Fungi Forums
Video Games => Mario Chat => Topic started by: LuigiBros on February 18, 2009, 09:15:58 PM
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Do you think Birdo is a boy or girl?
I say boy because it was originally a boy.
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You should've included "tranny" as an option.
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You should've included "tranny" as an option.
What does that mean?
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Birdo is whatever you want Birdo to be...if you've got the money.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brawlinthefamily.com%2FImages%2F126-LensofTruth.jpg&hash=6548de7ef9ea8efe13aa4f3eedef9bcb)
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Birdo is a boy that thinks he's a girl..... I think that's what it said in the SM2 manual.
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I'm going for girl...based on her voice in Super Mario Advance.
Birdo is a boy that thinks he's a girl..... I think that's what it said in the SM2 manual.
I think it says that Birdo's a girl...but then I only have the SMAS/SMA versions of the game.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolkids-sg.com%2Fweblog%2Fpostimages%2F20060906-1.jpg&hash=66090bb6950791cad22ec2ef03dd668b)
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa182%2Fp3hrmne%2Fbirdetta.jpg&hash=463cb98253b87a7138b5842f3e0aaa0a)
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I wouldn't like Birdo any more than I do if I knew for sure, so I don't care.
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When I played American SMB2 for the first time as a child (after I got over how weird it was), I always thought Birdo was female because it was pink. Then I later played Wario's Woods where Birdo was known as Catherine (which I think is a better name anyway) and wore a bow. I'm so used to the idea of Birdo being female that I wasn't surprised to hear her with a female voice in Mario Tennis. And it kind of gives a reason for the poses of Yoshi and Birdo on the Mario Tennis title screen. I mean come on, that's too coincidental.
I acknowledge that Birdo most likely is a tranny. And after reading a little about Captain Rainbow, I know more than I ever wanted to know about it. But I keep on thinking "girl", and so find it strange whenever I hear a male voice coming out.
Don't really care for Birdo though. Birdo, Daisy, and Bowser Jr. are at the bottom of my list.
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Birdo is a hermaphroditic androgynite (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/21/).
Of course, we can't let little things like color, dress, and mannerisms sway us. After all, the main character in Barnyard (and the show it spawned) was a male cow with an udder.
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Now that I've grown accustomed to the idea of Birdo being a male that wishes it were female, I find the character to be potentially hilarious.
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Yes, a hilarious situation which causes numerous real people to undergo expensive, dangerous surgeries in order to rectify.
Ah ha ha ha...
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It'll be less uncomfortable once more Mario characters become dysfunctional.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolkids-sg.com%2Fweblog%2Fpostimages%2F20060906-1.jpg&hash=66090bb6950791cad22ec2ef03dd668b)
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa182%2Fp3hrmne%2Fbirdetta.jpg&hash=463cb98253b87a7138b5842f3e0aaa0a)
wait, so the thing that we now call Birdo is actualy ostro?
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In Super Mario Advance, Birdo has a girl's voice so I say that Birdo is in fact a girl.
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I believe Birdo is a male-to-female transgender person. I voted "Girl" because there's no "mtf transgender person" option on the poll.
wait, so the thing that we now call Birdo is actualy ostro?
No, it was an error in the manual, they switched the names around.
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I continue to maintain the same position I've always held: There are multiple Birdos. Yes, the manual talks about hir as if seh was a character, but it talks about Ostro the same way, and there are plenty of times when you can see multiple Ostros at once. Enemies are always treated like individual characters, especially in Japan, where attitudes toward individualism and collectivism are significantly different than ours, but if you're going to get scientific about it, you have to accept that they're species. I'm sure there exists at least one transgendered Birdo somewhere, but there are also ones that are fully male and fully female.
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So maybe they're all transgender!
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It they are transgender, how come all of them can spit eggs?
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Just like how there are male and female Toads, Goombas and Koopa Troopas, male and female Birdos might also exist in Mario's world...maybe...maybe.
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We'll never know for sure.
