Queer Nintendo Characters (and why I love them) 

Whelp, it's July, so... Pride month 2!

Also worth mentioning, apparently in the original translation, Beauty Nova says she used to be a "Karate king" or something to that effect, something more explicitly male with King in the title, and i believe then goes on to mention how wonderful the power of science is.

hey, if you haven't seen it, itoi himself said in an interview that tony was meant to be gay :) the segment about tony is pretty short (and doesn't mention him by name) but i've always thought it was pretty sweet. i don't think youtube likes links in comments very much but hopefully you can find it and read it!! he's said a lot of interesting stuff about the development of the series in general lol also beauty nova's japanese dialogue is even less ambiguous (she specifically credits "medical science" for her transformation, and in japanese the black belt class is called "karate king") great video!! super well made, your style of commentary is fun to listen to :)

About Birdo in the '80s sure, Nintendo of America may have been against the trans history of the character. But in Japan? Nintendo the company that said "we will gave the same benefits to same sex couples even if the government doesn't", doubt

In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, there's a character you meet roughly midway through the game called Juniper. Anyone who talks about Juniper - whether that be characters in your party or NPCs - uses they/them pronouns when referring to them. This means Juniper is an openly non-binary person. And while they're not directly relevant to the main overarching story, they do provide the party with a unique field ability required to progress within the game, alongside being one of the many Heroes in the game (non-controllable 7th party member basically). But it gets better - in the game's files, every party member and Hero is provided with a value which dictates their gender, so to speak. Male characters get a value of '0' and female characters get a value of '1' - this is probably to determine what type of clothing they receive when using different classes. Juniper has a gender value of '2'. They are literally hard coded to be non-binary.

I enjoyed the little bit of voice acting I got to do. 🥰

Baldam is just coping that Vivian is adorable and she isn't.

Here's a few queer characters from Xenoblade games! Xenoblade 2 has an optional party member named Sheba, who's canonically a lesbian whose main goal in life is to get a lot of money so she can have a harem of pretty girls around her at all times. Xenoblade 2 also has a canonical polyamorous frouple, but that's not confirmed until late in Xenoblade 3, sooooo spoilers? The characters of Rex, Pyra, Mythra, and Nia (three of which are female so there's a bit of wobbly bi rep in there) all end up in a relationship together in their adulthood, at least two of whom have canonical children that show up in 3 (one of which only shows up in the dlc). Xenoblade 3 also has a canonically nonbinary character, also a (semi-)optional party member, named Juniper. There's no fanfare about it, they're just never referred to with gendered pronouns and look and sound pretty androgynous. Oh also, not from any Xeno game but this is the only character I can think of that might have my identity: Terra from Final Fantasy 6! It's a popular headcanon that she is asexual, because at several points in the game she states to not really understand what love is, she struggles with the romantic attention she receives from Locke, and her arc in the second half of the game involves her regaining the drive to fight through the familial love she finds in a group of orphaned children she'd been caring for. Pretty cool imo.

Birdo is complicated because this is treated like both a species and an individual, like Yoshi. And we know there are more Yoshis than just the usual green one we usually see. So are all Birdos trans or is Birdetta just a specific individual? "Your glasses are dirty. I'll clean them for you." Tony plz haha Isn't the big reason that Mother 3 never left Japan the music being mostly lifted from other sources and it would have been a massive lawsuit for them to release it as-is? Nova may be the first trans character in a Pokémon game (other than Marill) but the first trans Pokémon character was over twenty years ago. A Japan-exclusive manga called How I Became A Pokémon Card had Akari, a boy who wants to be the manliest of men, but is hampered by his mother's insistence that he has to be a girl like he was born. So Akari idolizes masculinity to the point of pitching a fit when he gets a Pikachu for his birthday. His friend Akira follows him and tells him listen, that Pilachu is a living thing that you're rejecting! You're not acting like a man, youre acting like a terrible person! So Akari comes to accept Pikachu for how it is, and learns to shed his toxic ideas about being a man. Hopefully his mom will drop her weird ideas too (characters are only usually seen in a single story so we don't get followup). Though now we also have characters like Blanche from Pokémon Go (canonically nonbinary) and Penny from SV (finds boys and girls attractive).

You did mention a team star member being queer, but forgot the leader Penny. She has said that atticus looked handsome before, and in the dlc she thought the protagonist mom looked attractive, which means she's possibly bisexual.

