Park finally has a timetable to let us start racing Mario Karts, punching question blocks, and eating Luigi’s hat.

This summer, there was an event that was supposed to take place in Japan that not only people across the nation, but all around the world were looking forward to. It was supposed to be the culmination of years of preparation, and a chance to turn dreams that began in childhood into reality, until the coronavirus derailed those plans.

What’s that? The Tokyo Olympics? Oh, yeah, those got delayed too, and sure, it’s a bummer. But what we’re talking about today is Universal Studios Japan’s gigantic Super Nintendo World expansion, which was supposed to open in early summer but was delayed indefinitely due to pandemic-related reasons. But now, after months of waiting, USJ, as the Osaka theme park is also known, has announced when we’ll finally get to visit Super Nintendo World: Spring 2021!

The park has even revealed a few ore details about the sort of rides and attractions fans can expect, such as:
● An extremely realistic Mario Kart
● Travelling through Mario’s world while riding on the back of the back of dinosaur pal Yoshi
● Challenging adventures that send you throughout the area using a “power up bracelet”
● Punchable question-mark blocks

There’s even going to be a sneak peak of sorts on October 16, when a Mario Cafe and Store will open in Universal Studios Japan’s preexisting Hollywood Area.

In addition to a Mario motif for both the interior and exterior décor, the restaurant will feature a range of themed food and drinks, like edible Mario and Luigi caps.

▼ Which are actually cleverly designed handheld pancake desserts with strawberry shortcake and grape cheesecake flavors.

If you prefer your desserts in drinkable form, there’re also fruit cream sodas (strawberry for Mario and green appl for Luigi), with playful straws that give you the brothers’ signature mustaches every time you lean in to take a sip.

▼ And yes, they made sure to accurately recreate their individual facial hair styles.

Princess Peach is also represented with, of course, a peach cream soda…

…as is the always welcome Super Mushroom, which thankfully doesn’t contain liquid fungus extract, but instead the soft drink of your choice, and features a carrying strap.

▼ Like with Tokyo Disneyland’s perennially popular character popcorn buckets, the idea is that you’ll take the Super Mushroom cup home as a souvenir.

Universal Studios Japan has yet to give Super Nintendo World than a more specific grand opening date than “sometime next spring,” but that’s still a lot better than the previous “sometime…period.” With Japan’s Golden Week spring vacation period straddling the end of April and start of May, it seems like USJ would obviously be aiming for sometime before then, and with international tourist travel to Japan hopefully resuming in the spring as well, it looks like there’s going to be a lot to be happy about once winter ends.

Sources: Universal Studios Japan (1, 2), PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Universal Studios Japan
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he remembers the Super Famicom/Super NES also taking a long time to show up, but being more than worth the wait.