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I say boy...just for originality sakes
And Super Mario Advance was terrible...never has a gaming experience been more completely ruined from TERRIBLE voiceovers than that game
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I thought that game was stupid at first, but now I really want to go back and play it.
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I need to get all the coins again because the first copy I. My brother thought that Luigi's voice was done by a Japanese guy when I showed him playing it on my Game Boy Player and I told him the guy who does the voice is Charles Martinet.
By the way, what game is the first time Mario's voice was heard in game by Charles Martinet? And no, it's not Mario 64.
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Mario Teaches Typing. Come on man, that info is on this site.
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I didn't know this was a site. I thought it was just a forum where I ran around and said dumb stuff.
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I need to get all the coins again because the first copy I.
What?
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I didn't know this was a site. I thought it was just a forum where I ran around and said dumb stuff.
Sig quote.
Tie breaker. Birdo is a guy.
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Birdo is a female. she looks too much like a girl.
Not to mention, birdo's first appearence was a dream. Everyone knows weird things happen in a dream.
And dokidoki panic looks like it happened a long time ago.
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"He thinks he's a girl and would rather be called 'Birdetta'".
Sorry pal. Not to mention, the manual also says the game is real. Not a dream. Two strikes.
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But the game itself implies that the game is a dream (and it was apparently one of those fake-wake-up dreams where you have a dream and then think you wake up and then you wake up again but for real).
And I'd also like to reiterate, if I may, that I think this whole argument is moot because there are undeniably multiple Birdos. There are, in all likelihood, at least three in SMB2, and at least one sports game clearly shows a whole crowd of them. Yes, the manual says "he" rather than "they", but it treats all enemies as characters. Look at the entry for Ostro again (ignoring the switched name):
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolkids-sg.com%2Fweblog%2Fpostimages%2F20060906-1.jpg&hash=66090bb6950791cad22ec2ef03dd668b)
It calls Ostro a he instead of a they, even though there are multiple places in the game where you see two or more Ostros next to each other. Blame the translators and the ambiguous language and non-American culture of Japan.
The characteristics attributed to Birdo in the manual probably don't apply to the whole species, however, because if the species has meaningful concepts of male and female, there must be at least a few actual females and at least a few males willing to mate with the actual females, because the species has clearly propagated. They can apply perhaps only to the first Birdo seen in SMB2, or to all of them in SMB2, or maybe Mario, for some Freudian reason, always dreams about Birdos being transvestites.
It is unlikely that the playable Birdo that's been showing up in sports and kart titles lately is the transvestite Birdo from the SMB2 manual. Even if SMB2 was real, it took place in Sub-Con, a dream world separate from the Mushroom Kingdom, and people probably don't permanently move from one to the other (Incidentally, another pet peeve of mine is people complaining about SMB2 enemies showing up in the non-dream Mushroom World. In-universe, it makes perfect sense that Mario would dream about some things that actually exist in his world.).
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I came up with a fanfic backstory for Birdo saying that Wart made them as a pale imitation of Yoshies and the reason they all believe they're female is because of their ability to lay eggs. That was the best I could come up with. Sue me.
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/me sues The Chef
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Yeah, Mario Strikes allows you to have multiple Birdos, and there are different colored ones. I just view them as ugly versions of Yoshis. But that still doesn't solve the problem of the Birdo debate since it's really a matter of who THE Birdo is the same way we all know THE Yoshi. I vote girl, because Nintendo said so, and they own Birdo.
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Mario Strikes
Sounds sinister...
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Yeah, Mario Strikes allows you to have multiple Birdos, and there are different colored ones. I just view them as ugly versions of Yoshis. But that still doesn't solve the problem of the Birdo debate since it's really a matter of who THE Birdo is the same way we all know THE Yoshi. I vote girl, because Nintendo said so, and they own Birdo.
Except Nintendo Co Ltd. in Japan said otherwise, and they own Birdo even more.
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That's true, but since I'm living in America, I don't care about what Nintendo of Japan says. Japan is a messed up culture to begin with. I don't want transvestites in my Mario games.
And har har at typos.
