Surprise! Mario is a plumber again

Throughout his 37 year video game career, Mario has done a lot of different things. He's been an athlete in pretty much every sport imaginable, a go kart racer, a piece of paper, and even a doctor. Throughout all of these changes, the one constant has been occupation as a plumber.

That all changed last year, shortly before the release of Super Mario Odyssey. Mario's profile on Nintendo's official Japanese site was updated to suggest that he had left the plumbing life behind. Few could blame him for such a decision, of course, what with his exploits in the Mushroom Kingdom and all.

Of course, it isn't always so easy to deny one's true calling. Indeed, it seems that Mario has returned to the plumbing life, presumably finding the lure of pipes and valves too hard to resist for any significant amount of time. That very same character blurb on Nintendo's website has been updated once again to say that his occupation is plumbing once more.

What has Mario been doing for these past six months? Perhaps he took a leave of absence in the lead up to the events of Super Mario Odyssey and, now that everything has settled down, he can return to his true passion? Maybe he had a side gig that he couldn't talk about for fear of breaking some sort of non-disclosure agreement? We will probably never know.

Obviously, whether or not Mario is actually a plumber has very little bearing on anything that matters, as there isn't really a body of established Super Mario lore. Still, it's fun to wonder what prompted Nintendo to suggest that he had quit being a plumber only to put him back in that role a mere six months later. Hit up the comments section below and give us your best conspiracy theory about what's going on behind the scenes.