Super Mario Land 2 (manga)

Super Mario Land 2 is the second volume of Kodansha's Super Mario manga published under the KC Deluxe label. The volume is meant to be a direct follow-up of the events of the previous issue, but has nothing to do with Super Mario Land or its sequel, which was not even developed at the time. Also, while the previous volumes used their stories to illustrate some tricks and secrets, this volume's story creates a new plot all together, with little to no focus on tricks, secrets, and strategies.

The game covered in the issue is the Game Boy version of Tetris.

Tetris strategy
テトリステクニック (Tetris complete strategy collection)

Chapter 1
その1 - テトリスの (Walkthrough 1 - The treasure of Tetris (first part))

Mario and Princess Peach are having an outing on a riverbank, pitying Luigi for choosing to not join them. A torn piece of paper is brought by the water stream and, picking it up, Mario and Peach discover it to be a flier with jumbled words and a temple depicted on top: Peach recognize the structure to be the temple of the Tetris Kingdom, an ancient and legendary civilization whose ruins are located just up the river and who are rumored to have hidden a great treasure. The two decide to search for the treasure and head to the ruins riding the Monster, unaware of being followed by a Lakitu, a Hammer Bro and a Goomba on the former's cloud. While searching in the Tetriminos filled wasteland, Mario jokes about the possibility of a monster appearing in such a scary place. Right on cue, a dinosaur appears and picks up and hugs Peach. Peach screams for help and Mario fakes being dead. Upset, the princess starts yelling at him that the dinosaur is not a bear and, while waving her arms, ends up slapping the dino, who whimpers in fear behind his eggshells, where is written on that he was just born. Peach comes to the realization that the dino mistook her for his mother, and hugs him back, naming him Goro-chan, while Mario, faking bravery, claims the dinosaur had no chance against him, flinching when he growls at him. While riding Goro-chan, the two find the temple depicted on the piece of paper. Right then, the Lakitu, the Goomba and the Hammer Bro jump down the cloud and run to it, chased by Mario, Peach and Goro.

Inside the structure they are met with a giant waterfall from which Tetriminos fall down and a tribal man who calls himself as the guardian of the entrance to the Tetris Kingdom, the chieftain Geruman. He also claims that they are not the first intruder of the day, pointing to someone sleeping at the bottom of the waterfall basin, who was overwhelmed by their first challenge: Luigi in an explorer outfit. While distracted by this, the three enemies get in front of the waterfall and use the Tetriminos to create a stair to the top, where they think the treasure is at. As soon as they reach the top, a stone head devours the three. Geruman asks Mario and Peach to come forward and, while they study how should they beat the challenge without ending up like Luigi or the enemy trio, Goro-chan grabs Luigi's backpack, in which they find another ripped piece of paper containing numbers. Nothing comes to mind to what the numbers might mean, so the three decide to play smart. The falling Tetriminos (which are revealed to be dropped by the Tetris Tribe from over the waterfall) are wisely placed in order to occupy as less space as possible, when a line of blocks is formed, this one disappears. Mario then comes to the realization that the two piece of papers are part of the same paper: the jumbled words must be reassembled using the numbers as reference. With the message decoded, Mario understands that they need to clear 100 Tetrimino blocks to pass the test.

Geruman is informed that they discover how to win and orders his men to drop more Tetiminos at a faster rate, but Mario and the other manage to keep up. Worried, Geruman decides to play dirty and drops a boulder on Peach, but she is saved by Goro-chan, who jumps on the rock falling into the basin. Without Goro, Mario and Peach start to make some mistakes, and Mario almost ruins it by placing a flimsy J-Tetrimino. Peach goes under it to hold it, but the game registers her as a Tetrimino and start to turn her into stone. Before getting paralyzed, Peach lends to Mario her ribbon-belt, then turns into a T-Tetrimino. Mario is distraught, but seeing more Tetrimino being dropped, rises back to finish the match. Using Peach's ribbon as a lasso, he manages to push back some Tetrimino while he puts others into place. Geruman is shocked by his play and Mario lassos his wrist and pulls him down from his platform and straight into a vertical gap in his Tetrimino structure, using him as I-Tetrimino, filling multiple rows and clearing the last required blocks. The waterfall stops, the water basin drains, and Peach, Goro-chan and Luigi are back into the game. Behind the drained waterfall, a passage is revealed: the treasure of the Tetris tribe awaits!

