Have You Ever Wondered Why Luigi is Green?

Sometimes, the simplest stories can be the most interesting. In Nintendo’s Mario universe, have you ever wondered why the iconic plumber’s brother wears green clothing? Of course, it’s to help differentiate the two characters from each other – but there’s more to it than that.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview with Mario-creator Shigeru Miyamoto, it was revealed that technical limitations (memory, of course) of the Nintendo Famicom led to the green color being chosen. No, it wasn’t simply because green is generally considered to be the opposite of red. As Miyamoto himself states:

“… we were limited in the color palettes – we didn’t have much in the way of additional colors that we could use. And so we looked at the turtles in that game. Their heads are sort of skin-toned, their shells are green, so what we could do is we could use the color palette from the turtle on this character. And so from those technical limitations we said ‘Okay. We have these two characters.“

You probably never knew that Luigi was essentially born from a turtle, did you? Well now you do, and that knowledge will never leave you. You’re welcome.

Cheers to Kotaku for tipping-us off to this cool interview.