon spread across the Internet and is even said to have appeared in an issue of Nintendo Power. The post claimed that Waluigi could be unlocked by finding all the stars in the game and being the "fastest footracer in the land", whereafter a secret switch would appear. After the player would have activated the switch, a door would appear that would lead the player into a boss battle with "the Rabbit King". After this, the player would have unlocked Waluigi. The post has since became known as "Purple Prizes"

The uploader of the post has since stated that the post was meant as an April fool's joke and elaborated on this in an article he wrote for Nintendo World Report, called "Waluigi, We Hardly Knew Ye^[32]". In the second part of the article, titled "The Time I Fooled the World^[33]" He stated that he wanted to replicate the original Luigi rumors surrounding Super Mario 64 as a parody for the new generation and as a kind of homage to the rumors. The Waluigi model was made using LightWave 5.6 3D and Photoshop was used to insert the model into pictures of the game.

On March 15th, 2013, YouTube user wwwwario posted an video which focused on the rumor. In the video, he presented some of the most famous and referenced theories and pieces of evidence that is frequently used to support the rumor, while also speaking about an episode that happened to himself, where one person sent him pictures of Waluigi in the game and claimed that the rumor was real. The video is a follow-up of a previous video he had uploaded.

On July 22th, 2013. wwwwario uploaded the follow-up to the Waluigi video which concluded that, while he may have been planned at one point, Waluigi is not in Super Mario 64 DS. He presented such evidence such as Waluigi not being mentioned in the game's code, Waluigi not being seen in any of the Super Mario 64 DS Beta videos and that it would be impossible for a secret character to be hidden for 9 years.

Wwwwario later uploaded 2 more videos about the Waluigi rumor. One of the videos showed how it was possible how to edit images of Super Mario 64 DS to have Waluigi in them, which explains the many fake pictures used as evidence to support the rumor. The other video was a song about the rumors, but has since been removed from the channel.

Absence from Mario Kart 7

On December 1st, 2011, Mario Kart 7 was released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS. After release, it was discovered that Waluigi, despite having appeared in every main Mario Kart game since Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, would not appear as a playable character for Mario Kart 7. Instead, he was replaced by Lakitu, Wiggler, Metal Mario and Honey Queen. This caused a large fan outrage with some questioning the decision and many being confused on why Waluigi was excluded, especially considering that the track Waluigi Pinball was included as a retro track in Mario Kart 7.

Some fans even emailed Nintendo and the Mario Kart 7 Staff. MarioBoards user KingBooWarioSir sent an email to Mario Kart 7 Producer Yasuyuki Oyagi. Yasuyuki Oyagi later replied, stating that Waluigi was excluded because of time constraints and that the reason Waluigi was chosen to be cut was because that Waluigi is one of the more expendable characters in the Mario Universe. He also responded to questions regarding Wario being an unlockable playable character in Mario Kart 7 and the Koopa Kid from the Mario Party series. ^[34]

Waluigi's omission from Mario Kart 7 was a hard one for us here at Nintendo. It was due to the time constraints associated with the Christmas deadline for the game. Rest assured Waluigi will be making further appearances in the Mario series for at least the next few years. Also understand some characters, such as Waluigi, are more expendable then others and space was limited. The game needed Bowser, DK, Wario and it didnt need the few expendable characters that we here consider "cult classics". We needed a balance between new racers and our standards. Also, regarding Wario as an unlockable character for future games, that will not happen. This was a one-time instance to pay tribute to the SNES original and nothing more. Koopa Kid is retired

Yasuyuki Oyagi

Psycho Waluigi

Psycho Waluigi is a fan-made game starring Waluigi made by Mario Fan Games Galaxy user Thunder Dragon. It was released on October 31, 2011. In the game, the player controls Waluigi who, after falling down from his hot air balloon and waking up from unconsciousness, has gained psychic powers thanks to Psycho Iris, a mysterious voice in Waluigi's head that wants to help Waluigi conquer the world known as Unconcia which has over 30 kingdoms. Waluigi must now conquer each of these kingdoms with Psycho Iris's help. However, Waluigi and Psycho Iris is constantly being attacked by General Hazel and her Army, who is trying to stop Waluigi. The game has been downloaded over 50000 times and has become one of the most famous fangames on the Internet. It has been covered by Gamespot^[36] and has it's own page on GameFAQs. ^[37]

