Princess Peach

• 1. Introduction

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  Princess Peach has appeared in more video game titles than any other female character. For much of that run, she has spent the story waiting at the end of it. Shigeru Miyamoto created her for Nintendo's Mario franchise, and she debuted in the 1985 game Super Mario Bros. Players of that game fought through world after world, and a Toad kept delivering the same news: "But our princess is in another castle!" Josh Straub of Game Informer later called that moment a "method of torture." Yet the character behind it became one of the best-known figures in gaming, and one of the most argued over. Why did Nintendo build a hero's goal around a captive princess? How did she travel from a prize at the finish line to a playable fighter, driver and star of her own games? And why do critics still disagree about what she stands for?

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• 2. Pauline, Pink, Toadstool

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  Mario's first game, Donkey Kong in 1981, already had a captive woman. She was Pauline, originally named Lady. Miyamoto had wanted to use Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl from the Popeye cartoon, but he could not obtain the license. He reworked them into Jumpman, who became Mario, along with Donkey Kong and Pauline. That game fixed her role as the woman Mario rescues, and later games kept the pattern. When the Nintendo Entertainment System arrived with Super Mario Bros., Peach replaced Pauline. Miyamoto later explained that Donkey Kong was designed for arcades, where male players were common, so Nintendo never considered a character that girls could play.

  Peach's first drawing came from Miyamoto himself. He then asked Yōichi Kotabe to redraw her following his instructions. Miyamoto wanted her eyes to be "a little cat-like" and her look to be "stubborn, but a little cute." Her design was still unsettled in 1985. A strategy guide called How to Win at Super Mario Bros. put a human princess on its cover, alongside an alternative version with a mushroom head. Other merchandise from that period gave her straight, long blonde hair and a red skirt.

  The version most players know wears a pink dress with puffy sleeves and long white gloves. Her castle has white walls, a red roof and a stained-glass portrait of its princess. She is one of the few humans in a kingdom full of mushroom-like Toads. Her father, the Mushroom King, also called King Toadstool, appears in the Super Mario Bros. comics and in the first game's manual. He has never appeared in a video game. Nintendo has never officially confirmed her age, and it varies between the mid-teens and the early twenties.

  Miyamoto said her name came from connecting princesses with girls, and girls with the color pink. In Japan she has been Peach since 1985, but the English manual for Super Mario Bros. called her Princess Toadstool. The first Western use of Peach came in Yoshi's Safari in 1993. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 went back to Toadstool in 1994. In Super Mario 64 in 1996, she writes Mario a letter that uses both names and signs it "Peach." From Mario Kart 64 onward, Western versions use Peach. Even the 1996 role-playing game Super Mario RPG kept the older name until its 2023 remake on the Nintendo Switch changed it.

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• 3. The Rescue Formula

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  "Thank you, Mario!" was the whole reward in 1985. In that first game, King Koopa kidnaps the princess and hides her in one of eight dungeons, and Mario and Luigi must find her. After eight worlds and a fight over a pit of lava, Mario finally earns those words. Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1988 sends him to rescue seven kings from Bowser's Koopalings, and only then does he learn the princess has been taken too. Her reward this time is a joke and a dismissive "Bye bye."

  Super Mario World in 1990 set the rescue in Dinosaur Land, with Mario passing through nine locations before facing Bowser. Super Mario 64 in 1996 opened with an invitation to her castle, where she had baked him a cake. The castle works as a hub, with paintings that lead into worlds full of challenges. After Bowser's defeat, the princess steps out of the castle's stained-glass window, where she had been held captive.

  Miyamoto later defended the formula. He said the damsel role began as a way to give players a quick, easy-to-understand objective, because he valued clarity and simplicity. He accepted the criticism that a kidnapped princess "didn't fit with the current image of women." But he said the rescue was "a part of the game's mechanics that couldn't be easily changed."

  The 2017 game Super Mario Odyssey finally bent the pattern. Bowser abducts her because he wants to marry her. At the end, Bowser and Mario both compete for her affection, and she rejects them both and travels the world on her own.

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• 4. The Playable Princess

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  In 1988, Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES let players choose the princess as one of four playable characters. Her special ability was floating over obstacles. The game had been adapted for a Western audience from an existing Japanese title, Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. Princess Toadstool took the place of a character named Lina. In 1990, Princess Toadstool's Castle Run, a game based on Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nelsonic Game Watch, made her the first sole playable character.

  Then the main series left her out for years. When New Super Mario Bros. Wii introduced four-player play in 2009, Miyamoto said Peach was absent because her skirt would need special programming. In 2012, Masataka Takemoto, director of New Super Mario Bros. U, gave another reason. He wanted every playable character to share Mario's moves, and Peach did not fit that plan.

