Miyamoto: Super Mario Galaxy Japanese Cut Rebuilt

Shigeru Miyamoto said the Japanese version of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie was not a routine localization but was rebuilt using the film’s visuals as a base and a newly written Japanese script by Makoto Ueda.

Miyamoto described the work as a collaboration between teams in Japan and the United States. The movie reached Japanese theaters after its international release, and producers instructed the Japanese team to treat the finished visuals as the starting point for original Japanese dialogue.

Makoto Ueda, from the theater group Europe Kikaku, wrote the Japanese script. Miyamoto has known Ueda for years and selected him to create dialogue that emphasizes timing and conversational rhythm rather than a literal translation of the English lines.

Miyamoto said, “Since this is a project made both in Japan and the US, we didn’t want the Japanese version to be just a localization of the English version, we wanted to properly write and craft it in Japanese.” He added that jokes and conversational pacing differ between Japan and overseas and that the team aimed for speech that feels natural to Japanese audiences.

The approach differs from the common practice for Hollywood films released in Japan, where studios typically translate and dub an existing English-language cut. For The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the production used the visuals as a reference and reworked spoken material to fit Japanese linguistic and comedic norms.

Miyamoto has been involved in adapting Nintendo properties for other media and oversaw the Japanese script as part of that role.