Tetris tribe

The Tetris tribe is a race of humans with the capability of shapeshifting into anthropomorphic Tetriminos. They appeared in two volumes of the Super Mario manga series published by KC Deluxe. They are dark-skinned human wearing pre-Colombian civilization clothing, such as leaf skirts and feathered headgears, but in their Tetrimino form, they look like normal Tetriminos with human limbs and face.

In Super Mario Land 2 they make their debut, where it is explained that they once ruled in the ruined Tetris Kingdom more than 6,000 years ago, before they retreat themselves into their temple to guard the treasure of King Tetris. With time, the treasure of Tetris and its tribe became a legend between the Mushroom Kingdom citizen, but the few that goes looking for it have the chance of being put to the test with a real-life challenge of Tetris: if they pass, they may proceed to the treasure, otherwise they are turned into slaves to carry Tetriminos for the challenges or put to rest at the bottom of the water basin in their temple.

During the present time of the events, the leader of the tribe is German, a harsh and cheating guardian: despite many people failing their challenge, he resorts to tricks such as tossing boulders and later (when Bowser appears disguised as the returning King Tetris) by playing favoritism by telling King Tetris which Tetrimino will be dropped next. Mario, with the help of Princess Peach and Goro-chan, passes the challenge by using German as the last Tetrimino piece to clear the last required lines, causing the latter to be turned into a I-Tetrimino.

Later, when Mario is dueling with King Tetris, Peach, Goro-chan, and a rescued Luigi, try to stop German from cheating. To stop them, German orders the nearby tribe men to turn into their Tetrimino form and fuse together into the Gattai Tetris Ningen, but Luigi manages to destroy it by crashing a mine cart against it, then by helping Mario win, getting access to the treasure. Bowser runs towards it, and closes a door behind it, only to realize that the treasure of Tetris is just a rocket ship that is about to take off with him inside.

Later in the volume, Bowser dons again the King Tetris disguise to lead an alien invasion on the Mushroom Kingdom. To his aid, he uses the Tettoman Shichininshū, a group of seven superhero-like individual with a Tetrimino for a head, but it is not clear if they are part of the tribe or a separate species.

Both the Tettoman and the tribe (in Tetrimino form) reappear in the following volume, where the latter aid Bowser-King Tetris in a Tetris-ice hockey match by disguise themselves as polar bears, before they reveal their identity and Mario and his friends use them to win the game by using them in place of the Tetriminos.