Recently, we’ve been seeing what appear to be cracks in Nintendo’s outer image as a smiley, pure-hearted, “I’m OK, you’re OK” kind of company. First, we saw that the company’s official Line account is still holding a grudge against Sony for the industry-changing success of its PlayStation console. Now, some fans have found that their new figures of presumable nice guys Mario and Luigi reveal the Nintendo stars to be smirking, gloating jerks.

Japanese confectioner Furuta’s popular Choco Egg series consists of an egg-shaped chocolate treat with a toy inside. Furuta occasionally partners with companies such as Disney and Nintendo, and right now it’s selling a special Super Mario 30th Anniversary Choco Egg. Each candy comes with one of 14 figures from the hit platforming series, and while we can always find rooms in our hearts for another Yoshi toy, no doubt what most fans are hoping for is the Mario figure standing in the center of the collection in this promotional image.

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Between his confident wink and friendly thumbs-up, the pose manages to capture a lot of what gamers love about Mario’s straightforward, active personality. Considering that anyone buying one of the Super Mario 30th Anniversary Choco Eggs is a fan of the series, and also judging from his screen name, we’re guessing that Japanese Twitter user @SUPERMARIO_128 was pretty excited when he found the red-suited hero himself waiting inside his chocolate.

Unfortunately, it looks like there was a problem somewhere along the way in either the figure’s manufacture or shipping, because his Mario figure’s body language didn’t seem to be saying “Go for it, buddy!”, but “Go to hell!” Or maybe “It’s a you, someone I can’t stand!”

A 180-degree rotation of the figure’s wrist has a similar effect on the impression Mario gives, as he can’t even be bothered enough to turn fully around to express his dismissive disapproval. Apparently this bad attitude runs in the family, too, as evidenced by this Choco Egg Luigi that Twitter user @heisei_nyanko now finds himself the owner of.

“I think I got a defective figure!” tweets @SUPERMARIO_128. Maybe he’s right, or maybe after 30 years Mario is just too tired to keep up the nice guy act any longer. Either way, we think that these upside-down Super Mario figures might end up being Nintendo fans’ version of those stamps with the upside-down airplanes.

Source: Hachima Kiko, Twitter/@SUPERMARIO_128
Insert images: Furuta