ShareThis1. Birdo and Yoshi
Right, deep breaths now, because this one is confusing. Yoshi is male, but he lays eggs. Despite this, most translations depict Yoshi as a male, even though Shigeru Miyamoto has said he is ‘not sure’ whether Yoshi is male or female. Let’s just say he’s some sort of hermaphrodite. Now, onto his gir–… boy–… his spouse.
Birdo first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2, as a minor villain who spat eggs at the player. One could assume Birdo was female, due to the bow it wears, and the fact it had such a close affiliation with eggs. However, the manual for this game stated that Birdo was in fact male, but thought he was a girl, and would rather be called Birdetta. The Japanese manual, however, merely referred to her as Catherine, and said she would rather be called Cassie.
Matters were not helped by the fact that in the West, Birdo had a male voice actor. In the Super Smash Bros. Series, Birdo’s trophy states that Birdo is of ‘indeterminate gender’, and in the Japan-only Wii game Captain Rainbow, there is an entire side-quest dedicated to finding out whether or not the baritone Birdo is male or female. The final verdict is female, (after you retrieve an object implied to be her vibrator. Japan, you so crazy), but the Japanese website for Mario Kart: Double Dash!! states that Birdo is “Yoshi’s girlfriend…or does that mean boyfriend!?”, which serves only to tell us that even Birdo’s creators aren’t sure on the matter, either.
Either way, since Birdo began appearing regularly in Mario side games, he/she has been consistently shown as Yoshi’s ‘close friend’, and if indeed they are a couple, which is heavily implied, the fact that they have stuck together despite Yoshi’s unique anatomical situation, AND Birdo’s obvious Gender Dysmorphia and subsequent gender reassignment procedure, as well as all the attention the media is giving their private life, then this can only mean that their love is very strong, and this goes down as one of the first LGBT video game romances in history. D’awwww.
So there you have it, ten love stories that are more believable and poignant than Bella and Edward. Let us know in the comments below if you disagree! Let’s face it, there was a lot of romances I had to miss out!