  Producer Yoshiaki Koizumi suggested bringing her back for Super Mario 3D World in 2013. It was the first mainline game since Super Mario Bros. 2 to make her playable. Koizumi thought she would be a more competitive multiplayer choice, and he hoped players could play alongside their girlfriends or wives. She floats using her gown, and a cat suit lets her crawl and climb walls. With a Fire Flower, her dress changes from pink to the flower's colors. She also became playable in Super Mario Run in 2016 after players finished its World Tour mode, and in Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023.

  In 2005, Super Princess Peach made her the protagonist of a platform game with mechanics similar to the Super Mario games. On Vibe Island, Bowser uses the Vibe Scepter to capture Mario and Luigi, and Peach sets out to rescue them with a talking umbrella named Perry. A Vibe meter governs four emotions. Joy lets her float in a cyclone, gloom floods the screen with tears, rage engulfs her in flames, and calm restores her health. Miyamoto said Nintendo wanted her to be "Peach-like," meaning she evokes the "free optimism of a Princess." He added that she never saw herself as "protected" by Mario, and that many Nintendo developers were used to a matriarchal figure at home.

  Princess Peach: Showtime! followed on the 22nd of March 2024. Peach saves Sparkle Theatre from a villain named Grape and her minions, the Sour Bunch, with help from the theater's guardian, Stella. She changes into outfits with specific abilities, including Swordfighter, Patissier, Kung Fu, Detective, Figure Skater, Mermaid and Mighty Peach. It was the first game with Peach as protagonist since Super Princess Peach. After the 2023 Mario film, her box art was updated to make her look angrier and more determined, like her movie counterpart.

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• 5. A Crowded Roster

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  Super Mario RPG in 1996 turned Peach into the last character to join the player's party. She heals allies and defends, and she attacks with a frying pan or a parasol. Her sleep spell there inspired the Final Smash she later used in the Super Smash Bros. series.

  Smash is where her fighting style took shape. She has appeared in every game since her debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee, where she floated through the air and threw turnips at opponents. Super Smash Bros. Brawl added Peach Blossom, which puts opponents to sleep and damages them. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, she can use Toad as a shield and drift downward with her parasol.

  She is also a fixture on the racetrack. Super Mario Kart in 1992 offered her among eight playable characters. Mario Kart 8 in 2014 added Cat Peach as downloadable content, along with a variation called Pink Gold Peach. Mario Kart Tour later gave her costumes including Kimono Peach, Vacation Peach, Wintertime Peach and Cherub Baby Peach.

  Sports games gave her signature moves. In Mario Superstar Baseball in 2005, her star move hides the ball behind hearts. Mario Tennis Aces in 2018 gave her a spinning leap that ends in a heart. In Mario Strikers: Battle League in 2022, she kicks the ball into a heart-shaped arch and stuns other players. Tennis also produced a design that never shipped. After Waluigi debuted in Mario Tennis, Shugo Takahashi of Camelot Software Planning pitched an evil version of Peach called "Walupeach." Miyamoto rejected it before seeing the design, saying it would be "just like Doronjo" from the Yatterman anime series. Waluigi's creator, Fumihide Aoki, pitched it again for Mario Power Tennis in 2004, and Nintendo rejected it again.

  The Paper Mario games kept her in the story's captive seat while letting the player briefly take her place. In the original game from 2000, players control her as she repeatedly attempts to escape the castle. In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in 2004, each of the eight chapters ends with a section where she wanders the fortress where the X-Nauts hold her. In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in 2003, her voice is sucked into a device and replaced with speech that turns into explosives.

  She has also wandered into other companies' worlds. A painting of her hangs in Hyrule Castle in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In Link's Awakening, a character named Christine sends her picture to a letter writer named Mr. Write, but the portrait is of Peach. In the GameCube versions of NBA Street V3 and SSX on Tour from Electronic Arts, she is a playable guest.

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• 6. Beyond the Screen

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  In 1986, a Japanese anime film titled Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! reached audiences. Hideo Takayashiki wrote it and Masami Hata directed it, based on the first Super Mario Bros. game. Its Peach escapes from the video game world into Mario's world, until King Koopa captures her and pulls her back to the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and Luigi follow after a dog lures them there.

  In September 1989, she appeared on children's television in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! as an 8-bit sprite. Jeannie Elias voiced her there, and Tracey Moore took over for the follow-up series The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. Throughout 1992, a comic titled Super Mario Adventures ran in Nintendo Power. In it, Bowser proposes marriage and threatens to turn her subjects to stone if she refuses. She does not sit idle. She tricks her way out of her cell, escapes through a window using a yellow cape, and pops out of a pizza box holding a bomb in a bid to save Mario.

