Vivian in Paper Mario

Vivian Image credit: http://www.mariowiki.com/vivian

Vivian
Image credit: http://www.mariowiki.com/vivian

Though less famous than Birdo, Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (an off-shoot of the Super Mario Bros series) is also described as a trans woman in the Japanese version of the game (as well as games that were directly translated from Japanese to another language) but appears to be a cis woman in the English version. Characters in the game repeatedly make fun of her for her gender, calling her a boy or cross-dresser. In the English version, these lines are altered to call her ugly instead.

Here is a video of one such instance of the game with a direct translation from Japanese to Spanish (without the English localization process that removes these references):

LGBTQ  references in this game series:

Birdo 

Vivian

Toads

Citations:

  1. Easmodx. (2007, December 11). Paper Mario TTY: Vivian’s secret! YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn1fHGRychI
  2. Garcia, T. (2012, March 26). A Brief History of Transgender Characters in Video Games [Updated]. https://transgamersociologist.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-brief-history-of-transgender-characters-in-video-games/
  3. Holden, Will. (2014, February 8). Is Vivian from Paper Mario Transgender? Broken Base. http://www.brokenbase.com/post/76043788098/is-vivian-from-paper-mario-transgender
  4. Is Vivian really a man in Japan? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/920182-paper-mario-the-thousand-year-door/50205289?page=6
  5. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mariowiki.com/Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door
  6. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://themushroomkingdom.net/pmttyd_j2e.shtml#vivian
  7. Vivian. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mariowiki.com/vivian