Chapter 2
その2 - テトリスの (Walkthrough 2 - The treasure of Tetris (second part))

Mario, Luigi, Peach and Goro-chan are entering into the passage, while Geruman, whose body has become a I-Tetrimino, emerges from the rubble of Tetrimino blocks and follows them. The group immediately notices him and mocks him for his new appearance, taking also advantage of his inconvenient form to bully him. Angry, Geruman pulls a rope, lowering a ceiling of spikes, but his tall new form gets in the way, blocking the ceiling from getting any lower and getting stuck himself, causing more mockery from the heroes. Mario even notices that Geruman is peeing himself, but the chieftain gets worried: he is not soiling himself, the pressure from the lowering ceiling is cracking the floor, which is right above a canal where the temple water flows. The floor gives away and everyone falls into the canal. Mario and Geruman are separated by the others and ends up in a room in front of the gigantic masked figure, with a familiar spiny shell and tail.

The figure presents himself as King Tetris, the first ruler of Tetris, who just woke up from a 6,000 years long slumber. He then asks the overexcited Geruman to give him the treasure, causing the chieftain to ask why would he ask that since he was the one to hide the treasure: in response to that, King Tetris flusters about having it forgotten after such long sleep. Geruman takes Mario and King Tetris in front of two waterfalls with two separate pillars in front of, then leaves the two participants on one pillar each and declares that the winner of this VS. match will get the treasure, but this time, they cannot manipulate the Tetriminos by hand like before, or they will fall in a pool of lava. With King Tetris armed with a magic wand and Mario with Peach's ribbon, the duel starts. Mario clears the first row, but when King Tetris clears fours in one shot, four rows of Tetrimino blocks with one vertical gap (blocked by a previously placed Tetrimino) rise on Mario's waterfall, giving him less space to work with. Mario does not give up and continues clearing rows. King Tetris, fearing of losing, gets some help from Geruman from the top of the waterfall, getting signs of which Tetrimino will fall down. With this information, more pesky rows rise in Mario's side, limiting his space more and more.

Meanwhile, Luigi, Peach and Goro-chan have arrived in the water basin on top of the two waterfalls, where the Tetris tribe is forcing the previous loser of their challenges (including the Lakitu, Goomba and Hammer Bro from before) to take Tetriminos to the waterfalls, where Tetris tribe men will drop them to Mario and King Tetris. Worried about getting caught, they remain in the water, noticing too late that they are being dragged by the stream towards the waterfall. Thankfully, due to how big Goro-chan is, he remains stuck in the canal, plugging off King Tetris' waterfall. Without Geruman and the King's unfair tricks, Mario manages to get rid of the row of blocks created by his rival and regains the lost space. Geruman orders Luigi, Peach and Goro-chan to leave the canal immediately, but they refuse. Therefor, Geruman calls the tribe men to him, they turn into humanized-Tetriminos and fuse together into a scary looking monster hybrid, scaring off the three from the canal, resuming the waterfall. The monster then starts collecting into a mine cart Tetriminos to toss into the waterfall, but Luigi snatches the mine cart and shoves at it, destroying the hybrid abomination. Luigi then tosses an I-Tetrimino to Mario, visibly exausted by the challenge, and he squeezes it in a tight horizontal gap, clearing the 100th block and winning the challenge. A bridge forms from his pillar towards a bright light, the treasure, but before he can even cross it, King Tetris jumps on it, losing the mask and revealing himself to be Bowser. He runs for the treasure and, seeing a hatch door, enters it and closes it. The light dims out and the fabled ancient treasure of Tetris is revealed to be a rocket ship which instantly takes off into space, much to Bowser's shock. Later, after the heroes are enjoying an evening outing all together, Luigi wonders if Bowser has reached the Moon by now: he did, and he is now stranded on it without fuel to return home.

