My name is Wario. I have been blessed to be a team member in the Nintendo franchise for 27 years, serving as a foil to Mario and getting to work alongside my brother Waluigi. It’s truly the greatest job in the world: I’ve made millions of dollars, I get to spend time around beautiful women like Peach and Daisy, and I get to roleplay as a villain. However, I also struggle with a demon larger than the one I embody on the screen: my weight.
I’ve always been bigger, and that’s something that I’ve been self-conscious about for as long as I can recall. My brother Waluigi shot up to over 6 feet quickly after he was generated by Nintendo’s design team, and he’s maintained his skinny figure ever since; he really got the best of the algorithms in his code. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great brother, but it was impossible not to compare myself to him growing up. All the other kids used to tease me, saying I looked more like Bowser than a pseudo-Italian. Those insults cut deep, and when I reflect on it now, I can see how they influenced some of my more destructive behavior.
As my career at Nintendo progressed, I stopped acting like a normal villain, with the fireballs and whatnot, and projected my insecurities onto the job. Suddenly, ground-pounding people wasn’t enough; I wanted to eat them. Partially driven by my resentment stemming from those childhood insults and partially by my monstrous appetite, I began inhaling people left and right. This really came to a head when I got the Super Smash Bros. gig in 2008. Every match I was in, I would eat others. I ate Yoshis, I ate Captain Falcons, I ate Nesses — I even ate King Dededes, who are far larger than I am. I would fart all over the place, shamelessly marking my territory as I consumed my colleagues. I rode a motorcycle to compensate for my lack of confidence due to my obesity. Then I noticed everyone who played the game started saying things like, “fuck Wario,” and, “seriously, dude, you’re going to play as Wario again? You’re such a troll.” It really made me realize what my insecurities had done to me.
We have a lot of time between games, and during this most recent break I decided to start getting my life back on track. I’ve ditched my Wario Kart in favor of cycling to work, and I’ve started eating those turnips Peach grows in order to develop a healthier diet. It’s a long road ahead, but I’m committed to being the man my programmers always knew I could be. I even joke sometimes to my colleague Luigi that I might have to start borrowing his overalls soon once mine get too loose.
One day I’ll be able to follow my brethren down those shiny green pipes into the great unknown. I don’t know when that day will come, but every day brings me one step closer.