Why did Nintendo put HUMANS into Mario?

Mario is also, technically, a kids game. I think it makes you feel like a kid running around having fun while the 'grown ups' are living their boring business lives.

I think the humans being so realistic while mario is still so cartoony just makes it sillier to look at

The humans may be realistic, but if you take time to talk to them, they are pretty colorful. There's even a Moon you can get for just sitting with a guy and chatting, with him thanking you for doing so. That was a really nice touch.

I always think the "New Donkers" are a weird species just like Koopas or Toads. Coincidentally they just happen to look a lot like humans and New York. Kind of like how in The Simpsons, the aliens speak Rijelian, but by an astonishing coincidence, it's exactly the same as English.

It sure is strange to see Mario among all these humans

I like to imagine that normal humans in Mario universe are cartoony and small just like Mario, and those realistic humans are just weird, uncanny and bigger creatures

The humans that Nintendo had planned for Super Mario Sunshine we’re not realistic. They were cartoonishly stylised like Mario, had similar features and were the same height as him. Also, we see these types of humans with cartoonish proportions in the new Mario movie and in some games like Mario golf.

From what it says in the artbook, they intentionally played up the uncannyness.

What I think really helps sell the idea of Mario and the New Donkers both being human is Pauline being the mayor of New Donk City. Her design fits well with the Mario brothers, princesses, and even the Toads, as well as matching the design style of the New Donkers. I think she really pulls it all together.

The human residence in New Donk City looks more like they came straight out of a GTA or SIMS game compared to Mario and his pal's cartoony design. I don't mind seeing the concept art of Mario sitting next to the New Donker holding a coffee, which is wholesome.

It's funny how the Mario Movie shows that humans in "real-world" Brooklyn look more appropriately styled to Mario and Luigi where else the humans residing in 'New Donk City'' AKA 'The New Donkers' look more photo-realistic despite the fact that they exist in the same dimension as the Mushroom Kingdom!

i don't mind the humans in odyssey, obviously they feel unfitting and i feel like that's the point, but i do prefer it when they either make new species (like piantas), or do what the mario movie did and make the humans match the mario style, but that's just my opinion

The game's art book had so much more Mario-like designs. I kinda get they choose realistic GTA people because Odyssey was all about unexpentancy, but I still feel like the old designs would have fit way better. Even the idea with a city of 8-bit humans would've fit the Mario world better. The movie just recently showed us a perfect example for humans in the Mario world, too.

I do think having Mario surrounded by other cartoony humans like himself would have been plenty new without having this strange disparity in realism. I do hope the original concept for the people of New Donk is revived and reused in some way.

Never played Odyssey, but I think since Mario is from Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, it's a bit strange to make humans from a big city look completely different to him. Kind of creates some Goofy/Pluto level confusion if they're both humans. Also, they look like the NPCs from Sonic '06.

It is a little odd to see these realistic looking humans right next to Mario, but I’m a sonic fan so I’m used to it seeing that kind of stuff.

What I LOVE about the humans in Odyssey, and I think goes perfectly with the Mario aesthetic, is that they’re not realistic humans at all. They’re the childlike ideal of adults. They all walk around in suits but what they’re actually doing and how they behave is so silly and imaginative and not realistic. They do what a young child imagines they do when they step out into the strange world. The fact that Mario looks nothing like them reminds us that Mario is the childlike ideal of a hero. He’s the avatar for children and children at heart. It makes sense that the humans are way taller and look nothing like him.

Honestly I didn't really care about the realistic humans in mario odyssey the first time I played it but it's kinda weird seeing pauline in it when she kept her cartoonish design

I really think in the future the humans should look more like Mario characters. The Illumination movie actually did a great job of making the human look translate in a way that made the Mario Bros stick out while also being realistically human like the rest of the people in the world.

"Why is he so different?" "He's just built different, don't judge him"