Princess Peach

Princess Peach (casually Peach, usually known as Princess Toadstool outside of Japan prior to Yoshi's Safari, and later Super Mario 64) is a main character in the Super Mario franchise and the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. Peach first appeared in Super Mario Bros. and was created by Shigeru Miyamoto to be the damsel-in-distress throughout most Super Mario games. She resides in her castle along with many Toads, who act as her loyal servants. Her kingdom is often attacked by the Koopa Troop, a group led by Bowser. She is the love interest of Mario.

Peach has an affinity for the color pink, which accents her gentle personality and kind temperament. Peach's gentle nature and role as the damsel in distress are often represented with her heart abilities and crown emblem. Peach's initial design was said to represent her stubborn yet cute appearance. Since her debut, Peach has appeared in installments related to the Super Mario game series for over three decades, even appearing in more games than any other female character in video game history. Peach is occasionally a supporting character in mainstream games and almost always playable in spin-off installments. Her most prominent appearance to date is as the heroine of Super Princess Peach and the most recent mainstream game where she appears as a playable character rather than a damsel-in-distress is Super Mario 3D World.

Design
Peach's initial design had been conceived by Shigeru Miyamoto, with some of his suggestions to Yoichi Kotabe being incorporated into the final design, in particular making her eyes look more "cat-like." Before Kotabe conceived Peach's finalized character design, a couple of prototype designs were created for the character. One such design, seen on the Super Mario Bros. Japanese box art, depicts her with a long-sleeved dress, no gloves, strawberry-blonde hair, and crown jewels that were white instead of red and blue. Another prototype, seen in the 1985 Japanese strategy guide How to win at Super Mario Bros., portrays her as a Toad rather than as a human, having a mushroom cap instead of natural hair, as well as a simple tiara and a gown reminiscent of from Disney's , whom she somewhat currently resembles.

Peach has always been depicted as a blonde in video game artwork, although it was originally a darker, more strawberry-blonde shade (or in the case of the Japanese packaging, a dark blonde shade). However, due to the graphical limitations of the NES hardware, her on-screen sprite in the earlier Super Mario Bros. games displayed her with reddish-brown hair, and as a result, she was depicted as a redhead in the DiC Entertainment cartoons, as well as reddish-brown in Mario-related merchandise such as a 1988 toy box artwork. Starting with Super Mario World for the SNES, her in-game appearances had her proper hair color. On a similar note, her dress had always been depicted as pink in video game artwork, although because of the aforementioned graphical limitations of the NES hardware, her on-screen sprite in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels depicted her as wearing a white dress with red highlights; this depiction of her old dress would later be reused for her Fire form in Super Mario 3D World. She only gained a pink dress in-game starting with the overseas version of Super Mario Bros 2. Peach's classic main dress had a normal pink high collar, a sash around the waist instead of panniers, and was darker pink from the hem to her knees, but otherwise does not differ greatly from the modern/current main dress introduced with the GameCube-era games, starting with Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Party 4, although the subsequent Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door installment marked the original dress's final appearance. Although the key artwork featured Peach in the Japanese versions of Super Mario Bros., the instruction manuals for both the Famicom and NES versions of the game hid her sprite behind a question mark in order to keep her identity a surprise for players as a way to motivate them into completing the game.

Name
Miyamoto came up with her name by associating princesses with girls, girls with the color pink, and pink with peaches. In Japan, her name has always been Princess Peach (ピーチ姫 Pīchi-hime), but in the West, she was originally known as "Princess Toadstool", due to Nintendo of America renaming her when localizing Super Mario Bros., feeling that "Peach" was irrelevant to the theme of the Mushroom Kingdom. In 1993, the English version of Yoshi's Safari marked the first time that the name "Princess Peach" was used outside of Japan; however, the name did not become standardized until Super Mario 64. Games as of Mario Kart 64 use Peach as her prominent name. Certain contemporary sources reconcile the two names by listing her full name as "Peach Toadstool", including subsequent re-releases of Super Mario 64, such as the international, Shindō Pak Taiō Version and the DS remake, which had the princess signing her letter using both "Toadstool" and "Peach". For the most part, however, the "Toadstool" name is hardly used outside of remakes and re-releases of older titles, which most times retain the original localized text. She, along with her Toad subjects, is the only major character that no longer uses her original localized name. However, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U refers to "Princess Toadstool" as a name Peach went by in one of the in-game tips, and in the North American version her title on the Boxing Ring stage is "Princess of Toadstools". On a similar note, although she was mostly referred to as Princess Toadstool in various countries outside the United States in most localizations (or "Princess Mushroom" in some cases), the Danish dub for The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 had changed her name to Prinsesse Slørhat, which translated to "Princess Cortinarius", referring to a genus of poisonous mushrooms. Likewise, the Italian dub for the entire DIC cartoon line also referred to her as "Principessa Amarena" or "Princess Cherry".

