スーパーマリオくん 4

This is definitely the most fun I've had with a Mario-Kun volume yet, to the point I actually didn't realize how many chapter's I'd read in one sitting until finally reaching the big finale. There's just a lot to like in this volume and a lot of cool ideas. One chapter in this volume sees Mario actually die and go to hell (because someone who's killed as many enemies as he is clearly can't get into heaven) and it's probably the single most batshit insane thing to happen in an official Mario product. We also get the long-awaited Mario Paint arc which is basically an ad for the game showing all the cool stuff you can do with it, but it's very charming. My favorite gag in this one that actually becomes something of a recurring bit is that they kind of imply the power-ups are alive (which is a long-standing theory that's never been confirmed one way or another in the games). Mario even invites some power-ups to his New Year's party which gives us a very cute panel of the power-ups absolutely wasted on sake and the faces they make in this volume are just too funny.

It's also fun just to see how many ideas this series does that end up being a part of the franchise later. Mario uses a koopa shell powerup to slide around in this volume over a decade before you could actually do that in New Super Mario Bros and it's clear Sawada is truly a fan of Nintendo and not just some guy paid to do a job. One particular highlight of this volume is a story where Mario accidentally ends up in Hyrule and has to fight his way out, and this is well before Wreck-it-Ralph came up with Game Jumping or NES Remix on the Wii U let you play as the wrong franchise's hero in someone else's game.

The language level is still about the same as it's been but it's starting to feel easier and that feels good. There's still a ton of puns but I'm actually getting most of them now and the zany hectic yelling of the action scenes is starting to make sense. It's always fun when you realize a pun is based on english since it's like a double-layer of decoding things and there's some real humdingers in this one. "What do you call a monkey that's got three strikes? A your-out-tang!" Absolutely painful, absolutely brilliant.

This seems to be the end of the Super Mario World arc which is a bit surprising because I was under the impression it went through volume 6, but I think four volumes is just right and the pacing felt good. It will be interesting to see what kind of stories Sawada comes up with between games so that's a good reason to get hyped for volume 5.