Nintendo Announces Kevin Afghani As Mario And Luigi's New Voice
He debuts in 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder, releasing next week
Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the next game in the Mario Bros. franchise, releases next week. It’s the first title in the series in nearly 30 years to not feature Charles Martinet in any of his roles, namely the title brothers, Mario and Luigi. Now, Nintendo has made the announcement of who will give voice to them on their next journey.
The game company has revealed that Kevin Afghani is the new voice of Mario and Luigi in the Nintendo Switch game available for preloads starting today. Afghani is a relative newcomer but would seemingly be best known as Arnold in Genshin Impact. He also voiced Raditz for MasakoX’s audio manga slice-of-life drama parody series Dragon Ball R&R, appearing in seven of the series’s eight or nine episodes. The Los Angeles-based actor has an “absolute love for animation and video games” that sparked his pursuit of such career.
Nintendo has declined to confirm whether Afghani is the new full-time voice actor for the characters, let alone anything beyond Wonder, but that doesn’t stop the excitement Afghani has, as he tweeted “Incredibly proud to have voiced Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Thanks to Nintendo for inviting me into the Flower Kingdom!”
The game follows Mario and friends Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad, Toadette, Nabbit, Yoshi and Princess Daisy, as they leave the Mushroom Kingdom and now must save the Flower Kingdom in what’s considered “psychedelic twist” on the classic sidescroller format. Once again it’s a kingdom under the threat of Bowser, who is now transformed into a giant castle and so Mario runs through a variety of levels, collecting Wonder Seeds and stomping on new enemies along the way. This is notably Daisy’s first time in the franchise as a playable character. As one can probably take from this description, Waluigi and Wario’s apparent absence means announcing their new voices is not yet necessary.
Martinet’s retirement was announced in August, and a couple of weeks later he reread his original statement in a video released on Twitter. “Today, I’m happy to share with all of you that I’m stepping into a brand-new role as the Mario Ambassador. Traveling around the world, sharing the joy of the Mario family, and being able to continue meeting with all of you wonderful fans who I cherish absolutely the most, is a great, great honor. I’m very much looking forward to seeing all of you at events around the world in the years to come.”