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Whether you want them or not, they're there. NOA is just telling you what to think while the real world goes on outside. And/or consider that NCL makes the games so you wouldn't be playing them at all otherwise.
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If by "the real world" you mean a fictitious video game series with a loose to nonexistant storyline, then I guess that's true.
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Exactly.
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Japan is a messed up culture to begin with.
America's culture is far more messed up.
NOTE: I love living in America and wouldn't want to live elsewhere. Just wanted to clear that up.
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Ok, messed up was a bad way of putting it. I've got nothing against Japan. I should've said "Japan is a wacky, zany, crazy culture compared to others."
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America is messed up in a boring way, at least for now.
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Japan just has a weird fixation on sex and sexuality. I think it might have something to do with being a really really old country and still maintaining some bits and pieces of the culture they had some hundreds of years ago.
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Which they'd still have more of if not for crazy Westerners coming and telling them they were doing it wrong.
Japan just has less taboos, which I think is good, personally. I wouldn't mind a language with no distinction on what words you can and can't say.
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Except for the honor system. Use the wrong word for "the" when you're talking to your aunt and you'll be exiled for like ever. In a desert. A desert made of blood. The blood of those you have wronged.
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Sure, they've got porn left and right, but I understand the rape rate is way lower there than in most other countries.
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Yeah they have their own taboos Chupperson, just in different places. Like CrossEyed said, something like addressing your friend's mother with the wrong verb conjugation would be an example. Japanese people may look at America and go "Oh thats terrible. How can they not make any distinction when talking to one who is in a higher position than you?!"
Another fun thing is that despite all the porn left and right, they still feel the need to censor it, regardless of all the other insane things going on it.
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I think it's mainly penises that they are worried about. Here, we have angry soccer moms that whine whenever they see just one second of an exposed boob.
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Those censorship rules were actually imposed by the US government in the '40s and aren't actually in effect anymore as I understand it... just a lot of people over there don't realize it.
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I think it's mainly weenuses that they are worried about. Here, we have angry soccer moms that whine whenever they see just one second of an exposed boob.
You do realize that a "weenus" is the little cluster of skin on one's elbow, right? :P
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You have the censor to thank for that.
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My guess is that The First Birdos you meet that Only Shoot Eggs are Girls, and the ones who Shoot Fire are Boys!
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Well, that makes as much sense as anything at this point. Of course, it's apparently established that (the same) Birdo keeps coming back over and over, so...
This thread suddenly made me think of the Neil Gaiman story "Changes" I just read yesterday.
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Let's close the poll, and leave it as a tie
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Honestly, it's hot pink, has eyelashes and a bow, talks in a really girly voice, so, it's definately a girl. Also, i found out yoshi likes her.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages1.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20100829212350%2Ffantendo%2Fimages%2Fthumb%2Fd%2Fd1%2FCupid.jpg%2F177px-Cupid.jpg&hash=97280e7ae557ef8f9a32aac735004d87)
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I think Birdo's a girl, because she spits and lays eggs and wears a bow. Everyone knows only female birds make eggs. Also, the booklet that refers to Birdo as a "he" could have some loss in translation. In English, we don't really have any gender-neutral words, but I know that in Spanish, "su" can mean "his/her/your". Maybe there is a word in Japanese similar to this Spanish word that is sort of gender-neutral, and it was translated wrong.
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Watch the video posted in this Satellaview blog post. (http://superfamicom.org/blog/2008/05/live-broadcast-game-bs-super-mario-usa-week-1/) (Birdo comes up much later on)
Now tell me Birdo isn't a guy. :J
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One of the last papers I wrote as an undergraduate in college was about Birdo; It was a class on transgendered and inter-sex matters regarding literature and media.
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What does that mean?
"Tranny" is short for tranvestite, or androgidous. It means someone who likes to dress in garb traditionally worn by the opposite sex.
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Basically Weegee.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fp01s0n.orconhosting.net.nz%2Ficeburn.gif&hash=8771fb693495e0db88bd6632985fb486)
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For how long it's been since that gif was last used (and considering who generally used it), I'm a little underwhelmed.