Her name when translated into Japanese is normally ピーチ姫 (Pīchi-hime). However, the other translation as プリンセスピーチ (Purinsesu Pīchi) only officially exists in the Japanese title of the game Super Princess Peach as well as in the Japanese name of The Princess Peach from Paper Mario: The Origami King.

History
Following a frequent role of being the damsel-of-distress kidnapped by Bowser, Princess Peach has appeared in almost every single piece of Super Mario media from the very start. Her first appearance, chronologically, is in Yoshi's Island DS as one of the seven star children. Though Peach has the role of being held captive by Bowser, she is also seen allying with him as shown in several spin-off series. As with Mario, Peach can be seen in a wide bevy of cameos, even outside her own franchise.

Physical description
Peach is a woman with long blonde hair, fair skin, and vivid blue eyes, framed by six lashes (three or four in other artwork) and small, thin eyebrows. She has an oval face with a pointed chin, a triangular nose and full pink lips. Her hair has a triangular bang in the center of her forehead, two rows of flips on her back, and two split sideburns framing her face. Due to her lithe and slim figure, she is classified as lighter weight than Mario or Luigi in various games such as in the Mario Kart series despite being taller than them.

Peach is taller than most human characters, exceeded only by Rosalina, Pauline, and Waluigi. In the pamphlet for Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!, her height is given as 160 cm (5 ft 3 in.) and her weight as 41 kg (90 lbs.) In the original and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe versions of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, however, she is depicted as being shorter than Super Mario/Super Luigi (with the difference in size being enough that she has to stand on her tip-toes to kiss Mario/Luigi if they are in Super/Fire form in the Deluxe version). However, in the Deluxe version, there are full scenes with Peach lowering herself to make eye contact with Mario while being eye-level with Luigi.

The pamphlet for Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen! states her age as 16. The DIC cartoons' version of the princess has been officially stated to be seventeen years old. As for the video game version of Peach, though no fixed age has been revealed, her overall physical appearance and her appearance as a baby alongside Mario, who is revealed to be around 24-26 years old, suggests that she is in her early twenties.

Standard appearance
Peach usually wears a pink floor-length dress with puffy sleeves, magenta panniers at the waist, a high collar and a frill of the same color at the hem. Peach wears a pair of pink bloomers under her dress. Most games include a white petticoat under her gown. From Super Mario Bros. to Mario Kart: Super Circuit, her dress had a band around her waist rather than panniers and was colored magenta from below her knees. Peach wears a golden crown with red and blue gems, blue spherical earrings, and an oval blue brooch on her chest. She wears long white opera gloves and red heels. Her dress is far more elaborately designed in recent Super Smash Bros. titles, but is otherwise the same; the Super Smash Bros. games have also given her minor proportion changes such as the size of her head and the thickness of her eyelashes.

In Super Mario Sunshine, Peach wears a lighter and sleeveless dress that suits hot and tropical climates more fluently. The color of the dress is mainly bright azalea pink, while the panniers, collar, and frill are pink. Rather than wears her opera gloves, Peach wears a gold bracelet on the wrist of her left hand and a red ring on the right index finger of her right hand. Her hair is also converted into a ponytail with a blue hairband, a trait that would be passed over to future Mario Kart and sports installments.

In Super Mario 3D World, the color of Peach's dress changes after grabbing a Fire Flower. By doing so, the dress mainly becomes vast white, while the panniers, collar, and frill turn red.

Sports dress
Peach has been in various outfits, most frequently in the sports games. In NES Open Tournament Golf, Peach's dress was shorter, matching the frame of a short sundress. She also wore pink ballet flats but had no crown. In Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64, Peach wore a similar dress that she wore in NES Open Tournament Golf, and the footwear consisted of orange sports trainers with white high socks. She also had three other color variants for her sports dress, which were in cyan, neon red, and cornflower blue. Her cyan dress featured an orange band around the waist area and the same orange shoes, while the socks were bright sky cyan. Her neon red dress featured a lemon yellow band around the waist area, while the shoes were also colored neon red, and the socks remained white. Her cornflower blue dress featured a dark blue band around the waist area, while the shoes were dark blue, and the socks remained white. Both the default color and cyan palette of her original sports dress were also featured in Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64.

In Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Peach introduced a newer version of her sports attire, which consisted of a sleeveless minidress, bearing the same color in pink with a magenta stripe at the bottom of the skirt area. Also included in the build were magenta tennis shoes and white mid-height socks. This attire was also featured in Mario Power Tennis along with future golf and tennis installments. In Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 3DS, a trophy shows Peach wearing her sports minidress with a tennis racket in her possession.

Sports uniform
In the GameCube version of NBA Street V3, Peach introduced a two-piece athletic uniform, where the sleeveless top and shorts were both pink with white trim linings. She also wore the same footwear that she donned with her sports minidress. The two-piece athletic uniform was legitimately introduced in Mario Superstar Baseball. This uniform was also featured in other sports games, such as Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and the Mario & Sonic at the Olympics series. In Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo Wii U, a trophy shows Peach wearing this uniform with a baseball bat in her possession.

In Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Game Tokyo 2020, Peach is seen in a newer version of her two-piece athletic uniform, with the upper body sporting white stripes on the sides and slightly exposing her midriff, while the shorts have their colors inverted. Her footwear is about the same as the ones she wore in Mario Tennis Aces. When playing soccer, she wears magenta high socks, and for all other sports, she retains the white ankle socks.

Striker uniform
In Super Mario Strikers, Peach wears a two-piece soccer uniform that bares her midriff. The jersey and shorts are both pink with bright azure blue stripes on the sides. Also included are bright azure blue high tops with pink high socks. In Mario Strikers Charged, Peach wears the same uniform, but with pieces of armor overlapping it due to the more volatile nature of the game. Her alternate uniform was originally slated to be cyan with royal blue pieces of armor, but was not featured in the final release of the game. In Mario Strikers: Battle League, Peach wears a newer, less revealing uniform, which comes in different colors depending on the team.

Biker suit
In Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Peach wears a white biker suit with a pink stripe on the sides and a pink belt in the waist area. Also included are pink rider boots. She only wears this when riding motorbikes and ATVs. In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Peach wears a similar type of biker suit albeit from a few changes. Rather than keep her crown, it is replaced by a helmet. In addition, she wears pink knee pads on both knees, and the boots are shaped like knightwear.

Winter outfit
In Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, Peach introduced a specialized outfit to suit colder climates, which consisted on a pink mini-dress, magenta leggings, and white boots with pink laces. This outfit was also featured in Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, but only during the equestrian events.

Leotard
In Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Peach introduced a leotard that was used for swimming and gymnastics. The color of the leotard is mainly pink with magenta stripes on the sides.

Wedding dress
In Super Paper Mario, Peach wore a wedding dress that closely resembled her standard appearance. The color of the dress was mainly white, while the panniers, collar, and frill were silver. In addition, she had a veil attached to the rear of her hair. In Super Mario Odyssey, Peach wore another type of a wedding dress, which was woven by the Lochlady race. The dress was mainly platinum white with panniers wider and larger than her usual dress. The build also included a veil and long opera gloves that Peach wears with her default appearance, but the color for the gloves are a little different as they are platinum white with enhanced textures. The build also comes with platinum white high heels, which are hidden by the dress itself. Peach also wore this type of dress since the Peach Tour of Mario Kart Tour retroactive June 16, 2020.

In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Peach wears a wedding dress similar to the one seen in Odyssey during her forced wedding with Bowser. Using an Ice Flower she smuggled earlier in the film transformed the wedding dress into an ice blue color.

Wintertime outfit
In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Bonneton, Shiveria, and Honeylune Ridge, Peach wears a gray trench coat with a white scarf, a charcoal gray nightcap, black gloves, black tights, and gray heels. She would also wear this outfit in Mario Kart Tour when the Ice Tour event took place retroactive January 14, 2020.

Explorer outfit
In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Fossil Falls, Steam Gardens, and the Forgotten Isle, Peach wears an explorer's uniform, which consists of a cream yellow shirt and shorts, a beige straw hat, white explorer's gloves, and chestnut brown hiking boots with white high socks. She also wore this uniform in Mario Kart Tour when the Sunset Tour took place retroactive November 3, 2020.

Vacation outfit
In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Tostarena, the Nimbus Arena, New Donk City, and Crumbleden, Peach wears a white polo shirt, a pink midi skirt, and silver ankle strapped heels, alongside a white vacation hat with a pink band and a pink polka dot scarf. She also wore this outfit in Mario Kart Tour when the Paris Tour took place retroactive November 5, 2019.

Rancher outfit
In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Mount Volbono, Peach wears blue overalls over a pink long-sleeved shirt, a tan straw hat, white rancher's gloves, and pink rain boots.

Swimsuit
During the time Super Mario World was released, a promo art from the Shogakukan Book showed peach wearing a magenta swimsuit. In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Lake Lamode and Bubblaine, Peach wears a pink bikini with her signature brooch between the cups, a white sarong with pink lunar markings, sunglasses on her forehead, a lighter pink beaded necklace, and pink wedged flip-flops with violet flowers.

Yukata
In Super Mario Odyssey, while at Bowser's Castle, Peach wears a white Yukata with Fire Flower patterns, a Boo mask attached around her hair, and brown wedged flip-flips. In Mario Kart Tour, her Yukata is different from the one she wore in Super Mario Odyssey, consisting of a white yukata with heart markings in pink and magenta. Peach still retains the Boo mask attached to the side of her hair, and the brown flip-flips have a magenta color at the top rather than teal.

Kimono
In Mario Kart Tour, Peach introduced her first alternative form in the game during the Tokyo Tour retroactive October 9, 2019. In her Kimono form, Peach wears a pink kimono with floral pattern markings and red wedged sandals, and her hair is tied back with a red hairband. The belt of the kimono is red and scarlet with the sapphire brooch attached to the center.