Not talking about Fire Emblem in a video about queer Nintendo is like talking about Nintendo platformers without mentioning Mario. Bold but understandable 😅😂

I replied to one talking about fire emblem, so I’m not gonna repeat that, but Xenoblade also has multiple queer or non binary characters! Most explicitly is Juniper from 3, who is literally programmed into the game as a non-binary hero! Alvis/A, is also explicitly non-binary or at the very least “somewhere in between (male and female)” as explained by Rex in Xenoblade 3 also. Both of these are very positive and every character uses they/them to address them, they even got a non-binary actor to play Juniper in 3, so they cared a lot about that! 2 also has a few gay characters but I’m more familiar with 3 and those are so positive that I’ll leave it at that. Hopefully this is interesting to you, and I recommend playing Xenoblade if you are interested!

If you ever make a sequel to this video you've gotta mention Splatoon's Off the Hook, I love those gay cephalopods so much

Earthbound in general is gay as HELLLLL haha How have I never spoken to that little gay boy npc! And god that letter was so cute 😩

Bro I’m surprised I was recommended this given that you somehow only have 60 subscribers, content is quality and you definitely deserve more subs

Vivian in thumbnail = subscribe

I resonate so much with this. When I say that i preferer to consme media that includes or protrait LGBTQIAP+ characters or storylines to some of my freinds, they just find it silly and blame me to my lack of the ability to just see things as they are, without needing to be all restricted about it. But its something that only us can feel, I guess. Just brings a warm to see that isnt only me that pops off in exciting when I see a queer character in a game I already love and enjoy.

Love this vid and the idea behind it! One quick thing to note about Birdo: if Nintendo wanted to disregard the Super Mario Bros 2 manual, that'd be one thing but they made a game called Captain Rainbow for the Wii with Birdo in it and she's canonically trans in that game. It's a Japan exclusive game and I can't read Japanese so I don't know how respectfully the game treats her, but I think it's worth noting they haven't completely erased that aspect from her character.

EARTHBOUND AND MOTHER3 MENTIONED YIPPPEEE!!

Splatoon recently has had some some really fun and pretty damn blatant queer representation. The character Acht uses they/them pronouns (with no weird lore explanations to make it seem out of their control), and the idols Pearl and Marina are just BLATANTLY flirting in the elevator, with Marina especially constantly gushing about how cool and cute Pearl is.

heeey i loved the video, very good like editing, and videclips cuts, hope you get more recognition, bc this video is very informative and also fun to watch

Solid vid I didn’t know there were so many queer coded characters, fun !

Omg I cannot believe this has such little likes!!! I loved this video and your form of content can't wait for more upcoming :] love them queer characters

oh yeah i’m subbing to this channel 100%

Great Video! Looking forward to the next one!

Very great video :) I quite enjoyed it

what the hell this video was fire

Awesome video, so glad this ended up in my recommended!@

Great video! It's awesome that we live in a day and age where people can more openly express themselves, so I'm really happy to see positive representation of the LGBTQ+ community in the games I love! 🔥🔥🔥

I love your content, its criminal you have so little views

Interestingly, Beldam doesn't ever misgender Vivian in the new translation. In fact, all misgendering is removed, even the understandable ones where the characters just didn't know (e.g. they originally didn't know Hooktail was a girl).

In Paper Mario Sticker Star, Birdo appears in the game and sings the following line: “Heart of a woman, heart of a man... Both can know of love's grace...” So Nintendo doesn’t fully interpret as cis female.

great video!!:]

I’m gonna throw Splatoon into the mix- All of the player characters (albeit retroactively as of Splatoon 3, iirc) are either not referred to by gender or by using “they/them” in the case of the Captain (formerly playable Agent Three in Splatoon 1) and maybe Agent Eight in Side Order, though I think they might’ve just avoided pronouns there. Speaking of Side Order, the character Acht canonically is non-binary, using they/them pronouns and I think it’s even canon in the Japanese version, too. It doesn’t even end there. Pearl and Marina, aka Off the Hook, are pretty heavily implied to be dating, or at the very least, Marina having a massive crush on Pearl. Though there is extremely ample evidence that it’s mutual, and the dialogue in Side Order is HEAVILY suggestive of this if you know their history. Not to mention the song “We’re So Back” where at one point, Pearl mentions and points to Marina, which is also just before they slide close together and Marina puts her arm behind Pearl’s lower back. If you look at all of their Splatfest art and interviews and side content, it gets even more obvious. They got married after their world tour in Side Order, and you cannot tell me otherwise. They literally couldn’t stop flirting in the elevator, to the point where Acht turns to Agent 8 at times and is like “are they always like this?”