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Why isn't anyone just "whelmed"?
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You know that feeling you get when you're flipping channels? When you're eating breakfast? When you're checking your email? That's being whelmed.
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Not necessarily, depending on what you're watching, eating, or reading.
But that was mostly a reference to Young Justice's incarnation of Robin, who likes to mess with words (http://robinspeak.tumblr.com/).
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"Tranny" is short for tranvestite, or androgidous. It means someone who likes to dress in garb traditionally worn by the opposite sex.
Correction: "Tranny" is most commonly used as an abbreviation for "transsexual", AKA one who has his or her gender surgically reassigned due to a desire for attention.
inb4 "Weegee seems very knowledgeable on this subject"
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Weegee seems very knowledgeable on this subject.
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You know what's weird? In Japan, Birdo is called Catherine, and then the descriptions (http://themushroomkingdom.net/birdo.shtml) say she'd prefer to be called "Cathy" because she identifies as female. Does Japan think Catherine is a guy's name? Is it one over there?
Maybe it's just that Cathy is a cuter-sounding variation rather than just being her species name, regardless of how feminine the species name already sounds (kinda like how Toadette and Toad are both Toads). Maybe it's a semi-common thing in the Mushroom World to name your son after your species name (Mario Mario?), and she wants to get away from that convention.
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I like the second theory, and don't think Japan views Catherine as a male name considering the game Catherine, which features a girl named Catherine and a girl named Katherine.
Hmm, I wonder how that gag works in Japanese.
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I don't think it does, since both names are written as キャサリン. Katherine has a last name, though, so maybe it's that, or maybe they do something with the color it's written in.
(Looking a little more (http://cathy.atlus.co.jp/), it seems they'd refer to them as Catherine and Katherine in English in the Japanese version as well.)
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It doesn't. (http://i.imgur.com/AlvSc.png)
Edit: Looks like Warp beat me to it. Oh well.
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In Japan, Birdo is a transgender. (like me)
In America, Hell I don't know anymore.
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(like me)
I love how nonchalantly you mentioned this.
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I voted boy because it's funnier (and stated outright in the original Super Mario Bros. 2 instruction manual), but I know that "officially" in the U.S., Birdo is a lady. It makes his/her shouts of "mount!" in Double Dash!! all the funnier and weirder.
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As of Mario Strikers Charged, Birdo is a guy again. I could've sworn I made posts relating to this back when this thread was still fresh.
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Well, in Japan she's m-to-f trans (most likely pre-op) , but it's up to American localizers whether they go by sex or by gender.
How exactly does the Strikers reference go, though? Isn't Birdo in there as a species rather than a character?
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Back when Strikers Charged was first released, Birdo's description on the official website referred to him as a "he".
In-game Birdo is not referred to by anything. Every game since then has skirted around the issue by not describing Birdo in any gender-specific format.
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MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY FOR THIS POST
He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called "birdetta."
This explanation is not satisfactory. If there's a big hole that eggs are coming out of, xe doesn't just "think" xe's a girl.
I mean, unless they're implying that it's really just a mouth and xe swallows a whole [dukar]bunch of eggs every time whenever xe's going to show up on camera so xe can spit them out.
But the more likely explanation is that the Birdo's we've seen are all physically female and it's always "that" "time" of the "month" (that's why they're fighting you) and the biologist writing the SMUSA manual had never seen Birdos before (and called them Ostros) and was just confused and didn't know what the hell was going on (again, they called them Ostros, which doesn't even make sense, how do they look like ostriches?).
It is some weird anatomy going on there, but I mean we've got jellyfish (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_jellyfish_poo), so it's not that big a leap.
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xe
Maybe I'm not up to date on my gender-neutral pronouns, but this one's new to me.
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wait, so the thing that we now call Birdo is actualy ostro?
This was actually a mistake.
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So first base with a Birdo is also third base?
This changes everything.
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I say Birdo is a boy.
