Hey everyone, Kaihatsu here. You know, games don’t need to be super realistic or gritty to look good,
and Mario games are a good example of this – they’re some of the best-looking games out
there. And to me, the best-looking ones are the SNES re-makes of Mario 1 and 2,
Yoshi’s Island, which I’ve already done a video on, and Super Mario World.
It’s a bright cartoony style, sure. But there’s definitely something else going on below all of
this bright colourful stuff. And you may be a little surprised to find out what it is…
Super Mario World’s art style, especially the level backgrounds, are derived from an
old style of Japanese art called Yamato-e. Yamato-e, translated as classical Japanese
paintings, is a style that became fully developed around the late Heian Period
considered to be Japan’s golden age for culture and architectural influence. This painting style
is based on earlier paintings from the Tang dynasty, as China had a strong influence on
Japanese and Korean culture for a long time, up until fairly recently historically speaking. The
style is named after the Yamato period, though no paintings survive from this point in time.
Yamato-e was also partially influenced by Ink wash paintings from China, at the time the Song and
Yuan dynasties. Though these ink paintings came to Japan in the 14th century and became Sumi-e,
more stylised ink-paintings which mainly just used black ink, with an emphasis on brushwork and the
perceived "spirit" or "essence" of a subject, which was what it was focussed on conveying
compared to realism. And actually, Nintendo has used this style before in their games, too, paying
homage to it in Yoshi’s New Island a few times with level backdrops based on Sumi-e paintings.
But going back to Yamato-e, this style really formed the basis for Mario World’s background
style. Yamato-e has quite a few defining characteristics: for one, Yamato-e works usually
include many small figures and careful depictions of details of buildings and other objects,
with only a selection of some elements of a scene to be fully depicted, with the rest of
the scene either being ignored or covered by a stylised cloud. The two other noticeable traits
seen in these paintings is the oblique view from above which portrays interiors of buildings as
though through a cutaway roof, and of course the depiction of landscapes is very stylised.
There are two types of cloud seen in these works: The first one is now just referred to
as 和風な雲 meaning ‘Japanese style cloud’. These are seen throughout Mario games through the use
of curly and puffy clouds, which also to me at least resemble the cloud tileset used in Mario
World. The second type of cloud are these, called すやり霞 or 槍霞(やりがすみ) meaning spear-like mist. But
apart from being mist this term is also used to refer to clouds of the same shape. Both of these
cloud types are used in Yamato-e art to prevent the scene from becoming overcrowded with detail,
creating blank spaces, almost like margins, which can separate different scenes and locations,
allowing for many to coexist on the same canvas and allow for the natural progression of a story,
which aid in the telling of a narrative through the images. These clouds can also
be stacked up on top of another in an image to give the illusion of height.
Along with the clouds, we are interested in the portrayal of landscapes in Yamato-e art.
Looking at these byoubu can help us with comparing Yamato-e to our modern games. Byoubu are Japanese
foldable screens, translated as “wind wall”. These screens were used to prevent harsh winds
from blowing about in people’s houses, as Japanese houses were traditionally very open air, almost to
the point that when you opened all the shoji, the inside would kinda cease to be a thing. Originally
these folding screens were only available to those in the highest rungs of Japanese society
but as time went on, their use proliferated as simpler ones were produced. You can see just
from looking at these landscapes how they have influenced the way in which Mario backgrounds
and similar platform game environments look. At the same time, Yamato-e designs were also
placed onto shoji and fusuma doors, as well as paper walls, which is what Nintendo also
decided to do in Hands on Hall in Mario 3D world, a level that uses Heian Period style architecture,
note the green roof and red pillars, with Yamato-e style hills and clouds
on the inner paper walls! And as I’m sure you’ll remember from earlier on, Yamato-e
came into full bloom in the late Heian period! Mario Odyssey even got in on the Byobu action,
making a faithful reference to where the Mario franchise got a lot of its
background imagery and stylisation from! Yamato-e also influenced the more well-known
Ukiyo-e art movement, as can be seen with the same cloud shaped which are used in many of Katsushika
Hokusai’s works, including his most well-known series, 36 views of Mt. Fuji. The Japanese style
clouds here have evolved to their more recognised stylised curly form here, but the spear-like
mist is still also used in many Ukiyo-e pieces. Altogether, Yamato-e, which began these stylistic
choices, and perhaps even more so Ukiyo-e, have had a large impact on Mario level backgrounds,
with this being especially prominent in the SNES era with the Allstars re-makes and Mario World,
where it started. The overworld levels in Mario World use these Yarigasumi intertwined in the
hills, giving us the perception of high up hills, while in Mario 3 in Allstars we have
this scene which combines the vaguely soft looking triangular hills often seen in Ukiyo-e along with
these spear clouds. Shorter clouds reminiscent of the Yarigasumi are also found in Donut Plains,
along with these ssame triangular hills inspired by Ukiyo and Yamato-e.
