Nintendo, finally seeing the error of its ways, has corrected one of the great injustices of 2017. Mario has been reinstated as a legitimate plumber, rather than a profession he used to hold down "a long time ago."
We're having a bit of a laugh here but, based on the fact that a recent reddit topic has earned 123 comments in less than a day on the subject, we figure it's an important distinction to at least a few folks out there.
Said reddit page points out that the Japanese character description for Mario once again states that he is a plumber. Last August, Nintendo's profile for the character said that he was no longer a plumber and, in fact, it was a profession he had not been a part of for a number of years.
This caused a surprising amount of backlash, especially from us folks who had grown used to referring to the character by monikers such as "the mustachioed plumber." I mean, "the mustachioed former plumber" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
We suppose the argument could be made that Mario and his brother, Luigi, used to be plumbers, until they were whisked away to the magical Mushroom Kingdom, where they basically became professional adventurers. Between punching Yoshi in the back of the head, thwarting Bowser's evil plans and heading to the castle every now and again for cake, it probably eats up a lot of a guy's free time. And let's not forget how diversified Mario's skill set has become over the years, including just about every sport under the sun, training for his Olympic showdowns against Sonic, racing Karts and more.
We figure Nintendo didn't expect the August 2017 profile update to cause any sort of stir and, based on the reaction of fans, they probably decided to throttle back on the career change. As one commenter points out, Bowser even refers to Mario as "Plumber Boy" in Super Mario Odyssey. Sure, he could be simply referencing a career Mario hasn't taken part in for around 30 years, but we choose to believe this is instead proof that our cap-tossing hero is continuing his noble profession; though maybe as a freelance side project now that he's so busy with golf, shooting Rabbids and whatnot.
If you've got some free time on your hands, I'd recommend diving into those reddit comments. There are some interesting conversations being had, as well as a few historical nuggets concerning Mario and his pals being shared. There's also proof that there are a surprising number of people out there who take Mario's history pretty seriously. I mean, there are sourced arguments and everything being thrown around. It's pretty fantastic.