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Captain Rainbow sorta nullifies this in a rather risqué way. (lss: she's a girl)
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Hermaphrodite.
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Relevant song (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kuk9hnp234).
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And I thought it would be "Lola" by the Kinks.
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Here's something interesting I noticed in BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge: The three Birdo voice actors were transsexual cast members from Shiroi Heya, a night club in Japan. I just added more on this to the Birdo article (http://themushroomkingdom.net/birdo.shtml#bssmusa).
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How did you find that one out? O_o
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He's certainly earned the Deezer Award this year.
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How did you find that one out? O_o
I noticed the connection from Googling all the names while translating the game credits.
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Even following the trail into real life, the ambiguity continues.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schoolkids-sg.com%2Fweblog%2Fpostimages%2F20060906-1.jpg&hash=66090bb6950791cad22ec2ef03dd668b)
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa182%2Fp3hrmne%2Fbirdetta.jpg&hash=463cb98253b87a7138b5842f3e0aaa0a)
Well then...
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wait, so the thing that we now call Birdo is actualy ostro?
no, what says ostro should be birdo and birdo should say ostro... they had a minor fail. I saw it on my smb2 manual
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Well that was a worthwhile bump. -__-
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Don't be a dick.
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Noobs making insubstantial and seemingly arbitrary bumps? Nothing new here.
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Funny, the Game Grumps covered this recently.
Honestly I was just happy to unlock Birdo in MKWii...
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You shouldn´t have done that..
Really, Birdo it seems like a girl but some of the people says that it´s a boy, i will continue believing that is a girl (By Mario Bros 2 that Birdo put an egg)
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Noobs making insubstantial and seemingly arbitrary bumps? Nothing new here.
I remember my insubstantial and seemingly arbitrary bump days. Memories...
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You shouldn´t have done that..
Really, Birdo it seems like a girl but some of the people says that it´s a boy, i will continue believing that is a girl (By Mario Bros 2 that Birdo put an egg)
Hate to break it to you, but signs point to Birdo being a boy - http://themushroomkingdom.net/birdo.shtml
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Hate to break it to you, but signs point to Birdo being a boy - http://themushroomkingdom.net/birdo.shtml
"Catherine" in Japan...Catherine is not a girl name?...God Lord..is a boy?...God...
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It is a girl's name....but he's still a boy.
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You can name a kid anything you want. Anything.
You shouldn't, but still.
Although, being that Birdo is transsexual, it is entirely possible Catherine is not the name on her birth certificate but one chosen for legal change. Since she doesn't have a made-up/unisex name in Japan. Even in English we have Superstar Saga where she tells Popple that she doesn't want to be called by the masculine-sounding "Birdo," wanting to be called "Birdie" instead.
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Catherine is totally his drag queen name. His Japanese bio (if you read the link) also says he likes to be called 'Cathy'.
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He enjoys candle-lit dinners and long walks on the beach.
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Wouldn't put it past him, honestly.
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birdo AND yoshi are both clearly girls they CRAP OUT EGGS !!!!
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hi all i'd just like to say that today is my first day as a TMK member i must say that i am a 23 year old man whos favorite games/ series has always and always will be mario franchise i feel like i am finally among my own kind of peeps who share my passion!!!!!!!!!! if you feel the same passion that i do please email me SMRPG legend of the 7 stars BEST GAME EVER MADE
doinit143611@gmail.com EMAIL ME
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i am a 23 year old man
Riiiiiiiight.
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Yeah, definitely a girl.
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16/f/cali
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Girl
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A girl
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MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY FOR THIS POST
This explanation is not satisfactory. If there's a big hole that eggs are coming out of, xe doesn't just "think" xe's a girl.
Birdo snouts could be cloacas, which would explain why every Birdo we've seen has one (and maybe also why someone thought they resembled birds).
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Question, before I forget: is "xe" unpronounceable, or do you say it like Chekov saying "the"?
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I pronounce it as "zee" or "it", depending on how badly I want to offend the other party.
