スーパーマリオくん 10

Possibly the most cursed volume of Super Mario-Kun this far, in which a bat puts a pair of panties on its head and Mario calls it a "hentai", Wario's apparently published a book of "hair nudes" (which weblio describes as A nude photograph showing pubic hair), and there's an entire chapter about the gang encountering magical pots that turn you into a pot if you happen to pee in them (Luigi is the first to befall this fate and for some reason he goes with a paragoomba and drybones, like together). Oh and there's a giant poop fish. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude, I think it's hilarious that something as normal as Mario has gotten this deranged, but the fact that this hasn't been mined for meme fuel shows how underlooked this series is.

But beside going even deeper into madness than usual, there is some fun stuff going on. We finally get the conclusion of the Super Mario Land 2 arc and the final fight with Wario is great. SML2 is one of my favorite games in the Mario Series and I think this arc captured a lot of what makes it so unique and fun. I do think the odd choice to jump between adaptations of multiple games starts to mess the timeline a bit here as they start showing things from Wario Land 1 (aka Mario Land 3) before the Mario Land 2 arc ends, but generally it seems they timed it right to get rolling into the next series.

The Mario and Wario arc also wraps up which has been a particularly cute series. I'm gonna miss the cheerful Bowser fairy trying to legitimately help Mario and there's a fun ending.

This also starts the Wario Land arc and I think things are going to get really interesting here. Instead of treating it as a Wario solo adventure, Mario is actually teaming up with Wario to defeat the Black Sugar Pirates (Captain Syrup hasn't shown up yet but I'm looking forward to her). This seems to be in line with how the Super Mario Land 2 arc treated that game's story as being as much of a main-line entry as something like Super Mario World and I think this approach will make it truly feel like a Super Mario Land 3 rather than having the "Mario Land" subtitle as sort of a vestigial leftover to ease you in (after all, Wario Land 4 isn't called "Mario Land 6). This arc also introduces a new character, a female Rex named Chirako who's being set up as a date for Yoshi (or rather they meet at a blind marriage interview) and the back-and-forth between the two is very cute. I think she'll be a fun addition to the cast and seeing how Yoshi adds to the Wario Land story will also be fun.

Language wise it's about the same as it's been for the last several volumes but I did have fun realizing the meanings of the Wario Land 1 enemies' names. As has been the case with the last few volumes, there's a final chapter that weaves several mazes and puzzles and it was a lot of fun to take a minute and actually do them, though I'm not a huge fan of the ones where it's like "remember how many of this character you see and then try to answer 40 pages later". I like the spot the difference ones, trying to keep track over several chapters is a bit much. Still, there's some pretty creative mazes otherwise and they're always a nice bonus.