In the Japanese version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Vivian is implied to either be a transgender woman or a male-identified crossdresser. While various other characters and narrative text describe Vivian using masculine terms such as otoko ("man"), and otōto ("little brother"),[4][5][6][7] Vivian initially describes the shadow sirens as san shimai "three sisters",[4] and routinely uses the feminine first person pronoun atai, though this pronoun is also used by some effeminate male characters in Japanese media. In Super Paper Mario, Vivian's Catch Card describes her using the term otoko no ko,[8] a Japanese-language term that can interchangeably refer to a feminine-presenting man or a crossdressing man, rather than "transgender" (which is identical in Japanese to the English-language word) or okama (a term for an otherwise masculine man who dresses as a woman, sometimes used as a slur to refer to trans women, even in family-friendly media at the time).
In the English and German localizations of the game, explicit reference to Vivian being either transgender or gender non-conforming is removed, as are references to her using male pronouns. Consequently, Beldam's insults towards Vivian that utilize masculine terms in the Japanese version are changed. However, all other localized versions of the game contain a version closer to the original.[1][9][10][11] The Italian version more explicitly identifies Vivian as a trans woman; her description as a party member states that "she used to be a man, but now she's a woman and proud of it," a sentiment that she reiterates during her initial appearance.[11][1]
In the Nintendo Switch remake, Vivian is treated more overtly as a transgender woman. The Japanese script adds in a line where Vivian says, "I have a boy's body, but my heart is a cute girl's!"[12] The English localization retains these references, a change from the English release of the GameCube version.[3][13][14][15]
The above text is from the Super Mario Wiki and is available under a Creative Commons license. Attribution must be provided through a list of authors or a link back to the original article. Source:
https://www.mariowiki.com/Vivian
