this thread is old but i have some facts from my old mario files. first off, how old IS mario?? having a nice beer belly and stach means hes at least in his 40s, but if hes only in his 40s does that make luigi in his 40s too (different topic, wont delve into here) but anyway... the old expression "its red its dead"(red being communists) started during the vietnam war days but that was like over 60 years ago... so maybe you could argue that mario and luigis father was fighting for the vietcong during the veitnam war. marios dad was a coward (luigi gets that from his dad) and left vietnam for italy, where he met mario and luigis mom who was a communist from her fathers side during the WWII days. so now you have a communist vietnamese (asian) dad and communist italian (italian) mom who macked it up momma mia style and got pregnant with baby mario. this is where the curveball comes in... while pregnant with mario, marios parents moved to japan (bingo!) where he was born on the footstep of nintendo in tokyo. eventually luigi came too. that explains why they are also japanese. looking at the stats you can tell that mario is 50% vietnamese, 50% italian, a japanese citizen, but 100% "communist"