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Despite all the official media, I myself find it hard to determine Birdo's gender. My 7-year-old brother actually believes Birdo is a boy! Unless I want to talk about the topic though, I go around calling Birdo an "it" to play it safe. But when I'm wanting to talk about it...
I believe in the possibility that older American media and present-day Japanese media calling Birdo/Catherine a boy. But I also believe Birdo can be a girl too, especially if we're talking about Yoshi's love interests, because I know not everyone can be accepting for such a relationship if the two were boys, you know what I mean? I wouldn't care either way, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't mean EVERYONE else thinks the same as me.
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I actually had a debate with a friend about this when we had a N64 tournament a while ago. We're both on the older side now (late 20s) and are old enough to have played Mario 2 when it was being sold for NES.
After about ten minutes of discussion, we believe Birdo is a boy who wants to be a girl. The Mario 2 manual did come up, and we believe Nintendo uses the female pronouns in newer media because Birdo has decided to adhere to the female gender. This actually happens quite often with people who are unsure of their gender at some point and decide to live as the opposite gender. There have been cases in the news about this recently in which the family and friends of such a person would start using the opposite gender pronouns and identification. This, I believe, is what happened with Birdo.
Notice how Birdo has no bow in Mario 2. The later versions do have a bow (although I really can't remember if the Mario All Stars game on the SNES has a bow). This is, to me, equivalent to someone unsure about their gender eventually going to identification through clothing and the like. It reminds me of a case I heard on the news about a year or so ago where a boy from a western state (Colorado? Texas?) started to dress and look (i.e. long hair) like a girl. (This was the child who wasn't allowed to use the girls' bathroom, which led to a court case).
Someone mentioned eggs. The thing is, we don't really know much about Birdo's species, and if eggs are being shot out of what appears to be a nose, this definitely isn't the classic egg-laying creature we're used to. Perhaps they aren't really even eggs at all and only resemble them. In Mario 2, after all, you don't see them cracking open. Birdo was also in Mario RPG and I don't remember anything like that happening there either. They're more or less projectiles, and it could be more a means of self-defense than reproduction.
OK--I hope this post wasn't over-political or anything like that!!
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There wasn't much of a need for a debate. (http://themushroomkingdom.net/birdo.shtml)
Being a dude in drag is basically Birdo's entire schtick in Japan.
Nintendo of America on the other hand acknowledged it at first, then started calling him a girl, then didn't mention his gender at all, and now acknowledges it again but doesn't mention it directly.
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I think there's room for debate on whether Birdo is actually transgender (male-bodied at birth; fully identifies as female; may or may not have had gender confirmation surgery / hormone replacement therapy / etc.), or just a drag queen (a man who dresses as a woman as a performance, but may still identify as a man).
The original Japanese descriptions could lean more toward drag queen -- "he thinks he's a girl" just being a flippant way of referring to a male-bodied person wearing women's clothes, like when you see a cat sitting in a chair in a human-like fashion and you say "Aw, look, it thinks it's people!" But as they go on, the descriptions sound less like it's an act and more like it's just the way Birdo fully identifies, even if the Japanese manual writers don't respect that -- "A pink dinosaur who's convinced he's a woman, and is a young maiden at heart," from Itadaki Street DS; "He's a pink dinosaur(?) who firmly believes he's a woman. He gets extremely happy when people call him 'Cathy,'" from the Japanese Brawl trophy.
So I'm going to use female pronouns when referring to Birdo.
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Birdo is usually voiced by a drag queen in Japan though, so I'm going with drag queen.
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One thing that I think does complicate the question of "Does Birdo really identify as female, or is it an act?" is that all Mario characters are always acting. Miyamoto's vision of the games is like a Popeye cartoon or a Muppet movie, where Mario and Bowser take on the roles of hero and villain for one game, but can change roles for another, while backstage they would exist as their actual selves, as actors. So whenever we see Birdo, she's acting, just like every other character.
But even if it's the case that Birdo the Actor is actually a cisgender male playing the part of a transwoman or a crossdressing man, we're seeing her while she's performing, and it would be rude to break up the act. She's indicated that she wants to be addressed as female, and it's only polite to respect that.
