Day 13: July 13th 
くノ一ツバキの胸の内 Volume 2 (81% ➨ 100%)
怪獣のトカゲ Volume 1 (87% ➨ 100%)
🪠 スーパーマリオくん Volume 1 (0% ➨ 10%)
This series has been on my radar since I first encountered it in the mid-1990s.
Over 25 years later, I’ll finally be reading it!
Or, at least, the first volume to check it out.
Will I like it? Will I not like it? Will a quarter of a century of thoughts about one day reading it have been in vain?
The first thing I noticed is a difference in character design. Is this the same series?
Apparently what I have in a monthly manga magazine from 1995 is スーパーマリオくん by 嵩瀬ひろし.
In contrast, the series available to buy digitally is スーパーマリオくん by 沢田ユキオ.
After 27 years of waiting, I’m finally about to read…a different series.
まあいっか。The manga I bought is what I’ve seen covers for online over the past 20+ years, so it’s actually what I expected to see.
This series started out around the launch of Super Mario World, meaning it includes characters from that era right at the start. It makes me think of how The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! was heavily influenced by the American Super Mario Bros. 2 release.
The table of contents shows chapters range from 8 to 19 pages long, meaning it should be good for fitting in a quick chapter here and there between reading other manga.
Although I already know all the kanji in the first chapter’s title, I do appreciate it when the kanji is extra readable for me as a native English speaker. I wonder, for a typical young Japanese child reading the comic in the early 1990s, were they more likely to recognize the kanji or the English words?
Mario appears caped alongside Yoshi on the title page, but it’s nice to see a Super Mario Bros. 3 reference right on the first page of the chapter. Here’s hoping Raccoon Mario makes an appearance at some point.
Naturally, things start off with Peach having been kidnapped by Bowser.
From there, the comic follows a pattern of gag after gag, and juvenile humor. From the first chapter, it’s not looking like something I’ll read past the first volume, but I’ll at least give the whole volume a go.