Waluigi creator Fumihide Aoki has shared renders and sketches for a scrapped Mario Power Tennis character known as “Walpeach”.
The designs were discovered on Aoki-san’s personal Instagram account by X users Mr. Duby and No Context Super Mario and subsequently shared by ResetEra user fhqwhgads in a thread earlier today.
Aoki-san’s posts consist of three 3D renders of Walpeach’s model intended for Mario Power Tennis, as well as some sketches, the first of which seems to depict Walpeach in her idle pose.
The second of the sketches shared by Aoki-san depicts Walpeach clutching her racket again, as well as holding what looks to be a giant axe, which may have been an alternate racket for the character in-game.
Replying to user questions on Instagram, Aoki-san says the sketches were drawn during the development stages of Mario Power Tennis.
He says that although Walpeach was conceived in a basic form for Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64, at that point, “she had no design sketches, only a name”.
According to Aoki-san, he doesn’t know why Walpeach wasn’t included in Mario Power Tennis, but he does say that if she had been included, her personality would have been “scary when provoked”, however “cute” she looks.
When asked by a user how he would design a hypothetical “Wadaisy”, Aoki-san says she would be “derived from Walpeach’s design with a slightly more active image”, so now you know.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Walpeach is an active proposal for Mario Tennis games going forward, either, which is presumably why we didn’t see her appearing in the Switch’s Mario Tennis Aces.
It’s a shame; she could have been a great character for any of the participants in the famous Mario Tennis Aces Stay at Home tournament back in 2020.
Aoki-san’s original posts are well worth skimming through, as many users ask him questions, and he has insightful and interesting answers for many of them as well, including some of the ones we’ve included here.
He was also the creator of Waluigi, so if you’re into Waluigi-themed art (and who among us can say we aren’t?), then his Instagram profile is well worth a look.