Happi
Her Happi form was first introduced in Mario Kart Tour during the Mario vs. Peach Tour retroactive July 28, 2021. In her Happi form, Peach wears a bright azalea pink tube-sleeved coat with a black sash running from the neck area down to the stripes, white shorts, and a pink round headband. The stripes below the coat are plaid in pink and magenta.

Doctor
In Dr. Mario, Peach's artwork showed her wearing a nurse's dress with wedges sandals and a nurse's hat, all in pink. In Dr. Mario World, Peach wears a white dress shirt that is overlapped by an azalea pink lab coat, a pink skirt, and white heels. She lacks a crown for this appearance. She would also have this appearance in Mario Kart Tour when the Peach vs. Bowser Tour took effect retroactive May 18, 2022.

New Nintendo 3DS promotional outfit
In the 2015 New Nintendo 3DS Japanese promotional trailer, Peach wore a black and white stripped dress with a salmon pink bow around her hair. Her earrings were black, and she also wore white casual sneakers.

Super Smash Bros. series
Within the Super Smash Bros. series, Peach comes in several alternate colors, including a Daisy palette in Super Smash Bros. Melee that even changes her hair color and complexion. The same palette, albeit with her standard skin tone, also appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U.

Personality
Peach is shown to be a sweet, kind, polite, and optimistic person, while also being classy and sociable, with more and more portrayals further displaying her as clever and adventurous. She apologizes excessively for getting into trouble and requiring Mario to rescue her. She even shows concern and compassion towards her enemies frequently such as saving Mimi in Super Paper Mario or making a thank-you cake for Bowser in Mario & Luigi's Bowser Inside Story, even after Mario and Luigi defeat Bowser in a fight that Bowser started. She can sometimes be assertive when it comes to standing up for her friends; she managed to outright resist Nastasia's mind control abilities during the "wedding" in Super Paper Mario, which Nastasia indicated was unprecedented. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, she manages to resist Shadow Queen's possession long enough to not only offer words of encouragement to Mario and his party, but also heal them (with the Shadow Queen, due to possessing Peach's body, being forced to go along with it). Her innate characteristics are often key to the plot of several games, such as her abilities to activate the Beanstar and Dark Star.

Largely because of her frequency of being kidnapped, she has been the subject of a running gag in throughout the series where several characters refer to the frequency of her abductions. Even Peach herself has referred to her kidnapping in New Super Mario Bros. Wii as a "recent kidnapping". Some characters referred to her even being useless, such as Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Pit (and to a certain extent, Viridi) in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U. But while Peach is often considered the archetypal video game damsel in distress, she is often shown actively working against her captors, such as tossing Super Mushrooms to Mario during the final fight in Super Mario World, sneaking around searching for power-ups and/or information to send to Mario in games such as Super Mario Galaxy and the Paper Mario series, and even attempting to escape her confinement in Super Mario 3D Land.

While Peach occasionally seems naïve, she is generally level-headed, knows when to take charge, and shows more common sense and observance than those around her, such as noticing a Mario doppleganger in the Isle Delfino vacation guide video's background in Super Mario Sunshine, insisting that an emergency meeting continues even after it is briefly interrupted by Bowser and deducing what Fawful was planning regarding her in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, and talking a stubborn Bowser into joining her and Mario in Super Paper Mario. She often acts as a peacemaker; for example, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's story mode, she offers tea to Fox and Sheik in order to stop them from fighting, and later converts Mr. Game & Watch to their cause. In the Super Mario World cartoon, she is a motherly figure to the young Yoshi and Oogtar, and in the cartoons overall, she is practical and generous to a fault, such as trying to convince the Mario Bros. to return home, despite the fact that King Koopa is still after her. She also has a feisty side, which shines through particularly well in her comic appearances. Besides sports, Peach is also into ballroom dancing, video games, and gardening, and seems to enjoy exploring and trying new things.

Although she is generally depicted as kind, sociable, and generous in most games, the Mario Strikers games do show a slightly more arrogant and petulant side to Peach, including her pitching a fit to one of her teammates and eventually jumping in a tantrum if the opposing team scores; in Mario Strikers: Battle League, though, she will regain her composure. A similar temperamental nature can be observed if the player fails to flip food in time and have it land on the floor in the Modern versions of Chef, where Peach will either stomp her foot in frustration (Game & Watch Gallery 2) or otherwise put her hand over her head and scream repeatedly in frustration before proceeding to wince (Game & Watch Gallery 4), in either case causing Yoshi to crouch down in fear.

In Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Run, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Super Paper Mario, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, and most notably, Super Princess Peach, Peach shows the braver side of her personality; participating as a fellow heroine, or in the latter case, as the sole heroine, single-handedly rescuing the Mario Bros. and her kingdom.