(Also, Tails is voiced by an adult woman; that doesn't mean he's an adult woman.)
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I don't think Japan and Japanese creators are that up on gender politics. Especially not whomever came up with Birdo. He's just a dude who ("erroneously") thinks he's a girl. And since Birdo is a fictional character and can't tell us off for not using the right pronoun, I don't think it matters if I call him a 'he'. At least calling him a 'he' lets people know that yes, Birdo is not biologically a woman (if you want to go as deep as using terms such as "biologically" on Mario characters of all things).
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One thing that I think does complicate the question of "Does Birdo really identify as female, or is it an act?" is that all Mario characters are always acting. Miyamoto's vision of the games is like a Popeye cartoon or a Muppet movie, where Mario and Bowser take on the roles of hero and villain for one game, but can change roles for another, while backstage they would exist as their actual selves, as actors.
Sorry to be a bit off topic here, but this point interested me so much I literally just made a profile to ask about it. (I would have posted a new thread, but since I've never posted here before, a-hijacking I will go.) Do you know of any interview where Miyamoto stated this directly? I've waded through years of interviews and haven't found any comments he's made to this sentiment. It's not that I don't believe you (that's totally something he would say), I just would like to have a link handy for all future arguments about X or Y where this would clear things up. (These kinds of discussions do tend to crop up where ever I go.)
It also would make for some interesting discussions as to which kind of theater it's more like. I mean, since Miyamoto's Japanese, we might find some credence in attributing it to Kabuki rather than a more western kind of movie, or theater. Then if we stretch it, there's a small chance Princess Peach is a man and Bowser is just a big mask. Any way, I just was wondering if you have an article link-- it'd save me a lot of searching through interviews. Thanks either way, though. That's a new way of looking at the Mario series for me. (Makes a few things like everyone playing tennis together seem actually in character all the sudden...)
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I remember fairly recently a topic or something we had about how the enemies are treated almost like individuals who appear in many places at once, with even SMB1's manual introducing each one like "This is Goomba, he has no sense of self-preservation" and "This is Bullet Bill, he is honorable enough to not shoot Mario from point blank" etc. Which works really well with the many enemies named with a common given name, and changed my perspective on how generic enemies will sometimes be playable in Mario Kart and such. I think the "actors portraying characters for today's misadventure" idea had something to do with that. I dunno how many sources were cited then, though.
What's interesting to me is how far back that apparently goes, even though so much of Mario's world has changed over the years. The red stage curtains over Super Mario Bros. 2's character select screen and SMB3's title and credits support it. And supposedly, the plan early on was to have Mario appear in all Nintendo's games in some role, like he does as the referee in Punch-Out!!.
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It certainly adds some deeper dynamics on characters. It's less like "oh, another spin off" and more like "ah, we get to see what they do in their off time!" Like Dry Bone's apparent affinity for cart racing and soccer, but (by omission) we can assume he's not too big of a fan of playing tennis. They're like celebrities, rather than placeholders in that respect. An interesting idea, to assume all games are canon.
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The exact quote was from this Game Informer interview in 2012 (http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/09/24/miyamoto-tezuka-interview.aspx):
Time and again, Bowser kidnaps Peach. Why do Mario and Peach still race go-karts and play tennis with him?
SM: If you're familiar with things like Popeye and some of the old comic characters, you would oftentimes see this cast of characters that takes on different roles depending on the comic or cartoon. They might be businessman in one [cartoon] or a pirate in another. Depending on the story that was being told, they would change roles. So, to a certain degree, I look at our characters in a similar way and feel that they can take on different roles in different games. It's more like they're one big family, or maybe a troupe of actors.
This was the same interview that told us Mario and Luigi don't have a last name, the Koopalings aren't Bowser's children in "our current story", Mario's hair is naturally brown, and Dr. Mario "was maybe, in some way, not necessarily legitimate."
