It’s no exaggeration to say that half the Internet lost its mind when the idea of Bowsette came up during the launch of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. The version of Peach, more fiery and far from the concept of princess, was a phenomenon in itself, and which only existed in the imagination of fans. But what if I told you that Nintendo almost explored this concept? It is more, Waluigi’s original creator even drew her.
First things first: Wario is Mario’s archenemy. Greedy, rude and impertinent. Its name comes from a play on Japanese words (“warui” means “evil”). When all the characters had a clue partner Mario-Tennis , on Nintendo 64 there was nothing like it, which is why Waluigi was created, continuing the trend applied to his brother Luigi. What’s interesting is that, according to this logic, we almost had to Wapeach.
The existence of Wapeach has never been a myth. In 2000, Nintendo itself talked about the possibility that, like Wario and Waluigi, there would be similar counterpoints with Princesses Peach and Daisy, confirming that this was something that had been considered. Ultimately, and after evaluating the idea, the two were discarded because they weren’t « adorable enough. »
This is how Princess Peach’s counterpoint was born
However, given the development of Mario Power Tennis for GameCube, which will be released in 2004, the possibility of recovering this less adorable version of Peach was tested. The person who proposed the designs was Fumi Aoki Skin of Camelot, who had already created the now iconic Waluigi, and although his face tended towards the anime, his clothes were the complete opposite of those of the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom.
We know this because Aoki himself shared via his Instagram the sketches of this Wapeach that never existed. At least, until now.
Without official name , the one commonly called « Wapeach » dresses in a very tight suit and enormous boots that seem to be made of a material similar to leather. Her crown, because she is also a princess, is very tense and she wears on her right hand (she is left-handed as you can see) a bracelet which is reminiscent of that of Bowser and Chun Li from Street Fighter.
What’s curious is that he doesn’t have one of those huge aquiline noses like those of Wario or Waluigi, even if Peach’s doesn’t look like the round and generous noses of Mario and Luigi either. There is, however, a very curious detail: we do not know if he has pointed ears, although this is not at all excluded, since his hood has a curious protrusion. Will he be able to hear what we say to him?
Much more adorable than Wario and Waluigi
In addition to Wapeach’s pencil drawings, Fumihide Aoki also showed a three-dimensional model of the same character in which we see that the X’s of the dress are transparent and that a zipper even comes out from behind. And while we have no idea what her personality would have been like, her cheeks are extremely pink.
We will never know to what extent the arrival of Wapeach, or whatever we would have called it, would have conditioned the development of the saga of Super Mario, But it’s clear that Nintendo has continued to explore new ways to add more princess-like characters, like Estela in the case of Super Mario Galaxy; or Pêchette. He even brought back Pauline and made her the mayor of New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey. Not to mention, even Peach herself starred in her adventure on Nintendo laptops.
Wapeach isn’t the first character removed from Nintendo, and he won’t be the last either. But who knows? If the unpresentable Spike, Mario’s first rival, is back after the success of the Super Mario movie, the doors could be open to unexpected surprises.