Mario has entered the real world! With the recently announced Super Mario Odyssey, the lovable plumber has finally proceeded beyond the eponymous Lands, Worlds, and Galaxies of previous games, breaking through the fourth wall and entering a weird facsimile of New York City called New Donk City. The sight of a doughy little Mario hopping and backflipping atop lampposts, taxi cabs, and normally proportioned humans has been met with a noted mix of terror and delight online. On the one hand, it is exciting to see Nintendo’s world-class level designers setting their sights on open-world sandbox-style playgrounds; on the other hand, if Mario exists within a multiverse that also contains human beings with normal proportions then what the fuck is Mario?