In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Peach's personality was drastically revamped. She is more assertive and is a born leader for her kingdom, keeping her role as a caring figure towards the Toads, albeit in a more active way. Despite this, she has her moments of kindness like her game counterpart, as she takes Mario with her to the Jungle Kingdom, despite failing multiple times, and tries to cheer him up when he fails once again, claiming that she didn't get it right the first time either, though Mario doesn't believe the lie. Additionally, she reluctantly accepts to Bowser's proposal as Kamek tortures Toad, whilst pleading for him not to hurt her people.

Speech
Early in her history, while Peach did speak, it was largely done via text dialogue. It was not until Mario is Missing where Peach got some dialogue, and it would not be until Super Mario 64 onward that she maintained having voiced dialogue. In Super Mario 64 and the international versions of Mario Kart 64, she largely spoke with a mature, feminine tone, though in the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64 as well as all versions of Mario Party, 2, and 3, and Super Mario Advance, Peach spoke with a slightly higher-pitched, somewhat shrill tone, and also possessing a slight Italian accent in the case of the last game. Starting with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Sunshine, she was given a very soft, high-pitched voice. In the Japanese versions of certain games, such as Itadaki Street DS and Fortune Street, Peach tends to end her sentences with "ですわ" (desu wa), a stereotypical trait in Japanese media reserved for noble upper-class women and even simply haughty and arrogant women.

Powers and abilities
Like other Super Mario characters, Peach can Jump and Ground Pound; she also slaps opponents, which is her specialty, rather than punching. While not very strong physically, she makes up for it in technique and skill, and many games reveal her to be fast and agile as well. She is also shown to be very graceful, often embellishing attacks and victory scenes alike with elegant movements, twirls, and dances. With the release of Super Mario 3D World, Peach is able to use power-ups, such as the Fire Flower, Super Leaf, Super Bell, and Double Cherry, among other power-ups and items. She also has the unique ability to float in mid-air by means of her skirt, first seen in Super Mario Bros. 2, and can also use her parasol to achieve this same effect. This ability returns in Super Mario 3D World and the Super Smash Bros. series; in the former, it is also revealed that Peach can still glide even when she doesn't have a skirt on. In New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and New Super Mario Bros. 2, she is also shown to slow down her descent from a fairly large height.

In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Peach is shown to have impressive healing abilities like Therapy and Group Hug, and this ability is seen again in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door when she overcomes the Shadow Queen's mind control over her to heal Mario and his party. She has occasionally been shown to have telepathic powers, like in Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, when she calls out to Mario as a hologram in Dark Land, or when she and Starlow combine powers to drain and then send Bowser flying in the beginning if Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. Additionally, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, her Final Smash, Peach Blossom, puts her opponents to sleep. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Peach has a powerful special attack called the Peach Bomber, where hip-checking her opponents engulfs them in an explosion. Earlier, Super Mario RPG also linked her with explosions, as one of her attacks, Psych Bomb, involved throwing bombs at her opponents, and a similar scene occurred in the Super Mario Adventures comic, when she used a barrage of bombs against the Koopalings. In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, she was also shown to have enough strength to not just telekinetically throw Bowser out of her castle, but throw him far into the forest outside Toad Town. However, it's implied that she was only able to do this with Starlow's help, largely because Starlow had weakened Bowser earlier. She also was powerful enough to counteract Bowser's magic, which was the initial reason why Bowser had abducted her in Super Mario Bros.

In general, however, Peach's special abilities and powers usually involve hearts. They are mostly seen in the sports installments including, but not limited to, Mario Power Tennis (Sweet Kiss Return), Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (Heart Shot), Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and Super Mario Strikers (heart trails follow the balls after special hits). Her special item in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is also a heart, and allows her to co-opt others' attacks. Besides hearts alone, Peach will sometimes use the power of love to combat her opponents in sports, such as her Super Peach Spin offensive shot in Mario Power Tennis, or how her Heart Swing in Mario Super Sluggers dazes any male player who tries to catch it, while the other females are immune. In addition, many of her abilities in Super Mario RPG have a heart as her magic symbol. Additionally, the Super Smash Bros. series as of Brawl has generally given her moves more of an embellished feminine flair, such as replacing certain moves and adding details like ribbons, rainbows, sparkles, and hearts to others (including replacing the Peach Bomber's explosion with hearts).

Aside from her magical abilities, she is also shown in a few games to be a good chef, or at least a good baker, such as the Modern version of Chef in some of the Game & Watch Gallery games, as well as Paper Mario, when she has to bake a cake for Gourmet Guy in exchange for information regarding Mario. In addition, incidental dialogue from Toad after getting a star on the Peach's Birthday Cake board from Mario Party revealed that she was responsible for the titular cake's creation. She also was shown to be good at chemistry, having created an invisibility potion with the help of TEC-XX in an attempt to retrieve vital information on the X-Nauts' plans from Grodus's office.

During her trek on Vibe Island in Super Princess Peach, she also was shown to utilize various Vibe Powers, with Gloom making her run faster and use tears to grow plants, Rage making her shake the ground upon landing and burn hot enough to melt ice, Calm letting her heal herself, and Joy making her fly and spin foes and objects with a whirlwind.

