YMMV / The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach!

• Ass Pull: The reveal that Kibidango is actually Peach's fiancé, Prince Haru, comes out of nowhere with only one proper hint of her brooch having a twin. It's to the point where it's been speculated that Haru's addition was a very last-minute plot point, especially given the ending song is about a Star-Crossed Lovers romance between Mario and Peach.
• Die for Our Ship: Prince Haru is generally disliked for ending up with Peach at the end of the movie instead of Mario. Not helping matters is how the two monarchs have never shown any hint of foreshadowing towards already being engaged, nor do they have any interactions prior to The Reveal to establish romantic chemistry.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Miss Endless, the old grocery customer, especially in the ending due to her memetic "Aah!" shout and pose.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite never being released outside of Japan, the film has seen a better reception internationally than Japan. While it remains obscure in both countries, international audiences prefer the film for being Truer to the Text compared to the 1993 live action film. While Japanese audiences do not think too highly of the film due to being too close to the games, and being too simplistic as it was essentially made as an hour-long commercial for Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Mario's fight with Bowser, at one point, he grabs Bowser by the tail and throws him away. Guess what you have to do in Bowser's boss battles in Super Mario 64. Additionally, one scene in the film also involves Mario entering a sunken ship, just like in Super Mario World.
  • This film used the idea that Bowser is in love with Peach years before Paper Mario and Super Paper Mario practically made it canon. What's more, a plot with Bowser kidnapping Peach with the intent to marry her would later be canon in the games (with a ring too big for Peach to properly wear no less), and like in the movie, she doesn't marry Bowser or Mario, though for much different reasons.
  • Luigi in this film wears yellow and is obsessed with money, just like the later character Wario.
  • On the subject of Luigi wearing different clothes than normal, he wears an inversion of Mario's classic outfit on the VHS cover, with blue overalls over a red shirt instead of red over blue. This would actually be Mario's exact color scheme from Super Mario Bros. 3 to the present day.
  • Princess Shokora from Wario Land 4 ended up in the exact same situation as Prince Haru: was turned into an animal by the main villain and it took pieces of jewelry to revert her back to normal, Haru's case being the necklaces and Shokora's being her crown, earings, necklace and bracelet. Unfortunately Shokora had the added case of being Dead All Along.
  • The Toads in this film are all female, and 17 years later in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, a female Toad named Toadette actually appears in the series proper.
  • At one point, Mario uses a mushroom and becomes a giant. Additionally, the proportions of his legs bring Weird Mario to mind.
  • The film opens with Mario playing a Famicom. The next animated ''Mario'' movie has a scene of him playing its American counterpart.
  • Prince Haru is from the Flower Kingdom, a land that serves as the introductory level and main location of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Fans quickly took notice of the name of the level, as well as new character Prince Florian looking similar to Kibidango/Haru.
• Memetic Troll: Prince Haru is commonly seen as either this or a Memetic Psychopath, due to his character only contributing two things to the story: annoying the audience in his dog form and facilitating the Cruel Twist Ending of Peach having to turn down Mario.
• Older Than They Think: The anime uses a lot of elements that wouldn't be standardized in the games until the N64 and Gamecube eras. It's hard to tell if this is coincidental or if the anime influenced the games:
  • In the games Bowser was a generic villain until the RPGs gave him more of a personality. This anime's portrayal of Bowser as Affably Evil is closer to his post-N64 game portrayal.
  • In the games, Bowser having a Villainous Crush on Peach wouldn't be cemented until Paper Mario 64.
  • Likewise, this is the first Mario related work to depict Mario and Peach's relationship in a romantic light (even if they don't get together by the end), which the games wouldn't follow suit on until Super Mario World in 1990.
  • While not as ditzy as usual, Peach's personality is more in-line with her game portrayal than the generic monarch she was at the time.
  • Luigi is depicted here as taller and thinner than Mario, which none of the games would do until Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988).
• Questionable Casting:
  • Bowser, a character who we now associate with Scott Burns and Kenny James' badass guttural voice and an Expy of the Ox King, is here voiced by Akiko Wada, a famous Japanese female R&B singer and dub voice of Marge Simpson.
  • Peach is voiced by then-popular J-pop singer Mami Yamase. The fact that she's an idol and not an actress is apparent, and not helping is the fact that she makes the seemingly adult princess sound like a petulant, nasally ten year old (although this could be somewhat excused, as when the movie came out in 1986, Yamase was only 16 years old). ^note Before you ask, she retired in 1990 to focus on a culinary career.
• The Scrappy: You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who likes Kibidango/Prince Haru. Many viewers dislike him for being The Load of the team, having annoying pitched barks, and being engaged with Peach at the end of the movie, negating Mario a happy ending with her. It's also quite telling that upon noticing that Super Mario Bros. Wonder is set in the Flower Kingdom and features a similar looking character that also happens to be the kingdom's prince, the fanbase's reaction was a collective "Please no!".
• So Okay, It's Average: While it's generally considered a much better adaptation of the Mario franchise than the 1993 film (if only for how incredibly In Name Only it was), as a standalone movie it's considered fairly by-the-book and without much in the way of plot beyond its standard Damsel in Distress outline and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-inspired setup (other than its unexpected ending). It still gets a good deal of recognition from Mario fans for its historical importance (being not just one of the first video game movies ever made, along with the Star Soldier film released the same day, but also a source of inspiration for a number of elements in later games, most notably the Bowser fights in Super Mario 64 and Bowser's characterization as being hopelessly in love with Peach), and for being the Ur-Example of the Video Game isekai anime subgenre, it's just considered somewhat mediocre when examined on its own terms, though it's also considered to be Fair for Its Day.

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