Waluigi Creator Reveals Scrapped Wapeach Designs

thegamer.com:

Every video game developer out there will tell you that there are a lot of cool ideas that, for a variety of reasons, are cut from their respective games and never see the light of day. Nintendo is no exception, and with a series as long-running as Super Mario, you know that there's a treasure trove of cut content out there waiting to be discovered.

One such concept that we already know of is Wapeach, sometimes referred to as Warupichi. She was a character that was pitched as an arch-rival to Princess Peach, the same way in which Wario and Waluigi are the arch-rivals of Mario and Luigi. Alongside Waluigi, she was to be introduced in the spinoff title Mario Tennis, but was ultimately scrapped by series creator Shigeru Miyamoto at the last minute.

While she may not have had an actual form, fans of the Mario series have kept her alive in name, creating fan art and original designs imagining what she may have looked like. Fortunately, we no longer have to use our imaginations, as Waluigi creator Fumihide Aoki recently shared concept art and a full 3D model of Wapeach on his Instagram account on Friday, giving us our first official look at the character almost 23 years after her inception.

The concept art shared by Aoki depicts Wapeach in a full body outfit, cones where her ears would be, and some massive black boots. There are several images of her from different angles, one of which is holding a tennis racket, while another is holding an axe that would make even the burliest of lumberjacks blush in embarrassment. When asked why she was holding an axe, Aoki says it's because he thought the idea of the character being "cute and scary" was interesting.

Aoki goes on to reveal even more details about the character, including the