Dark Lakitu

Dark Lakitu
Sprite from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
First appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2004)
Latest appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch) (2024)
Variant of	Lakitu

Dark Lakitus are stronger variants of normal Lakitus that appear in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and its Nintendo Switch remake. They are not found in the main quest, but instead are found in the Pit of 100 Trials between floors 61-69. Unlike normal Lakitus, Dark Lakitus throw Sky-Blue Spinies instead of the normal Spinies. Compared to Lakitus, they are also darker in skin tone and have red shells. Dark Lakitus mark the second time a Lakitu has being depicted with a red shell; the first is Super Mario World and the third is the playable Lakitu in the Mario Kart series. It is implied in one of Goombella's tattles that it rides a rain cloud, although the cloud itself never demonstrates the ability.

In the English localization of the original game, it is mistakenly stated that Dark Lakitu's Sky-Blue Spinies hatch from "pipes" in Goombella's Tattle for both enemies. However, the supposed "pipes" which spawn Sky-Blue Spinies bear no resemblance to the conventional pipes of the Super Mario franchise and instead appear as regular blue Spiny Eggs. Their name is the result of a mistranslation: Spiny Eggs are referred to as「パイポ」(Paipo) in Japanese, which (like Lakitu's Japanese name) comes from a well-known Japanese folktale^[1] but can also be interpreted (incorrectly, in this case) as an approximation of the English "pipe" into Japanese katakana. While「パイポ」(Paipo) was correctly rendered as "Spiny Egg" elsewhere in the English script of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door — namely, with regard to the standard species of Spiny fought in the game — the translation team seems to have overlooked the established convention with this variant, resulting in the "pipe" name.^[2] This was fixed in the Nintendo Switch remake, which correctly refers to them as Spiny Eggs.

Profiles and statistics[edit]

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door[edit]

GameCube[edit]

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door enemy
Dark Lakitu
	Max HP	13	Attack	5	Defense	0
	Location(s)	Pit of 100 Trials (Levels 61, 64-66, 69)	Role	Common	Level	26
	Sleep?	60%	Dizzy?	95%	Confuse?	60%
	Tiny?	85%	Stop?	70%	Soft?	90%
	Burn?	100%	Freeze?	80%	Fright?	70%
	Gale Force?	80%	KO?	50%	Moves	Pipe Flip (5), Charge Up (ATK+5), Thunder Throw (10), Pipe Hatch (Summons Sky-Blue Spiny)
	Exp. points	1	Coins	1 - 3	Items	Thunder Rage, Shooting Star, Super Shroom, Volt Shroom
Tattle Log #: 28	Log	A Lakitu on a dark cloud. It throws pipes[sic] at you that sometimes hatch into Sky-Blue Spinies.
	Tattle	That's a Dark Lakitu. It rides a rain cloud. Max HP is 13, Attack is 5, and Defense is 0. It attacks by throwing pipes at you. If it's holding up a pipe[sic] when you jump on it, you'll get hurt. And sometimes the pipes[sic] it throws turn into Sky-Blue Spinies. Whoa! If you only attack the Spinies, you'll never win, so go after the Dark Lakitu!

Nintendo Switch[edit]

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door enemy
Dark Lakitu
	Max HP	13	Attack	5	Defense	0
	Location(s)	Pit of 100 Trials (Levels 61, 64-66, 69)	Role	Common	Level	26
	Sleep?	60%	Dizzy?	95%	Confuse?	60%
	Tiny?	85%	Stop?	70%	Soft?	90%
	Burn?	100%	Freeze?	80%	Fright?	70%
	Gale Force?	80%	KO?	50%	Moves	Pipe Flip (5), Charge Up (ATK+5), Thunder Throw (10), Pipe Hatch (Summons Sky-Blue Spiny)
	Exp. points	1	Coins	1 - 3	Items	Thunder Rage, Shooting Star, Super Mushroom, Volt Mushroom
Tattle Log #: 29	Log	A Lakitu on a dark cloud. It throws Spiny Eggs at you that sometimes turn into Sky-Blue Spinies.
	Tattle	That's a Dark Lakitu. It rides a rain cloud. Max HP is 13, Attack is 5, and Defense is 0. It attacks by throwing Spiny Eggs at you. If it's holding up a Spiny Egg when you jump on it, you'll get hurt. And sometimes the Spiny Eggs it throws turn into Sky-Blue Spinies. Whoa! If you only attack the Spinies, you'll never win, so go after the Dark Lakitu!

Names in other languages[edit]

References[edit]