Apparantly, mario is a poacher. at least according to PETA, a contriversial animal rights activist group.

They claim the suit is promoting the Poaching of Tanuki world wide.

Quote :

The Tanooki suit turns Mario into a tanuki, a racoon-dog that is traditionally used in Japanese literature as a trickster animal. The animals are also prized for their coats in Japan, however, and PETA argues that Mario’s suit promotes that industry.

Quote :

To drive home its point, the group has launched a “Mario Kills Tanooki” campaign complete with a Flash game where players help a skinned animal locate his pelt.

Quote :

PETA has gone after video games in the past. Most recently, its German branch complained to Battlefield developer DICE because of a segment of the game where players can stab a rat, Eurogamer reported.

Now if this isn't a radical claim I don't know what is.

What next? Are they going to try and support dragon's rights in Skyrim? Because a Dragon Born absorbing the souls of dragons is apparently a form of poaching...

Or are they going to complain about the way chocobos are treated in Final Fantasy because they look like chickens or yellow ostriches?

Quote :

Eurogamer reached out and got an official statement from Nintendo regarding the group’s campaign against the Tanooki suit.

“Mario often takes the appearance of certain animals and objects in his games,” a Nintendo spokesperson told the site. “These have included a frog, a penguin, a balloon and even a metallic version of himself. These lighthearted and whimsical transformations give Mario different abilities and make his games fun to play. The different forms that Mario takes make no statement beyond the games themselves.”

What's your take on the matter?

Quote :

The animals are also prized for their coats in Japan

Wait... a tanuki is a real animal? I always thought they were mythological! I WANT ONE!

EDIT: err... I want a tanuki, not a tanuki pelt. Just to be clear. That would be awful.

Lol me and Ven were playing the game PETA made for this. At the end if you catch Mario there's a message saying "Fuck you Mario. This Skin belongs to animals." Or something along those lines.

This is a whole new level of stupid as far as I'm concerned. Sounds like PETA just ran out of things to whine about and is reaching for anything they can get at this point. They may as well launch a campaign against all video games (and tv, movies and books for that matter) because I can think of tons of games where the monsters/enemies are pretty much just animals. Most media has something that can be taken as animal cruelty if spun right. If it was an unacceptable level of violence/cruelty I'd join their cause, because I absolutely can't stand real animal cruelty, but this just makes them all sound like idiots to me.