And with the character-species thing, it's kind of like Pokémon. Cubone is a Pokémon who wears his dead mother's skull. You can catch a Cubone. You can catch multiple Cubone. You can put a female Cubone in the daycare with another Pokémon and she will lay an egg and Cubone will hatch out of the egg, already wearing the skull of his dead mother. You can even have Cubone who are each other's full siblings, each of them wearing their dead mother's skull, and have them in a party along with their mother. (Granted, part of the reason Cubone is so bad about this is because breeding wasn't invented until Gen 2, but still)
Welcome to the fora, by the way!
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the plan early on was to have Mario appear in all Nintendo's games in some role
I can only imagine.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FNT6a20r.png&hash=f0299707fd962696407364446efe1aaa)
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Heheh. I dunno if it meant that he'd be the star of whatever the genre of the day was or if it meant stuff like the referee cameo would happen more often. What if Talon and Mr. EAD were actually Mario, having auditioned to play a dairy farmer and a racing android with a terrible car
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I like to think they're more like Mario's "Elseworlds" counterparts. James McCloud would also fall into that, as would the Octoman from Star Fox Command. And maybe Nav-Com from Star Tropics.
(Granted, part of the reason Cubone is so bad about this is because breeding wasn't invented until Gen 2, but still)
Sadly it seems Cubone is a victim of segregation of gameplay and story. It's kinda like how they obviously wanted to give the player a greater pool of enemies to fight in Kingdom Hearts 2, but then had to bend over backward to write Nobodies into the story. I don't think there are any Pokémon introduced after Gen 2 whose 'Dex entries say anything about family members. I bet Cubone would have some other less-specific explanation for the skull on its had had it been introduced after Gen 1.
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The exact quote was from this Game Informer interview in 2012 (http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/09/24/miyamoto-tezuka-interview.aspx):
This was the same interview that told us Mario and Luigi don't have a last name, the Koopalings aren't Bowser's children in "our current story", Mario's hair is naturally brown, and Dr. Mario "was maybe, in some way, not necessarily legitimate."
Thank you! That saved me like, a billion interviews to read through! (I might go back and read them anyway, though. lol)
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Off-topic, but I've got a Firefox extension installed called Cloud to Butt Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cloud-to-butt-plus/) (because, you see, I am a mature adult), so I got this in The Chef's post:
James McButt
It made me chuckle. Again, I assure you, only because I am a mature adult.
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Butt to Butt Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cloud-to-butt-plus/)
hehehe (http://i.imgur.com/zqVZy.jpg)
Also, have this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
"In the SaaS model, butt providers install and operate application software in my butt and butt users access the software from butt clients."
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It's ok. Against everything you might expect of me, I actually find the "Expand Dong" meme side-splitting hilarious.
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My love showers you in coconut cream pies.
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Back to somewhere vaguely on topic:
Time and again, Bowser kidnaps Peach. Why do Mario and Peach still race go-karts and play tennis with him?
SM: If you're familiar with things like Popeye and some of the old comic characters, you would oftentimes see this cast of characters that takes on different roles depending on the comic or cartoon. They might be businessman in one [cartoon] or a pirate in another. Depending on the story that was being told, they would change roles. So, to a certain degree, I look at our characters in a similar way and feel that they can take on different roles in different games. It's more like they're one big family, or maybe a troupe of actors.
What's kind of interesting about that quote is that Donkey Kong was going to be a Popeye game. (http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/nsmb/0/0) Was this planned all along?
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The entire Mario franchise has just been a jilted Miyamoto trying to make his own Popeye.
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All joking aside, he was hired to create replacements for the Popeye characters.
Now the real question is why they didn't go with a Popeye game. I've heard two reasons -
1) Supposed rights issues according to David Shef's Game Over book, but that seems a little odd considering they did make a Popeye game for real the following year.
2) Unable to properly render the Popeye characters given the technology they had available. This seems a little more likely given what was put into Mario's design to make up for the lack of versatility in the graphics display. It's also been noted that the actual Popeye game they made used a technique that devotes less detail to the backgrounds in order to make the characters' sprites look better.
Or maybe it was a combination of both?