Family
The Mushroom King as well as the Mushroom Queen are the only confirmed members of her family in the games, although very little is known about them. According to his depiction in the Nintendo Comics System, while he does embarrass her with his general foolishness, she knows he has good intentions and loves him dearly. Other media have shed light on Peach's other relatives, such as Gramma Toadstool and her mother. In Mario Superstar Baseball, a Lakitu mistakenly refers to Toadsworth as Peach's grandpa, but in reality, while he is very protective of her and has cared for her ever since she was a baby, he is actually her longtime steward and has no actual family relation. Similar confusion surrounds an elderly chambermaid Toad referred to as Grandma by Peach in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, however, it is most likely that this was a term of endearment carried over from the Japanese version, where it is more common to use familial terms for non-relatives. In the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Wii official guides published by Prima and licensed by Nintendo, Daisy's biographies state that Peach is her cousin, but that statement has yet to be proven in the games themselves. Similarly, according to the PRIMA Official Game Guide for Super Mario Galaxy, Rosalina was initially intended to be a relative of Peach's, hence her similar physical appearance to Peach, although this concept was dropped. In the Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. adaptation of Momotarō, Ojīsan and Obāsan are the parents of Princess Peach.

Friends and love interests


Mario, being her most frequent rescuer, is Peach's love interest. The two are shown to have been close friends since childhood in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and the comic "Warios Weihnachtsmärchen," published in the German Club Nintendo magazine, reveals that they spent their graduation ball in school together. Peach has sent Toads to help Luigi when Mario disappears in Luigi's Mansion, and she herself rescues all three of them from Bowser in Super Princess Peach, as well as saving Mario and one of his allies from the Icicle Golem in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. In Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!, Peach is willing to put herself into a forced marriage with Bowser if it means saving Mario's life. They also share good chemistry together as "buddy players" in Mario Superstar Baseball and Mario Super Sluggers.

Numerous games, alternate media, and supplemental material depict Mario and Peach as having mutual romantic affection for each other as well as a friendship. In Mario Party 5, Peach and Mario are called "Cutest Couple," and the official guide for Mario Party 8 states that Peach is the apple of Mario's eye. In the official guide of Yoshi's Island DS, the description for Baby Mario and Baby Peach: Dynamic Duo mentions the "romantic entanglements" in their adult lives, while the official Mario Kart: Double Dash!! guide reads, "Aw, isn’t that cute? Mario and Peach are together again." In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Peach calls Mario her "knight in shining armor," and in the first Paper Mario, one of the Toads tells Mario to take Peach on a date to Shooting Star Summit. In Super Princess Peach, after Peach rescues Mario, she enthusiastically calls and runs towards him and happily dances with him in celebration. Rosalina refers to Peach as Mario's "special one" in Super Mario Galaxy, with the two seen holding hands toward the ending of the game. Mario Power Tennis even goes as far as showing Mario himself telling Peach of his love for her in Peach's victory scene, which she responds to with a smile and a blown kiss. Also, in Mario's victory scene in Mario Power Tennis, Peach gives him a small kiss on his cheek. Further, in Super Mario Odyssey, after kidnapping her, Bowser declares his intention to make Peach marry him, and Mario's main motivation is to stop Bowser from taking Peach's hand in marriage by force. While Peach does care for Mario, there are times where she gets annoyed if Mario misbehaves. A notable example of this is in the ending to Super Mario Odyssey, where, after Mario attempts to prevent Bowser from getting her hand in marriage by behaving in a similar aggressive manner, she shouts, "Enough!" and storms off in a huff, although she nonetheless calms down enough to tell Mario and Bowser that they should all go back home, and the post-game shows she forgave Mario for the earlier incident.

Peach's obedient servant is Toad, who dotes upon and attempts to protect her despite his fear of Bowser, often getting himself kidnapped along with her in the process. Toad's collectible card from Super Mario Galaxy states that he even formed the Toad Brigade and followed Peach and Bowser to space in order to try to save her, while in numerous other games, he is the one to go alert Mario about Peach's disappearance. They have good chemistry in the Mario Baseball games, and their team names in the Mario Party series include "Royal Family" and "Loyal Friends." In the Super Smash Bros. games, Peach holds Toad in front of herself for protection, though he is shown to be reluctant and attacks out of fear. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, however, Toad acts like a proper bodyguard and blocks opponents off from Peach.

Another of Peach's closest friends is Luigi, who often helps Mario rescue her. There has been inconsistencies whenever Luigi is attracted to Peach. In the platformers, Peach kisses Luigi the same way she kisses Mario, and Luigi reacts the same way. In Mario Power Tennis, when winning a trophy, Peach blows kisses to Mario and Luigi, who both swoon in love. However, individual interaction in other games show that there are no romantic feelings between them. The two share good chemistry in Mario Superstar Baseball but not in its sequel, Mario Super Sluggers.

