March 10 of every year is MAR10 Day.

 

When it comes to video game characters that many people have known for decades, even those who don’t play games know this character. Who else could it be but the legendary plumber (I’m not small) Mario Brother? Every March 10th is the day that Uncle Mustache’s fans celebrate and declare this day as his birthday or MAR10 Day. It’s an ordinary day that suddenly becomes an important day for Uncle Mustache Mario, which falls on March 10th of every year. The origin of this day doesn’t have any special meaning or connection to Uncle Mustache or the Super Mario series. However, fans honor March 10th as MAR10 Day. Since it’s Uncle Mustache Mario’s birthday, let’s take a look at the history of this character’s origins and why he’s still in people’s hearts. Let’s take a look at the story of Mario Brother together.

Let's start with the first thing that many people wonder about: why does it have to be March 10? Why not some other day? And what's so interesting about March 10? I have to explain it simply. March 10 is a play on words from the West that all fans of Uncle Mario accidentally discovered, which even Nintendo didn't think of. It's the name of the month, March. In English, it's March, which has an abbreviation that we all know, MAR. When combined with the 10th, we get MAR10 (MARIO). Today has unintentionally become MAR10 Day. That's the origin of this day. As for Mario's real name, it's Mario Brother.

The character Mario was created by a Japanese game designer named Shigeru Miyamoto, an Italian plumber living in the Mushroom Kingdom. He first appeared in the game Donkey Kong in 1981 as a carpenter who went on a trip with his girlfriend. While visiting the circus, Mario teased a monkey until it got angry and broke out of its cage and captured Mario's girlfriend, so he had to help. When the idea for this game began, Mr. Shigeru wanted to use characters from the Popeye cartoon series to create it. However, when he tried to request the copyright for this cartoon, it was rejected, so Mr. Shigeru had to create the character himself. That is the origin of the birth of Uncle Mustache Mario that we know.

At that time, Shigeru intended to name the main character in the game as Mr. Video, who would represent other games in the future. But the sales department wanted to change the name to Jumpman in the English version, because he only jumped in the game. But then the turning point happened when the Donkey Kong game was very popular in Japan. Nintendo wanted to market this game in America by turning the dusty arcade games into Donkey Kong. At that time, the warehouse that Nintendo rented was owned by Grandpa Mario Segale. At that time, Grandpa Mario was having a dispute over the warehouse rental with Nintendo's president, Mr. Minoru Arakawa. Grandpa Mario breached the warehouse rental contract with Nintendo (the information did not say what the breach of contract was). In the end, Grandpa Mario had to pay compensation. That was the beginning of the story.

The story of this conflict, Mr. Don James, a former warehouse manager of Nintendo of America at the time who was present at the event, told the story in 2012 that he and Mr. Arakawa named the character after Mario to mock Grandpa Mario because after that incident, Grandpa Mario had become so isolated that no employee had ever seen him. According to the information, Grandpa Mario's friend commented that "From my understanding and direct perception, Mario Segel did not care that his name was the inspiration for this famous character. And he modestly showed pride in that fact in front of his grandchildren and close adults." In short, Grandpa was happy that his name was the name of a legendary character and showed it to his grandchildren.

Now let's take a look at Mario's occupation in the game. According to Mr. Shigeru, Uncle Mustache Mario's first occupation was a carpenter. Because the setting in Donkey Kong is a construction site, Mr. Shigeru chose Mario to be a carpenter to fit the storyline of the game. And when he appeared again in Mario Bros., it was decided that he should be a plumber. Since most of the game is set in an underground scene, he created the storyline that this is the underground in New York. As for Mario's character design, especially his big nose, it was influenced by the West. When he became a plumber, Mr. Shigeru created the storyline that he was Italian who went to work in New York.

The creation of the Mario character we see today was due to the graphical limitations of the arcade hardware at the time. Shigeru had the character wear a red overalls and a blue shirt to contrast with the other characters and the background, and to make the arm movements easier to see. He also had a red hat to avoid drawing the character's forehead and eyebrows, and to avoid the problem of animating his hair while jumping. This also made the human facial features clearer. The addition of the mustache eliminated the need to graphically draw the mouth when jumping. It was well-designed.

This is a brief history of Mario, which I believe many people should already know. But some people still don't know, so let's find out together. And up until now, the character Mario is still active in the gaming world and there are new games coming out all the time up until now. And I have to thank Mr. Miyamoto Shigeru, without him we probably wouldn't have known and played fun games like the Mario series until today. Now that I've finished talking, I want to play Mario games. Let's go pick up Uncle Mustache's game and play, guys. Let's go.