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Japanese gamers’ heads explode as they learn Super Mario’s Goombas are mushrooms, not chestnuts

Scott Wilson Oct 1, 2015
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goomba mushrooms tup

Japan may love Mario, but they have a couple wrong ideas about the series. For example, did you know that in the Japanese versions of Mario, Goombas are called “kuribo,” which translates to “chestnut guy?” For three decades now, it has been widely believed in Japan that the Goombas are, indeed, chestnuts.

Until now. Thanks to the official Nintendo Line Messenger bot, Japanese netizens have learned the shocking truth about Mario’s oldest enemy: they’re not chestnuts, they’re shiitake mushrooms!

Read on and see for yourself the aftermath that shocked Japanese gamers all over the internet.

Recently, Nintendo released an automated bot to respond to messages people send via the popular Japanese smartphone messaging system Line. The idea is that users are talking to one of the game’s mushroom-headed Toads, and he’ll respond to pretty much anything you say.

One Japanese Twitter user discovered that if you just start throwing Toad a bunch of Nintendo character names, he’ll tell you what he thinks about them. Little did the Twitter user know what was in store… (translation below):

最後とんでもない新事実が判明してしまったんだけど pic.twitter.com/aJwU0vMPLt

— イズナウェイ (@dokasu_127) September 29, 2015

Q: Mario.
A: Our hero!
Q: Peach.
A: Always beautiful and smells nice.
Q: Koopa.
A: Scary. *shiver shiver*
Q: Boo.
A: I heard he won last year’s red light/green light national championship.
Q: Luigi.
A: The little brother and green friend.
Q: Toad.
A: The one with the red spots. He’s not me, but he’s my friend, so don’t get us mixed up!
Q: Yoshi.
A: Our green friend. He let me ride him the other day.

…and here’s the big one:

Q: Goomba.
A: They’re not actually chestnuts. They’re shiitake mushrooms!

▼ Mind blown mushroomed.

© RocketNews24

Of course this isn’t news to anyone who subscribed to the “Ask the President” column on the official Japanese Nintendo website, during which the late president of the company Satori Iwata and general manager of development Takashi Tezuka discussed this exact question some time ago. Here’s a translation of their conversation:

Iwata: “By the way, is it an accident that Goombas look a lot like mushrooms?”
Tezuka: “Oh, they’re actually based on shiitake mushrooms.”
Iwata: “What? Shiitake mushrooms? (Laughs) They’re not chestnuts?”
Tezuka: “That’s right.”
Iwata: “…This is quite a shock. I didn’t even know this (laughs).”

Of course when you think about it, very few of the Mario enemies’ names make sense to begin with. But still, for Japanese netizens who grew up thinking they were stomping on chestnut people this whole time, it was like learning that the “Super Mario Brothers” were actually just similar-looking neighbors. Here’s some of their reactions:

“W-w-w-w-what?!”
“All these years. I had no idea.”
“Well, I guess they do live in the Mushroom Kingdom, so it makes sense.”
“No way! Next thing they’ll tell us is that Princess Peach isn’t actually a peach!”

We may have some bad news for that last guy….

Source: Twitter/@dokasu127 via Hachima Kikou, Official Nintendo Japan
Featured/top image: Flickr/Alpha (Edited by RocketNews24)