Peach and Daisy have been shown to be best friends since Daisy first became playable in Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64. If something involves partners in the Super Mario spin-offs, the two will usually be a team, from various sports games to Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Mario Super Sluggers is the first game to show the two sharing dialog, wherein Peach reveals that she has concerns for Daisy's welfare. Nintendo's Mario Power Tennis website says that Daisy is Peach's "sister in arms," a term used to describe a close friendship, and while the Prima guides for Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Wii say that they are cousins, no known first-party material has ever confirmed this. Prior to Daisy's comeback appearance in the games and by extension the establishment of their being best friends, however, a 4-koma segment of the Super Mario-kun manga depicts Peach as being jealous of Daisy receiving attention from Mario to the extent that she throws a mushroom at him out of frustration.

Yoshi is another one of Peach's closest friends, who saved her as a baby alongside the other babies in Yoshi's Island DS. The two share good chemistry is most games, and he has also helped Mario save her in a number of games, including Super Mario 64 DS. He also helps Mario save Peach's friends at her request in Yoshi's Safari.

Peach is on friendly terms with numerous other characters. In the baseball games, she shares good chemistry with Toadette, who is on her starting team, and in Mario Party DS, she gives Toadette a set of touching trumpets. While Peach and Rosalina did not speak in the Super Mario Galaxy games, the two were shown to become fast friends upon meeting in issue 38 of the Super Mario-kun manga, and they were also shown to work together in Super Mario 3D World. While Wario has sometimes shown antagonism towards Peach, such as in Mario Power Tennis, he helps save her in Super Mario 64 DS and is invited to have cake as thanks. He also attempts to retrieve a stolen statue of Peach in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (albeit with the selfish motivation of trying to hold it for ransom to gain his own castle), and he appears to have a crush on her in the Mario & Wario arc of the Super Mario Adventures comic, seeing as he tries to outdo Mario and buy Peach's prize item, a Samus Doll, for her birthday. Furthermore, the comic "Warios Weihnachtsmärchen" reveals that Peach turned Wario down and instead accompanied Mario to their high school graduation ball.

Initially, Peach was unable to get along with her Rabbid counterpart, due to the latter feeling jealousy towards the former's relationship with Mario. Rabbid Peach has tried to get Mario's attention several times and got frustrated when Peach approached them. When Mario and company came to the revamped Mushroom Kingdom, Rabbid Peach looked at Peach with disgust, to the point of touching her dress and then looking away. Peach herself does not show animosity towards her Rabbid counterpart, and she is willing to cooperate with her to stop the Megabug. Although not fond of her counterpart, Rabbid Peach nonetheless has some respect for her, such as placing the Icicle Golem's head in place before stepping aside while making a gesture indicating that the Rabbid's counterpart is free to kick it back into the freezer. After defeating the said villain, Peach constructs a new statue of Rabbid Peach holding a Power Star, much to the latter's delight. Then, Rabbid Peach invites all of her teammates, including Peach, to take a group. Outside Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, artwork shows Peach and Rabbid Peach taking a selfie together, with the former winking and putting up a.

The opening of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and the story mode for the Nintendo 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games show Peach, alongside Daisy, being great friends with Amy Rose (having a special victory animation in the sequels) and Blaze the Cat.

Foes


Bowser has repeatedly kidnapped Peach and invaded her kingdom to rule the world but also as part of his attraction to her. Peach, however, strongly dislikes Bowser for harming her close friends and putting her into distress. She is frightened or apprehensive of Bowser, such as being startled at Mario upon seeing Bowser on his side in Super Mario RPG and sobbing over her captivity in the Super Mario anime movie. Peach discovers his feelings toward her in Paper Mario, but in other games, Peach immediately notices his attraction, such as his attempting to get her to kiss him in public in Mario Power Tennis. When the situation calls for it, however, she will sweet-talk him to persuade him into teaming up with her and Mario in Super Paper Mario, and she occasionally shows him goodwill, such as baking him a thank-you cake at the end of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story; she has also hesitated when she had to leave him to his presumed demise in Super Paper Mario.

In Super Paper Mario, Nastasia uses mind control to force Peach to marry the willing Bowser in order to fulfill an ancient prophesy, but while Peach considers the wedding a sham and refuses to acknowledge it, Bowser insists on calling her his wife throughout the game, even as they team up to defeat Count Bleck. Peach also rejected Bowser's advances to marriage in the Super Mario Adventures comic and Super Mario Odyssey.

In Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser had lied to his son that Peach was his mother, and while it was later revealed that Bowser Jr. knew it was a lie all along, he went along with it anyway, and even continued to affectionately refer to her as "mama" in Mario Superstar Baseball. Likewise, Peach, when Bowser Jr. revealed their "relationship" to both Mario and her, expressed shock and confusion at her being his mother.

She also held some animosity towards Mimi, especially after the latter implied that Peach was only good for getting herself kidnapped. This resulted in her being outraged enough at her insult that she insisted on fighting her alone, even snapping at Mario and Luigi to leave before fighting her. Nonetheless, despite her animosity, she risked her life to save Mimi when they were in danger of falling due to the Void's increasing power.

