Although I have not seen the recent Pac-Man and Mega Man animated series to confirm, I have read that both series did references from their video game history that could be considered fan service. The main issue with those animated series is that their art styles and settings are different from the originals, which would put off original fans. For the audience who aren't familiar with the source material, these types of references may fly over their heads, so they wouldn't really understand the significance of it. In other words, there is a mismatch on what the audiences would have liked about those shows.
So that brings me to this topic. As a character, Mario has a rather prolific life that spans four decades (remember: Mario was created in 1981), and he never really had a lull period since he's getting new games in pretty much every year, although he was a bit slow in his first few years. As a franchise, Mario starred in games of various types, including a popular platformer series that became his signature series, an unrivalled racing and party series and a few RPG games. He even starred in a few cartoons and comics, so there are plenty of things within Mario to references.
Would references throughout Mario's history in a hypothetical Mario animated series be a good idea? To give you an idea on the types of details and intricacies present in the Mario series, one can view Supper Mario Broth and find out the breadth of things that one might find interesting. Of course, that blog do delve into way obscure things that one wouldn't bother to look for, and then there's the fact that an animated series can't waste time looking for material to implement into the show. It would basically be simpler references like major elements from the Super Show or perhaps a location found in a Mario RPG game. This is the type of thing that would require a Mario fan to be able to do, given how the Sonic comic series began doing referential stuff when Sonic fans began writing the comic.
Within the era of Mario that we all know today starting around the millennium, the amount of non-game media that Mario had aren't as frequent as before, as there were no animated series, and pretty much the only thing that crossed the threshold between the classic and modern eras is the Mario manga in Japan. Perhaps now is the right time for Mario to have a bigger reach since he has an upcoming movie that is slated for next year, and recently he's even got a theme park after him.
So the question now is: would a solid amount of references within Mario's history be beneficial for a non-game media involving Mario, or would it be better that they focus on originality instead?
Thank you for reading.
So that brings me to this topic. As a character, Mario has a rather prolific life that spans four decades (remember: Mario was created in 1981), and he never really had a lull period since he's getting new games in pretty much every year, although he was a bit slow in his first few years. As a franchise, Mario starred in games of various types, including a popular platformer series that became his signature series, an unrivalled racing and party series and a few RPG games. He even starred in a few cartoons and comics, so there are plenty of things within Mario to references.
Would references throughout Mario's history in a hypothetical Mario animated series be a good idea? To give you an idea on the types of details and intricacies present in the Mario series, one can view Supper Mario Broth and find out the breadth of things that one might find interesting. Of course, that blog do delve into way obscure things that one wouldn't bother to look for, and then there's the fact that an animated series can't waste time looking for material to implement into the show. It would basically be simpler references like major elements from the Super Show or perhaps a location found in a Mario RPG game. This is the type of thing that would require a Mario fan to be able to do, given how the Sonic comic series began doing referential stuff when Sonic fans began writing the comic.
Within the era of Mario that we all know today starting around the millennium, the amount of non-game media that Mario had aren't as frequent as before, as there were no animated series, and pretty much the only thing that crossed the threshold between the classic and modern eras is the Mario manga in Japan. Perhaps now is the right time for Mario to have a bigger reach since he has an upcoming movie that is slated for next year, and recently he's even got a theme park after him.
So the question now is: would a solid amount of references within Mario's history be beneficial for a non-game media involving Mario, or would it be better that they focus on originality instead?
Thank you for reading.