Waluigi in the Super Smash Brothers series

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Waluigi was revealed to be an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third entry of the series, on December 14, 2007.^[45] When the player summons Waluigi, he will dash at a random enemy and stomp them to the ground. He then finishes off the opponent with either a kick or a swing from his tennis racket. Waluigi holds a tennis racquet in one of his hands, as a reference to his first appearance in Mario Tennis. He also appears as a trophy and his clothes appears as a palette swap for Luigi.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

In early 2014, fans wondered if Waluigi would be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. On February 27th 2014, Masahiro Sakurai, the director of the game, revealed though the Pic of the day on Miiverse that he would reprise his role as an assist trophy.^[35] Interestingly, Waluigi, despite never having appeared in a Wario game, was classified as a representative of the Wario universe in the Super Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct rather then the Mario universe which he represented in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. However, in the final game, Waluigi once again represents the Mario Universe. The news of him returning as an assist trophy led to feelings of disappointment from his fanbase. His clothes again appears as a palette swap for Luigi, and, for the first time, for Mario as well.

Absence from Super Smash Bros Ultimate

On June 12th, 2018, during their 2018 E3 presentation, Nintendo announced the characters that would be included in Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch. Ahead of the announcement, many online predicted that the company would be announcing Waluigi's inclusion, following several years of increased popularity. However, while the trailer boasted that all characters would be included, Waluigi was absent (shown below).

The announcement disappointed fans of Waluigi, who shared their negative reactions on websites such as Twitter. That day, Twitter^[39] user @GenjiShitmada tweeted a picture of a Waluigi doll lying dirty on the ground with the Smash Bros reveal tagline "Everyone Is Here." The post (shown below, left) received more than 34,000 retweets and 87,000 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter^[40] user @sir_stride posted a variation of the Try Not To Cry meme featuring Waluigi with the caption "Waluigi is still an assist trophy #NintendoE3." The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,000 retweets and 6,000 likes in 24 hours. Throughout the day, people continued to post variations on the theme of Waluigi being left out (example below, right)

Several media outlets covered the reaction, including Polygon, ^[42] Mashable, ^[43] and more. Twitter^[44] published a Moments page about the reaction.

That day, The Washington Post^[41] published an opinion piece entitled "Waluigi was robbed and humiliated by Nintendo, and his fans are furious." In the piece, author Gene Park writes, "It gets worse. Suddenly, 17 minutes into the presentation, Waluigi makes an appearance. And it is yet another affront to decency. Waluigi is a mere “assist” character. Assist trophies are basically soulless effigies of other characters that players can pick up, bringing the depicted creature to life for mere seconds. They’re golems."

Twitter user @Jacon_Pinecone tweeted about this phenomenon. They wrote, "Not only was Waluigi de-confirmed but they disrespect him as they do it."

Notable Examples

Related Memes

Waluigi Time

A popular quote from Waluigi is "Too Bad, Waluigi Time", which originates from the Super Smash Bros. webcomic Brawl In The Family, which shows his crazier side. The quote is often used in the context of Waluigi threads.

The Crotch Chop

In Mario Strikers and its sequel, Super Mario Strikers Charged (known as Mario Strikers Charged Football in Europe) Waluigi was one of the playable captains. Whenever Waluigi scored a goal, an animation would follow. One of these animations became infamous due to Waluigi making an 'x' symbol by his crotch, which means "suck it". On March 22 2013, Reddit user designty submitted a post to r/gaming featuring a gif of Waluigi doing the Crotch Chop with the title "This is the best celebration in any video game".^[38] The post gained over 14 thousand upvotes and over 500 comments. Like Waluigi Time, the crotch chop is often used in context of Waluigi threads.

Search Interest

External References