Does Super Mario say "Itsumi"
Executive summary
A widespread social-media claim that Mario’s catchphrase is actually “Itsumi Mario” — meaning “Super Mario” in Japanese — is false: authoritative sources and Nintendo’s own materials record the line as “It’s‑a me, Mario.” [1] The “Itsumi” idea appears to be a viral reinterpretation rooted in misreading a Japanese surname and social-media joke posts, not in linguistic or corporate evidence. [2] [3]
1. What people are claiming and how big the story became
Beginning at least as early as 2021 and resurfacing repeatedly through 2023–2024, users on platforms such as X (Twitter), TikTok, Reddit and Facebook pushed the claim that Mario says “Itsumi Mario” and that “itsumi” means “super” or “superb” in Japanese, a meme that gathered millions of views and wide circulation. [1] [4] [5]
2. What Nintendo and contemporary transcripts show
Official Nintendo materials and multiple film/game transcripts consistently record the line as “It’s‑a me, Mario,” and not “Itsumi Mario,” which is why fact‑checkers rate the “Itsumi” claim false. [1] [3] [5] Movie transcripts of The Super Mario Bros. Movie similarly render the line as “It’s‑a‑me, a‑Mario.” [3] In short, the canonical, company‑endorsed catchphrase remains “It’s‑a me, Mario.” [1]
3. The linguistic side: “Itsumi” isn’t Japanese for “super”
Linguistic checks show that “itsumi” is not the standard Japanese word for “super” or “superb”; it exists primarily as a Japanese surname (逸見) and as a given name in some cases, not a translation of the English adjective “super.” [1] [2] Machine translation examples and dictionaries translate “super” into terms such as sūpā or subarashii, not “itsumi.” [3] Therefore the etymological claim behind the meme collapses under straightforward language inspection. [4]
4. Where the myth likely came from and why it spread
The rumor appears to have been amplified by a mix of jokey TikToks, reposts, and at least one X account that later acknowledged possibly sparking the trend; social posts framed the idea as a clever linguistic twist and were amplified by humor and shareability rather than by documentary evidence. [1] [6] The idea is attractive because it offers a neat, surprising re‑reading of a beloved catchphrase and because Mario is a property of a Japanese company, which made the cross‑language angle feel plausible to many viewers. [5]
5. The voice, accent and why fans mishear things
Mario’s iconic delivery — performed for decades by Charles Martinet as an exaggerated Italian‑American accent — can make phonemes blur and invite alternate hear‑sayings, which helps explain why a misheard phrase could take hold online; fact‑checkers and commentators note that the voice is deliberately accented rather than Japanese, reinforcing the “It’s‑a me” reading. [6] Combined with viral clips and the social incentive to post surprising trivia, that phonetic ambiguity turned into a persistent urban legend. [2]
6. Verdict and the broader lesson
The evidence is clear and consistent across corporate materials, transcripts and linguistic checks: Mario does not say “Itsumi Mario” as a Japanese way of saying “Super Mario”; the claim is a social‑media myth rooted in a name/translation confusion and spread through jokes and virality. [1] [3] The episode is a reminder that highly shareable re‑framings of pop‑culture touchstones can gain large audiences despite being easily verifiable as false by checking official sources and basic language references. [4] [5]