Mario Mania



Mario Mania (originally titled The Complete Mario) is a book published by Nintendo Power in August 1991. One of the earliest installments of the official Nintendo Player's Guide series, its main feature is a detailed strategy guide for Super Mario World, but its first 32 pages are devoted to the history of Mario up to that point. Included are:


 * Full-page profiles for Mario and Luigi
 * A "Best Friends" page providing brief profiles for Pauline, Toad, Princess Toadstool, Yoshi, the Kings of the Mushroom World, the Super Mushroom, the Fire Flower, and the Starman (Princess Daisy is oddly not profiled)
 * A three-page "Worst Enemies" chapter providing brief profiles for Bowser, the Koopalings, Donkey Kong, Wart, Birdo, Mouser, and various enemies in the series (Tatanga is oddly absent)
 * Detailed descriptions of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, and 3, Super Mario Land, and Dr. Mario
 * A one-page list of Mario's cameos in NES and Game Boy games
 * Two pages devoted to showing off Mario merchandise
 * Two pages about the The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, plus short blurbs about the Saturday Supercade and the then-upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie
 * A three-page interview with Shigeru Miyamoto

In addition, at the end of each world's section in the Super Mario World guide are trivia sections titled "Super Mariology", listing facts about the Mario games, such as how fast Mario can run and swim, and the farthest he can go in a single jump, as well as showing the graphical evolution of Mario, the Princess, and Bowser, and a brief description of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

Trivia

 * Donkey Kong's description in the "Worse Enemies" chapter notably mentions that if he were to ever appear in a video game again, "we're sure his kinder, gentler self will come through." Three years later, Donkey Kong would indeed be depicted as a good guy in Donkey Kong Country.
 * On the page about The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, one of the pictures is given the caption, "In Brooklyn, Mario and Luigi became babies for a second time," referring to the episode "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel". However, the picture in question is actually from "Recycled Koopa".
 * The blurb about the Super Mario Bros. movie mentions Luigi being in love with a character named Dianna, indicating that this was Daisy's name at one point during the film's development.
 * The interview with Shigeru Miyamoto transcribed in this book contains another prediction - specifically, Miyamoto's quote "Who knows how Mario will look in the future? Maybe he'll wear metallic clothes!" Five years later, Super Mario 64 would feature the debut of Metal Mario.