Sponsored by

Super Mario Manga Mania

SCORE: 77

Peter ran across Super Mario Manga Mania and thought it might be something interesting for me to read and review. The good news is Super Mario Manga Mania is rated for all ages and is much cleaner than most of the manga I have read thus far. The bad news is Super Mario Manga is a compilation of different Mario manga’s put together as sort of a sampler book. It would be difficult to find some of the franchises included within Super Mario Manga Mania in their original form. It would also probably be quite costly.

Super Mario Manga Mania has plenty of corny jokes within it. Kids will most likely enjoy Super Mario Manga Mania much more than adults. I never really got into the corny jokes. The last chapter within Super Mario Manga Mania deals with the death of a parent, getting old, and dying. This is pretty powerful stuff for a manga book based on Mario. That chapter really helped the writer with the grief he was dealing with. There is even a Christmas chapter in Super Mario Manga Mania where Mario does something really nice for Yoshi.

The art work in Super Mario Manga Mania is okay. The writing is okay. There are plenty of instances where Mario gets injured fighting in Super Mario Manga. I love some of the unique ways they win battles in Super Mario Manga. There are ghosts and bosses to deal with in Super Mario Manga Mania. The violence in Super Mario Manga Mania is more comical in nature than anything else. If you know the video games then you will understand a lot of what is going in within Super Mario Manga Mania. I certainly did and appreciate that knowledge.

There are a plethora of lessons within Super Mario Manga Mania. I love the one where they help out a Chain Chomp and that same Chain Chomp helps them out later. I think it is great Super Mario Manga Mania dealt with grief. I wish the hope of Jesus Christ had been touched upon instead of making jokes makes me feel better. There have been a lot of Mario mangas going around related to a plethora of different video games. Kids that are into Mario and Nintendo may really appreciate a book like Super Mario Manga. For me Super Mario Manga Mania is too disconnected. We are in Super Mario Sunshine then a Super Mario Galaxy and so on. At the end of the day I felt like there was no cohesive storyline in Super Mario Manga Mania. It is a good sampler.
- Paul

Graphics: 70%
Writing: 80%
Replay/Extras: 80%
Story: 80%
Family Friendly Factor: 75%

System: Manga
Publisher: Viz Media
Author: Yukio Sawada
Rating: ‘A’ for All Ages