Of more interest though are the ghost house levels, which use the spear mist in a more
traditional fashion to create a mysterious atmosphere and obscure parts of the stage.
The older Yamato-e clouds may have also influenced Nintendo’s newer Mario titles. When looking at the
backgrounds as they appear in the game’s files, from the SNES Mario titles as well
as their GBA ports and also the New Super Mario Bros series, the way the background
clouds are made to seamlessly loop reminds me of the shape and form of the older Yamato-e
clouds that would span the scenery of a byobu. The other thing which shows the influence of
Ukiyo-e on Mario art is the low horizon lines and subtle gradients used in Ukiyo-e, which is
pretty visible in Hokusai’s work, among others. If you look at the backgrounds used in Mario
games, they all have very low horizon lines which often cannot be seen in game, but are
inferred through the placement of various layers of background and through the use of gradients
like those seen in ukiyo-e which gives us a gradual transition which marks the low horizon.
These elements have carried through to even the most modern Mario platformers, though what I find
most interesting about these elements is their continued use from their introduction in Super
Mario World, to its sequel Yoshi’s Island. While the developers have gone on record saying they
wanted to take a different approach to Yoshi’s Island’s art style compared to previous Mario
titles, the interesting thing is how well these two styles line up and complement each other!
While Super Mario World has its roots in Ukiyo-e and Yamato-e, Yoshi’s Island take a lot of cues
from the Impressionist and Post-impressionist movements. Now, this is something that I
covered long ago in one of the first culture bits episodes, but that video is one I want to re-do
soon so in the meantime all you need to know is this quick, very over-simplified timeline of art:
Yamato-e influenced Ukiyo-e, which then came to the West through the Dutch and then soon became
part of a huge cultural craze for Japanese items and art in the late 19th and early 20th
century. This resulted in Ukiyo-e having a massive influence on the Impressionist and Particularly
post-impressionist movements. With painters like Van Gogh taking a huge liking to the art style,
copying some Japanese prints in oil and using the aforementioned stylisation and
low horizon lines in his own work. So, in a way, this progression being
present in Super Mario World and its sequel is very fitting. And of course,
much like these artistic movements in real life the influences have stuck around in Modern Mario.
These two cloud types are still used everywhere in Japan, and actually when I visited, I remember
seeing them in a lot of different places, even on maps, even if it annoyingly covered parts of it.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Ukiyo-e, I’ve done a couple videos about it in
the past which you may enjoy. All of the links will be in the description of this video.
So, what do you make of all this? Do you prefer the style of Yamato-e or Ukiyo-e?
Leave your thoughts in the comments and subscribe for more culture bits!
Oh, and a small channel update: I’ve been livestreaming a bit in between videos on my
channel, here on YouTube, though recently I suspect it’s been messing with the reach of
my videos and last time I streamed I lost most subs in one go than I ever have so from now on,
if I stream at all, it will be over on my twitch, there’s a
link in the description for anyone interested. Anyways, thanks for watching. See you next time.