Hole Punch

"Lady, I couldn't stop groovin' now if I wanted to. So I guess we're gonna have to... FACE. OFF."

- Hole Punch

Hole Punch, The Disco Devil is a member of the Legion of Stationery who guards the end of the yellow streamer and serves as the boss of the Temple of Shrooms in Paper Mario: The Origami King. He is an oversized, yellow hole puncher featuring King Olly's logo on his black lid.

When Mario reaches the top of the temple, he finds himself in a disco room with a large disco ball, a Toad as the disk jockey, and an origami Goomba, Shy Guy, and Boo out on the dance floor. Suddenly, someone behind a large set of doors calls out and stops the music, demanding a better piece to groove to, threatening to punch out his face, as he did with all the other Toads in the temple. The disk jockey begs for a second chance and asks Mario to help him find a better record.

Mario must bring the disk jockey records for him to play for Hole Punch. If he does not like the piece, he insults it and wants a different piece. After playing "Thrills at Night", the Hole Punch becomes satisfied and requests an audience to join on the dance floor. The disk jockey gives Professor Toad a boom box, allowing him to explore the temple and pick up the Toads within.

Once all of the Toads are found and returned to the disco room, they hit the dance floor, eventually getting the attention of Hole Punch, who bursts out of his room and slams the dance floor, frightening the Toads away. He challenges Mario to a literal face-off on the dance floor. Upon defeat, he counts down from three and explodes, launching the faces he collected from the Toads. With everyone back to normal, Mario can use the Magic Circle that appears to destroy the yellow streamer. Doing so drops the disco ball, breaking it open to release the sun, revealing it as its source of light. This returns the desert to its regular state.

Battle
Before each normal ring movement, Hole Punch uses the move Hole Punch, raising the ring closest to him to repeatedly punch out holes in four different spaces, removing any icons on them, then spinning to slightly scramble the spaces. This process, at the beginning of the battle, damages and deactivates, but not removes, the ON button. Falling into any other holes causes Mario to trip, wasting his turn, after which Hole Punch uses Main Squeeze, dealing 16-17 damage.

Hitting the front or side of Hole Punch does not deal any damage, so Mario must instead navigate behind his lid and use a Hammer attack to deal damage, in the process also releasing a few of its punches, which restore random holes.

When Hole Punch attacks, if Mario is close enough and Hole Punch either does not have any punches from Mario or was damaged that turn, it will use Hole Punch to punch out a part of Mario, taking points away from his current HP as well as his maximum HP, then use Base Slap, dealing 12-13 damage. Any of Mario's body can be recovered when Hole Punch drops punches, at which point one of Mario's body punches will appear as a space, which when picked up, restores as much HP and maximum HP as the previous Hole Punch removed. If Mario is out of range and Hole Punch does not have any punches from Mario, is will use Gettin' Down, dealing 7 damage. If Hole Punch does have punches from Mario, it will use Throwing Punches, ejecting all of his punches from board spaces at Mario for 2 damage each, then charges up any punches from Mario's body for 5 damage each. The punches are the placed on the board using the same formula, the process also restoring the ON button.

After taking enough of damage, Hole Punch will start to charge. At this point, Mario must use an Earth Vellumental Magic Circle to dodge his attack, which will stun Hole Punch; otherwise the boss will use The Whole Punch, which will deal 19 damage, Hole Punch Mario twice, and use Throwing Punches, all in one turn. If the move is dodged, all punches are released and Hole Punch is flipped over, allowing Mario to use the 1,000 Fold Arms to rush attack him and attempt to peel off his lid, the allotted time corresponding to his current HP. If the lid is successfully peeled off, Hole Punch is defeated. If not, Hole Punch uses Hole Punch and Base Slap and returns to his regular pattern.

Profiles and statistics

 * Collectible Treasure #9: "A reclusive member of the Legion of Stationery who only does two things—party down and punch faces."

Trivia

 * In the game's Chinese version, the Toads in the audience shout certain phrases in English rather than Chinese due to the battle being disco-themed, which is associated with the United States. The English phrases are "Ｈｅｙ　ｙｏ！", "Ｌｅｔ’ｓ　ｐａｒｔｙ！", "Ｃｈｅｃｋ　ｉｔ　ｏｕｔ！　Ｙｏ！", "鎚子！Ｃｏｍｅ　ｏｎ！", "跳啊！Ｂａｂｙ～！", "Ｃｏｎｇｒａｔｕｌａｔｉｏｎｓ！", "超級Ｔｈａｎｋ　ｙｏｕ！", "Ｈａｖｅ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｃｏｆｆｅｅ！？", "Ｃｏｏｌ！", "Ｓｅｘｙ～！", "Ｙｅｓ！神祇之手！", "Ｃｕｔｅ！", "Ｆｅｖｅｒ！", "Ｏｈ　ｍｙ　Ｇｏｄ！", and "Ｏｕｃｈ！"