Chapter 3
その3 - テトリスの (Walkthrough 3 - King Tetris strikes again (first part))

Mario, Luigi, and Peach are taking a walk in the Mushroom Kingdom shopping district, when Peach sees a beautiful hand mirror and asks Mario to buy it for her. He tries to reason with her by explaining they came only to buy a Game Boy, but the princess starts trowing a tantrum and Mario gives in. Suddenly, from the sky giant Tetriminos starts falling down. On each of them, a piece of paper reads "a gift from King Tetris". Looking up, a cubic UFO is revealed to be the source of the falling Tetriminos and latches itself to a skyscraper with wires and cables. The skyscraper windows become a screen where King Tetris broadcasts himself, declaring to turn the Mushroom Kingdom into his own arcade room. The Toads and the Goombas protest, but as a warning, King Tetris turns the complainers into Tetrminos. Luigi gets the Sky Pop and rushes to stop him, but a prehensile cable coils the plane midair. Mario then comes forward, and King Tetris warns him that the giant Tetriminos he just dropped are actually atomic bombs and are controlled by the Tettoman Shichininshū, superhero-like guards with Tetrimino-heads. Mario will be now challenged to a Tetris Type B game, should he fail the game, King Tetris will orders his Tettoman to trigger the bombs. Mario accepts, the skyscraper becomes a Tetris screen and a Game Boy pad appears in front of him, but the plumber starts regretting his decision in seeing he is starting from a Level 9 at High 5, the highest difficult in the entire game.

As Mario is struggling at the game, losing more and more space, Luigi gets off the restrained plane and sees a giant plug coming from the UFO connected to an extension cord plugged to a distant transmission tower, jumps down and stomps the plug, detaching it from the extension cord, cutting off the electricity to the skyscraper, just as Mario was about to lose. Angry King Tetris jumps off the UFO to punish Luigi, but accidentally stomps and crushes the plug with his size. Embarrassed, King Tetris promises to return tomorrow with a generator to avoid such "cheap tricks" and leaves with his Tettoman. Luigi is cheered by the citizen, but a strange looking guy named Areku Hakase explains that they just postponed the battle and that Mario is not able to win such high level, but luckily for them, he is the director of Tetris Phenomena Institute. Later, Mario, Luigi, and Peach arrive at the institute, which is a structure shaped like a Tetrimino tower. Once inside, Areku gives them typical Russian winter clothing. Just as they ask why are they wearing them, the room temperature lowers and a snow storm starts. On an interphone, Areku explains they have to make their way to the top of the building, withstanding the Siberian cold by dancing on the notes of a typical Cossack song. Luigi and Peach, unable to keep the rhythm, fail, but Mario continues and reach the top, understanding that by keeping rhythm will help him keep the pace of the high level of the game. Proud that he learn the lesson, Areku invites them to sleep in a typical Russian straw mattress.

The next day, King Tetris returns and places his UFO on the skyscraper, the Tettoman are waiting on the bombs and Mario returns to the Game Boy pad. As King Tetris plugs the game, Luigi starts playing a gramophone with the Cossack music in and Mario starts playing efficiently the high level game, even considering that King Tetris tampered with the setting by selecting the secret "super speed" mode. Understanding how Mario is winning, the invader zaps Luigi, destroying the gramophone. Mario starts stumbling, but Peach has already a reserve plan and tells Luigi to direct an orchestra band she and some citizens have put up, recreating the music themselves. Following the music rhythm, Mario wins the game and everyone cheer and order King Tetris to leave. Smugging, King Tetris orders the Tettoman to trigger the bombs, but nothing happens: having noticed the "super speed" mode activated, Areku understood that King Tetris would have not played fair, and disarmed the bomb while everyone were paying attention to the game. Furious, King Tetris gives the order to activate the Tetton Dai Majin.

Chapter 4
その4 - テトリスの (Walkthrough 4 - King Tetris strikes again (second part))

The Tettoman fly towards the skyscraper, which starts absorbing the people transformed into Tetriminos. Mario, Luigi, and Peach try to get away, but Peach loses her mirror and returns to get it back, despite the Mario brothers' yells. The Tetton Dai Majin is now completed: it is a silly-looking giant robot made out with giant Tetriminos, the skyscraper, and the UFO. The trio laughs at it, to which King Tetris zaps Princess Peach turning her into an actual sentient giant peach. The Tetton Dai Majin goes on a rampage, Luigi tries to pick up Peach (getting yelled and slap for touching in "inappropriate places") and Mario finds Areku in the rubble, who gives him a medallion explaining him to use it when in trouble, but only as a last resource. While Luigi and Peach tends on Areku, Mario gets the Sky Pop II and flies towards the Tetton Dai Majin and shoots at it. King Tetris is ready and at the next incoming attack, display on the skyscraper-screen a picture of Princess Daisy showing off her leg. Distracted, Mario's plane is caught between the giant robot's hands. Luigi, then, after strapping Peach on his back, grabs a pole and pole jumps to Mario, getting him out of the Sky Pop II before getting squashed and lands right into the UFO-head of the robot.

