PETA Offended By Mario's Tanooki Suit

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You know, when I took this job as gaming writer for TFTS, I didn’t think that I’d be writing about PETA as often as I have been. After last week’s questionable moral outcry over the depiction of rat stabbing in Battlefield 3, the folks at PETA are back at it again, this time calling foul on everyone’s favorite pudgy plumber, Mario.

So, what’s the problem? Apparently PETA takes issue with Mario’s Tanooki suit, which is making a return in Super Mario 3D Land, the highly anticipated 3DS game that released yesterday in North America. According to PETA, Mario wearing a Tanooki suit is pro-fur, but I think it’s just a better idea to let PETA explain why it takes issue with this timeless game series:

When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy—even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers. Tanooki may be just a “suit” in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur. By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.

That was a statement posted to PETA’s website, accompanied by a flash game called Super Tanooki Skin 2D, where a skinless raccoon attempts to chase Mario down and get his skin back. Mario is flying high above all the action, wearing a Tanooki skin that’s dripping an alarming amount of blood. I took the time out to play the game for a while, and it’s predictably terrible. Not only that, but I question PETA’s motives with this game, primarily because the raccoon I was playing as died numerous times while trying to catch up with Mario.

Truthfully, I’m not all that surprised that PETA is wasting its time going after video games, but I’m left wondering why there’s all this outrage about video games coming to the surface right now. Perhaps some of PETA’s supporters can shed some light on the matter for me in the comments section below?