The Truth About Mario’s Belly And Toad’s Head

Mario might be getting a belly button to go along with his nipples, Nintendo has revealed. And no, Toad isn’t wearing a hat.

The company has put out a Twitter video (below) where Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi answers questions from fans. It turns out people aren’t interested in framerates or cheat codes as much as they are anatomy.

When the game trailer came out it marked the first time Mario had appeared topless in animated form. (A previous wallpaper image showed him in trunks but at an angle that may have hidden part of his abdomen.) Although he is anatomically correct enough to have nipples, there’s no sign of a belly button.

Koizumi doesn’t actually answer why this was the case, but says he was surprised the topic came up and says he started to think about revisiting it on the design side. It’s not entirely clear from his words whether that means it’s a possibility for a future game, or something that he considered (and rejected) between the trailer launch and the completion of the game.

He also says that the spotted object above Toad’s face is indeed his head rather than his hat, but leaves it up to fans to work out the logistics. He also speculated there might be something inside (other than, presumably, his brain.)

In other responses, Koizumo noted:

• there is at least one Easter Egg in the game that fans haven’t spotted yet;
• the relationship between Mario, Peach and Pauline is a private matter; and
• during testing it turned out several areas of the game world were unexpectedly accessible and Nintendo chose to hide extra coins there rather than fix the “bugs.”