  In English-language games, the voice of Peach has changed over time. Jen Taylor voiced her from 2000 to 2007, Samantha Kelly from 2007 to 2024, and Courtney Lin since 2025. Another of her voices came from Leslie Swan, a localization manager for Nintendo.

  In the Super Nintendo World areas at Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Hollywood, Peach has her own pavilion with a costumed meet-and-greet. The interactive Power-Up Bands borrow their design from her dress. Merchandise includes plush toys, action figures, a Lego figure and a Hot Wheels collectible. In December 2014, a rare Peach amiibo missing its legs because of a factory defect won a Guinness World Record as the most expensive amiibo figure. Her color scheme also shaped a pink Wii Remote Plus controller in 2014 and a pastel pink Joy-Con for the Switch in 2024.

  The Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023 gave her a different job. Anya Taylor-Joy voices her, and the casting was announced in a Nintendo Direct in September 2021. In the film, the Toads raised her from infancy, and she guides Mario and shares a romantic spark with him. Director Aaron Horvath said Luigi became the victim in need of rescue so that Peach could remain a strong monarch and protector. Taylor-Joy said she had worried beforehand, but that this version of Peach was "the way she was supposed to be." Jack Black, who voices Bowser, wrote and performed a song called "Peaches" that was released in April 2023.

  Miyamoto said Peach changed more than any other character in that film, going from a princess who needs protection to one who fights for her kingdom. He called making her a "fighting female character" "a bold change." But for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in 2026, he said "that wasn't enough." He wanted to show "Peach's worries and emotions, and the fluctuations in her relationship with Mario." That film reveals Peach as the younger sister of Princess Rosalina, who sent her to the Mushroom Kingdom as an infant to protect her from danger.

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• 7. A Contested Icon

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  Mike Fahey of Kotaku once compiled a "victimization record" of her kidnappings and wrote, "There are few women with more kidnappings under their belt than her royal mushroom highness." Alyse Knorr, also writing for Kotaku, argued that Peach became such a damsel cliché that she existed mainly as a plot device. The feminist organization Sister Namibia objected that she serves "quite literally as a trophy" for completing Mario's quest. Time called her the "quintessential damsel in distress," while noting that Nintendo had improved her status by making her playable. Tracey John of Time added that her repeated abductions had become a running joke and a pop culture reference.

  Others saw more. Sam Loveridge of Digital Spy described her as one of the most iconic female game characters of all time, and GameSpot called her "arguably the most famous woman in video game history." Syfy praised her for embracing the power of being a "high femme." Gene Park of The Washington Post argued she was empowered long before the movie, since she was the most visible woman in games and had been playable since Super Mario Bros. 2.

  Super Princess Peach split critics sharply. Chris Scullion of Video Games Chronicle called it an average platformer and objected to its focus on her "getting emotional." Mark Bozon of IGN said its emotion powers felt like "a girls game made by guys." Brett Elston of GamesRadar+ disagreed, calling the emotions useful tools used constructively. Jordan Biordi of CGMagazine went further, describing the negative commentary as "a patriarchy-driven reading problem." The debate over Showtime ran the same way. Tom Regan of The Guardian found the game "patronising" to its capable heroine, while Polygon, IGN and Nintendo Life all welcomed it.

  Critics also argued over her handling in recent games and films. Chris Suellentrop of The New York Times said in 2016 that Super Mario Run had failed to update Peach by starting with her as a hostage. Erik Kain of Forbes replied that the game did try, by making her playable after her rescue. Sam Loveridge of GamesRadar+ read the end of Super Mario Odyssey as Peach shrugging off years as a damsel to forge her own path as a single woman. Julia Glassman of The Mary Sue saw the film version as a familiar trope, where a capable woman steps aside to train an average man. Christian Holub of Entertainment Weekly called her "a female protagonist for the Rey generation."

  Her influence reached beyond games. In 2018, a short comic turned Bowser into a sinister female figure resembling Peach, whom fans named Bowsette. It inspired numerous pieces of fan art. In May 2021, Grimes dressed as Princess Peach on Saturday Night Live, in a sketch where host Elon Musk played Wario, on trial for murdering Mario in a kart race. Mike Sholars of Kotaku credited Rosalina's arrival in Super Mario Galaxy with freeing the series from relying on rescuing the princess. For Rebekah Valentine of IGN, Showtime was a chance to see Peach "defined only by herself" instead of by Mario.

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