The public
Peach is widely respected in the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. Her Toads are very loyal, and her citizens adore her. Many people in the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond buy and even collect merchandise of her. In Paper Mario, there is a "Secret Sale" that offers "beautiful photos of Princess Peach", and a Peach doll named Dolly is owned by Goombaria and longed for by Jr. Troopa. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, there is a Koopa Troopa Peach fan in Petalburg who collects Peach merchandise, including pictures, photos, and even a life-sized print he keeps at his window, which he claims he would risk life and limb to protect.

Leitmotif
Since her debut, Peach has had as her theme a repetitive 4-bar musical theme, with it being expanded in VS. Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, and Super Mario Bros. 3 to feature chimes nearing the end before it loops. The Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels version was what Koji Kondo envisioned for the theme originally, but it had to be cut short due to memory limits in the original game. In later games, the music varied between either something akin to 's Bridal Chorus (Paper Mario) or ballet-style music (New Super Mario Bros. series, Paper Mario: Color Splash, and Super Mario Odyssey).

Profiles and statistics


Princess Peach's bios typically describe her as the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom and the Toads, as well as mentioning her tendency to get kidnapped by Bowser. In most Super Mario sports games, she is classed as a Technique type character, and in the Mario Kart series, she is classed as either a lightweight or middleweight character. Her emblem is her crown.

Portrayals
The following voice actresses have portrayed Princess Peach during the course of Super Mario franchise history:

English

 * Jeannie Elias - The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
 * Tracey Moore - The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World
 * Kathy Fitzgerald - Mario is Missing!
 * Jocelyn Benford - Hotel Mario
 * Leslie Swan - Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 (international), Super Paper Mario
 * Asako Kozuki - Mario Kart 64 (Japanese), Mario Party, Mario Party 2, Mario Kart: Super Circuit
 * Jen Taylor - Mario Golf to Mario Kart DS, as well as Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, although her voice clips are sometimes used together with Samantha Kelly's, such as in Mario Sports Superstars and Mario Tennis Aces.
 * Nicole Mills - Super Mario Strikers, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, New Super Mario Bros.; her voice clips from Super Mario Strikers are partially reused in Mario Strikers Charged along with those provided by Samantha Kelly.
 * Samantha Kelly (sometimes abbreviated as Sam Kelly in the game credits) - Most Super Mario-related media as of Mario Party 8, Mario Strikers Charged, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl
 * Anya Taylor-Joy - The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Other languages
Mami Yamase, a pop singer, voiced Peach in Super Mario Bros.: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen!, marking the first time the character was given an official voice.

In the foreign-language dubs of the DIC cartoons, Peach was dubbed by the following actresses:
 * Latin American Spanish: María Fernanda Morales (Super Show!), Dulce María Romay (Super Mario Bros. 3), and Rocío Robledo (Super Mario World)
 * Castilian Spanish: Pilar Santigosa
 * French: Super Show! - Stéphanie Murat (original), Virginie Ledieu (redub); Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World - Isabelle Volpé
 * German: Sabine Bohlmann
 * Italian: Alessandra Karpoff
 * Brazilian Portuguese: Guilene Conte (main), Eleonora Prado (alternate portrayer in Super Mario Bros. 3)
 * European Portuguese: Ana Vieira, Flora Mirona, and Márcia Menezes
 * Swedish: Louise Raeder (Super Show!), Nina Gunke (Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World)
 * Hungarian: Fazekas Zsuzsa (first voice), Solecki Janka (Super Mario World and redubs)
 * Finnish: Liisa Paatso
 * Russian: Olga Golovanova (Super Mario Bros. 3), Daria Frolova (Super Mario World)
 * Romanian: Oana Avram (Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World)

Quotes
- General quote used whenever rescued from Bowser or another enemy in a game - When rescued from Booster in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. - When spoken to on the Delfino Airstrip in Super Mario Sunshine. - Commanding Mario and Luigi to let her fight Mimi on her own in Super Paper Mario. - Victory quote in the Super Smash Bros. series. - When encountered in the Mushroom Kingdom in the postgame of Super Mario Odyssey.
 * "Thank you, Mario!"
 * "Mario, you're my knight in shining armor!"
 * "Mario, be careful! I have a bad feeling about this..."
 * "Stay out of this! I am a princess, and she has thrown mud at my dignity! You two leave me be! UNDERSTOOD?!"
 * "Oh, did I win?"
 * "My travels with Tiara were wonderful - so many memories! And I realized something...how important it is to see different things and talk with different people, that no matter what kingdom you're in, people smile with the same sparkle! We have to do what we can with our time to smiles on as many faces as possible! So I've decided to invite people from all around the world to the castle!"

Trivia

 * Toadstool is described as a "fairy Princess" in the 47th issue of the United Kingdom Nintendo Magazine System.
 * Peach was misnamed as "Princess Daisy" in the 49th issue of the Australian Nintendo Magazine System.