Toad, Toadette, and Gender

[Sengir]

http://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-s...-siblings/

the producer of captain toad: treasure tracker stated that despite gendered appearances, toads do not have an official sex

"gendered appearances" referencing the standard toad design vs toads with ponytails/pigtails
meaning toad is not male and toadette is not female; they only appear differently

also toad and toadette are officially not siblings (i didnt think anybody thought they were?)
just "adventure pals"


i think this is p neat
i'd like to see vivian return to paper mario as a trans character outside of japan
and maybe confirm birdo

we already see some gay characters (like the bedsmith), i think itd be neat to recognise some as trans and others (the toads) as completely without a sex

[Koopaul]

That's what I always assumed with Yoshis. They were natural hermaphrodites (like slugs) but each one decides to identify as a "he" or "she".

[Sengir]

it never says that toads are hermaphoditic, only that they dont have sex/gender even though they have gendered appearances
and i think the mystery around that is good

like instead of players being able to dogmatically state that one toad is male and another is female
all toads are just toads. there is no male or female
anything else is fanfiction

i love this

[Omega]

MY LIFE IS A LIE

[Shade]

I dunno, I've always seen the toads as either gender, while Toadettes are exclusive to the female gender.

[Kosheh]

http://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-s...-siblings/

the producer of captain toad: treasure tracker stated that despite gendered appearances, toads do not have an official sex

"gendered appearances" referencing the standard toad design vs toads with ponytails/pigtails
meaning toad is not male and toadette is not female; they only appear differently

also toad and toadette are officially not siblings (i didnt think anybody thought they were?)
just "adventure pals"


i think this is p neat
i'd like to see vivian return to paper mario as a trans character outside of japan
and maybe confirm birdo

we already see some gay characters (like the bedsmith), i think itd be neat to recognise some as trans and others (the toads) as completely without a sex

eyyyy read it as you wish, but i think when it comes to "never deciding the sex of these characters", i think it's frankly their sex (biological) never really plays much as a role and it's more or less an afterthought. that said, they're not siblings, they're basically platonic friends because mushrooms don't really have a gender and they probably just reproduce by dropping spores

the mushroom people get married and then they just sneeze and spores come out and then the babies fall off the mushroom house they live in
its true. i was there

the fact of the matter is: it's not the focus of the characters. their interpersonal relationships are never explored. the mushroom people are a simple people, apparently who just like to be friends or something.

---

i think given the shitstorm their fans created with tomodachi life, who knows - maybe we'll see a localization team who's more open and thinks twice about localizing characters and not gender swapping things because it'd be "too weird for the west"
also, how could you confirm birdo within the game's plot with it keeping relevant? i feel like if nintendo had the chance to do so, they'd acknowledge it and it'd feel like they were poking fun at the issue. :/


or maybe i'm just a jerk, lol - I don't really see how you could acknowledge a characters' gender within a game's plot as simplistic as mario's without making some kind of subtle joke about it that'll come off as offensive to someone anyway :/

[TomGuycott]

Would be even cooler if it turned out Yoshis were actually plants controlled by a hive mind.


Seriously though, the Mario series has a number of trans and gay characters (albeit not COMPLETELY confirmed in most cases, just heavily implied). I think that Captain Rainbow might have shed more insight on Birdo if I remember correctly, but I wouldn't call that real Mario continuity rather than ridiculousness.

[Kriven]

How is this even possible? The RPGs have always referred to Toads by their genders... "He" "She" "Him" "Her" is all extremely common place in the games that already exist.

[Sengir]

How is this even possible? The RPGs have always referred to Toads by their genders... "He" "She" "Him" "Her" is all extremely common place in the games that already exist.

RPGs versus Nintendo EAD Tokyo

[Kriven]

How is this even possible? The RPGs have always referred to Toads by their genders... "He" "She" "Him" "Her" is all extremely common place in the games that already exist.

RPGs versus Nintendo EAD Tokyo

The fact remains that Nintendo signed their names and published material that refer to Toads as a gendered species. And have done so for decades.

[Shade]

Reading through the article, it's not talking about the entire Toad race, only these characters not having a definite sex.

[Sengir]

How is this even possible? The RPGs have always referred to Toads by their genders... "He" "She" "Him" "Her" is all extremely common place in the games that already exist.

RPGs versus Nintendo EAD Tokyo

The fact remains that Nintendo signed their names and published material that refer to Toads as a gendered species. And have done so for decades.

well apparently that's not the case at HQ

(also nintendo signed their names and published far less important material. Mario Teaches Typing is published by Nintendo)

[Shade]

RPGs versus Nintendo EAD Tokyo

The fact remains that Nintendo signed their names and published material that refer to Toads as a gendered species. And have done so for decades.

well apparently that's not the case at HQ

(also nintendo signed their names and published far less important material. Mario Teaches Typing is published by Nintendo)

I'm not sure what your point is exactly. Importance wasn't his argument and doesn't really change the fact that Toads have been given an assigned gender in past Nintendo games.

[Kosheh]

Identifying pronouns.

What I was trying to say before - given that these are characters dreamt up purely to serve as servants to the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy, aren't they all eunuchs anyway?



Like I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the Mario lexicon that states like "Here's how Toads are born" - like okay it's cool that Captain Toad doesn't have a preassigned sex, but given that Captain Toad is a character whose main purpose is to navigate puzzles and collect green stars, I'm not really sure Captain Toad's biological sex would really play a role, as the Toad people aren't particularly masculine in the first place.


Like look at them. They have little scrawny putty arms.

tl;dr i guess it's cool if we examine it for what is stated "Toad and Toadette are genderless. Oh and they're not siblings, they're co-workers with a platonic relationship"...
Cool. Like, how is that going to affect the final product? Is someone going to not purchase this game now because they feel uncomfortable in not knowing Toad and Toadette's actual biological sex? (which, if they do that's quite sad - this game looks pretty fun)

I feel like the whole phrase that was translated is entirely questionable in terms of its translation anyway. :/ as in, "siblings" could translate to "family" or "intimate relationship".
Why would this even come up in a question like "Are Toad and Toadette related?" unless it's like "So are they married?"


Am I missing something here? Are all Toads born androgynous and then choose their gender later on? How did Toadsworth grow his moustache? Why is Toadsworth old? Wouldn't he have crumbled at some point? How old is he?
On moustaches, why does Hinopio have a porno moustache? How did Toadette get such wonderful pink hair because I don't think I've ever seen mushrooms grow such lovely locks of hair.

[Tellis]

The point is that you're going off of English materials, which do not necessarily reflect the exact same meaning as the original Japanese. Unless you wanna point out gendered reference to Toads in Japanese materials. The creators (not the translators!) think of and refer to the Toads as genderless, so... they are, in the most canon way, genderless. And if you have a further problem with this, I really... don't care. It affects almost nothing except for adding a bit more interesting depth to Toads as a whole.

I mean, this ain't exactly a giant win for representation of nonbinary identities in video games (especially since it's just an interview, it's not like it's a mainstream part of the games medium itself) but like, a company as big as Nintendo being okay with putting this out there is really neat!

Maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking, but it'd be neat to have some kid who doesn't see themselves as a boy or a girl have Toad become their favorite character because they see a bit of their rejection of society's views of gender in them.