Admiring their bravery, King Tetris decides to settle this in a duel at a multiplayer match, him against Mario, at High 5, best out of three. Mario accepts, and two giant Game Boy screens appear with a gamepad-dancemat for Mario's "Cossack moves", while King Tetris will use his magic Tetris powers, which grants him the win on the first round. When Luigi points the unbalanced controller differences, King Tetris turns him into a pumpkin with legs, promising to turn Mario into an eggplant. Scared, Mario drops Areku's medallion and it opens. Inside, Mario finds a message from him: press the button when the last Tetrimino is about to be dropped and causing a Game Over. Mario follows the instruction and starts flunking on purpose, worrying Luigi and Peach, and amusing King Tetris. As the last Tetrimino is about to be dropped, Mario pauses the game, but King Tetris laughs and turns his back to his screen, as there is no way he can recover from this, when suddenly his screen buzzes: he lost by not moving the falling Tetriminos, going over the top. Mario just executed a glitch in which, while one player pauses right when he is about to lose, the rival's screen does not stop, however, next time he would try this trick again, he will not be as lucky as before. As he thinks what move to do next, the people transformed in Tetriminos that are forming the Tetton Dai Majin, communicate to Mario that they all believe in him.

The last match starts and, seeing how well his rival is doing, King Tetris plays dirty and uses his familiar spiked tail to destroy Mario's gamepad. All seems lost, but the people trapped in the Tetrimino pass to Mario their life force, granting him the power of the Super Mushroom. Mario uses it to make the trapped Toads and Goombas appear in the Game Boys, where they take the Tetriminos in Mario's screen and put it in King Tetris', who, in turn, attempts to use the Tettoman to stop them, but they are overwhelmed and gets crushed by the Tetriminos instead. Mario wins, but confirming himself a liar once again, King Tetris attempts to zap Mario, but Peach uses her mirror to deflect the magic shot against the King, who explodes, briefly revealing Bowser's figure under the King's vest and mask. The Tetton Dai Majin crumbles down, and Mario, Peach, and Luigi run out. Right then, the curses are undone and Peach, Luigi, the Toads, and the Goombas return to normal and cheers for Mario in triumph. Peach also comments how her mirror also saved the day, only to sadly notice that it got cracked.

Extras

 * よみきり★まんが★マリオくん (Mario-kun's one-shot ★manga★): Mario and Luigi offer to Peach their greatest priced possession: rotten leftovers from a month ago.
 * 大霊界(だいれいかい) (Great spiritual world): Mario, Luigi, and Peach, during a hiking trip, find themselves on a collapsing rope bridge, and they respectively call the name of Jesus, Buddah and Kami-sama. The three deities appear, but start fighting for who is going to save them. Meanwhile, the three hikers have already passed away.
 * ハンド・パワー (Hand power): Mario, Luigi, Peach and Daisy] are playing with the former as the dealer. Luigi and the princesses all bets on two different numbers each. When Toad (as the commentator) question Mario how is he not going to disappoint any of his friend with this match, Mario shakes the cup and roll a paper dice, which unfolds and lands on all six of the numbers. Everybody is a winner.
 * あなたは、だれのタイプ?テトリス☆い (Which character are you? Tetris ☆ Divination maze): readers have to complete a maze with multiple exits, depending on the exit, they will be associated with a character and personality:
 * Mario: a guy with a strong sense of justice, bright and athletic.
 * Peach: a cute guy, the kind everyone falls for it.
 * King Tetris: a very bad guy and a dummy.
 * Luigi: a very important guy, but also the weak link.
 * Goomba: weak and prone to betrayal.

Trivia

 * The idea of Princess Peach turning into an actual peach was credited to a reader from Tokyo: Kazue Aoki.
 * When Mario attempts the glitch, King Tetris mocks him by quoting a famous line from , while also his face becomes just like the protagonist's, : "おまえはすでに死んでいる!" (You are already dead!). The line would later become, in recent years, a well-known.