The "Birdo" issue

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wondered... what the F**k is Birdo, at some stage...

Is it a he, is it a she????? Is it some sort of tranvestite Yoshi?

I remember at one stage, in early Mario games Birdo was referred to as a he, then in later games became a she... It seems that this gender issue has been examined in the bizarre new game by Nintendo, "Captain Rainbow", which looks a bit like a pychodelic Animal Crossing...

For an idea of what Captain Rainbow is like - why not have a look at the official website: Captain Rainbow

Anyway, the latest article in Wired, addressed this best:

"Captain Rainbow keeps getting weirder and weirder.

As you might recall from the instruction manual of Super Mario Bros. 2, the mini-boss character Birdo is, in certain versions of the Marioverse, a transvestite: He's a pink boy dinosaur who wears a pretty ribbon because he thinks he's a girl, and spits eggs from his mouth because....

Because....

He doesn't have a vagina?

Where does he get the eggs? This is all kind of sounding very Buffalo Bill, the more I think about it. Birdo has been celebrated by transsexuals, including game designer Jennifer Reitz.

At any rate, one of two things has happened since the 1988 release of Mario 2. Either Nintendo retconned Birdo's gender crisis out of existence by turning him into a her, or, if you're following Reitz's interpretation, Birdo had a sex change operation. Either way, Birdo's referred to as a "her" in modern games like Mario Tennis.

Oh, but not anymore. Not in Captain Rainbow.

Shortly after the prologue of Nintendo's latest Japanese Wii game, one of the first characters that you, as a superhero stranded on a mysterious island filled with past-their-prime Nintendo misfit characters, have to help is Birdo, who's been jailed.

Birdo is seen by the island's robot police officer as he/she comes out of a public toilet. (The line he delivers as he comes out: "Wow, that was huge. That was like giving birth.")

The officer throws him in jail for using the ladies' room when he's clearly a man. Birdo asks you to go to his/her house and find "evidence that I'm a woman." So you do. This is how it happens. As you walk into Birdo's bedroom, you hear ... a buzzing. The pillow on her bed is vibrating and buzzing. You walk up to it, and Captain Rainbow looks under the pillow to find ... an item that's censored out on the screen. It's covered up with a question mark. "Proof that the owner is a woman," it says, leaving it at that.

So you bring what is in all likelihood Birdo's vibrator back to the police robot, who accepts it, whatever it may be, as prima facie evidence that Birdo is a chick.

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea how this would fly outside Japan, either."

And just to freak you out some more.... Some Birdo cosplay...

Is that a chick, or a guy? I really do not want to know... (shivers)