Super cute. Followed for more content 😊❤

video eats!

i saw the thumbnail and thought it would be funny to comment "wow... no tony from earthbound... dissapointing." but no he is here!

In an ocean of painfully mid cishet Nintendo RU-vidrs who attempt to stay “apolitical”, i’m glad people like you exist.

Earthbound in general is gay as HELLLLL haha How have I never spoken to that little gay boy npc!

3:57 I mean, Captain Rainbow in like 2009 addresses Birdo being trans, Birdo gets arrested for using the women's bathroom, and you have to "Prove" she's female, wich you do by finding a vibrator... It might be played off as a joke, but they still remember

Based 😎

You said you wouldn't be covering Fire Emblem so I'll bite the bullet and do it myself as a massive fan of the Franchise. With the release of Fire Emblem Fates in 2016, queer romance became an option. You were limited to one queer romance per gender, meaning male Corrin only had one queer option (Niles) and female Corrin only had one queer option (Rhajat). And while Niles is a very explicitly queer character who makes suggestive remarks towards both male and female characters in various conversations, he can also be seen as a harmful stereotype that portrays bisexuals as sexual deviants that will screw anything with a pulse, which is a yikes to say the least. Then there's Rhajat, who only displays homosexual tendencies if the player decides to romance them, she is also canonically a minor whereas Corrin is a full adult. That's not okay at all. Not to mention that if you marry Niles as male Corrin you'll be unable to recruit Niles's child Nina because she functionally ceases to exist, and that both queer pairings lock you out of recruiting Corrin's child Kana. In Fates, being queer has a detrimental effect on your gameplay which is a super fun and cool message to send to queer players. Lastly, Fates does have one other character who is explicitly bisexual: Soleil. There are multiple conversations that Soleil has in game that talk about her thinking girls are pretty, complimenting their smile or their hair, mentioning that she gets flustered and nervous around girls because of how pretty they are. Soleil is very explicitly meant to be a bisexual woman. She is also one of the various child units of the game, and it's clear that a lot of her admiration for woman comes from her playboy father Laslow, but Soleil is undeniably queer. And yet she is only able to be romance by male units and has no romance option with female Corrin (which I'm okay with because, again, she's a child. But internal consistency is apparently not in Fates' wheelhouse) which is a strange decision. In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the romance options are expanded, but there's a clear favouritism towards women and quite a huge asterisk. If you play as female Byleth you have 5* queer romance options. The "normal" romance options are Dorothea, a powerful sorceress and renowned songstress, Edelgard, who I will refrain from going into because she's a massive player in the story and Mercedes who is a cleric that loves to bake sweets. The other two options are where it gets murky, because one is Rhea, who is the archbishop of the Church of Seiros which is the main religion of the continent of Fòdlan and SPOILERS is actually Seiros, a powerful demigod who was using a pseudonym to maintain control and also has been alive for hundreds of years, and Sothis, who is the Goddess that the church of Seiros worships and is also hundreds if not thousands of years old and also also looks like an 11 year old child and also also also kinda lives inside Byleth's head but also kinda not at the same time. It's... complicated to say the least. If you're playing as male Byleth, then you better break out mom's credit card because your only queer option in the base game is Linhardt, a sleepy and unmotivated but highly intelligent scholar. If you want to access the other 2 queer options, you have to pay real life money for the Ashen Wolves DLC that lets you romance Yuri, a pompous and arrogant but extremely strategic and cunning jerk. I will give credit where credit is due with Yuri because his in-game portrait shows that he wears a smoky purple eyeliner that he pulls off very nicely. And finally there's the other DLC-exclusive character Jeritza, who SPOILERS is Mercedes's brother, so I guess bisexuality runs in the family, but is only available on one of the four routes and is an ominous and mysterious guy whose only personality traits are a superiority complex, a penchant for combat training that becomes dangerous for his partner, and being unequivocally evil with no room for moral ambiguity. I know, great options all around for the guys. I can't speak on any potential queerness in Fire Emblem: Engage because I haven't played it and refuse to spoil myself, but considering the trajectory the series is currently on in terms of queer representation, I can only hope it improves with each subsequent entry.

I already know this is poser shit cuz I skimmed the video and didn't even see Girahim

Ehhem penny is probably lesbian ehhem sorry I had something stuck in my throat

My whole personality is me being LGBT 🤓

Not talking about Fire Emblem in a video about queer Nintendo is like talking about Nintendo platformers without mentioning Mario. Bold but understandable 😅😂