Following a minor appearance in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, one classic Nintendo character is getting a new name for the Japanese market, moving on from his original, racist-sounding moniker, as evidenced by a tweet from the company's Japanese-language Twitter account.If you've seen the Super Mario Bros. Movie, you'll note it's full of references to games across the franchise's four-decade history, but you may have questioned the origins of Spike, the large, Brooklyn-dwelling former employer of Mario and Luigi, who acts as a bully towards them near the start of the film. That character has always been known in predominantly English-speaking countries as Foreman Spike, and he is the bearded antagonist from 1985's Wrecking Crew, a classic NES game in which the Mario brothers use hammers to break down walls at a demolition site.However, in Japan, that character's name has always been BurakkÄ« (ブラッã‚ー), meant to sound like the English "Blackie." Nintendo has not given a specific reason for the name change, though it does come just ahead of The Super Mario Bros. Movie's release in Japan later this week. It should be noted that Japan is much more ethnically homogenous than some other parts of the world, and there exist some cultural nuances and language-barrier issues between it and much of the western world, so its highly unlikely that Nintendo intentionally gave the character such a controversial name nearly 40 years ago.
Translated, the Tweet from Nintendo reads, "The name of the character 'Blackie' that appears in the family computer software 'Wrecking Crew' will be changed to 'Spike', which is the same as the name in Europe and the United States. In addition, the name in 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' released on April 28, 2023 is also "Spike".
The Super Mario Bros. Movie premiered in North American and European markets on April 5, smashing box office records and dethroning Disney's Frozen II with the highest-grossing opening weekend of all time for an animated movie. Though it won't be appearing on Japanese movie screens until this coming Friday, some industry experts are expecting it to hit the $1 billion mark by the end of next weekend.
Since his initial appearance, Spike has appeared in three other iterations of Wrecking Crew, including one in which he was a playable character. He has also been playable in the Mario-themed Mobile Golf for the Game Boy Color and most recently made a cameo appearance in 2018's WarioWare Gold for the 3DS. A Spike-themed costume was also available for Mario in Super Mario Maker for the WiiU.