Talk:Balloon Baby Yoshi

Is it really magenta though

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Boy, a lot of Yoshi coloration discussions lately.
Anyway, recently, I've made the rather bold decision to lump the magenta-colored Balloon Baby Yoshi under the Pink Yoshis, given that Pink Yoshi was displayed in a similar shade in Yoshi's Island in-game (feel free to revert if you disagree btw). But that got me thinking, though: what color IS this Balloon Baby Yoshi actually supposed to be? I've tried looking up if New Super Mario Bros. U ever described the Baby Yoshis by color (e.g. something like "this blue Baby Yoshi can spit out bubbles"), but no dice.

Now this may seem like a silly question, given how obvious this color is supposed to be, but again, there's a lot of discussion on Yoshi colors lately, so it may not be entirely obvious to some.

Obviously, one answer is to revert to our prior status quo:

1. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is magenta.

We take the coloration at face value and call it a day. It's the simplest option, but the problem is that it doesn't really match with any of the ten colorations of Yoshi that have been established since the 2000s.

Another answer is to keep the change I had made on the Yoshi (species) article:

2. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is pink.

We round it out to the closest definition of this color. Magenta is a color inbetween red and purple, and is often considered a variation of the color pink, so pink it is. The problem with this answer, however, is that this Balloon Baby Yoshi debuted after the coloration of a Pink Yoshi as been established, which is a much lighter color than this one (heck, Pink Yoshi actually made it in the New Super Mario Bros. games a couple years prior). In fact, even LEGO Super Mario made used the lighter pink for a Baby Yoshi.

So, that means defaulting to answer 1, right?

...actually, I've thought of a third answer:

3. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is red.

We round it out to which color this yoshi resembles the closest, which in this case is a pinkish red (magenta being between red and purple, after all). And this actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it: the Baby Yoshis in New Super Mario Bros. U are homages to the Baby Yoshis in Super Mario World, which all display in the colors red, blue, and yellow. We have a blue Baby Yoshi in Bubble Baby Yoshi, and a yellow Baby Yoshi in Glowing Baby Yoshi, so it makes sense that this Balloon Baby Yoshi would be the fill-in for the red Baby Yoshi.

It wouldn't be the first time a red-colored Yoshi was mistaken for another color by the wiki: Super Mario Galaxy 2 introduced three power-ups for Yoshi as well, in which Yoshi changes colors too. Dash Yoshi appears orange, but the official Mario Galaxy 2 website described Dash Yoshi as bright red. And much like the Galaxy 2 Yoshi Power-Ups, the Baby Yoshis from Mario U bear special powers, so it wouldn't be too weird to assume that the red one is colored slightly differently than a typical red Yoshi (after all, both Glowing Baby Yoshi and Bulb Yoshi appear golden due to their glow effect).

Actually, this isn't even the first time a red Baby Yoshi was mistaken for magenta, specifically (please allow me to go on a tangent for a bit): For quite a while, this wiki states that a Magenta Baby Yoshi made its debut in the Super Mario Sound Ehon (Super Mario Sound Picture Book) years before Balloon Baby Yoshi, as it was supposedly shown alongside a yellow and blue Baby Yoshi, but that does not make a lot of sense when you think about it. This was released in 1995, a little before Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, making Super Mario World the most recent mainline title with Yoshis. Looking at other Super Mario Ehon books, they tend to base their picture books on a specific game, and looking at all the images we have of Sound Ehon, it is very obvious that this one is based on Super Mario World. Now, looking at the picture with the supposed magenta Baby Yoshi, you'll notice that yellow Baby Yoshi and blue Baby are there, but if we consider the remaining Baby Yoshi to be magenta (a color of Baby Yoshi we've never seen before or since, until NSMBU), you'll realize that there's no red Baby Yoshi, despite the story being based on World and all. It honestly makes more sense to consider the magenta Yoshi to be the red one.

In addition, I found an (already sold) listing of the book which provides a few more images that add more important context:

• 
• 
• 

Notably, the back cover includes a curious disclaimer:

ゲームソフト「スーパーマリオワールド」では、3色ヨッシーの3匹が同じ場面に登場する こと、また3色ヨッシーとヨッシーが同じ場面に登場することはありません。

Throwing it into Google Translate, it basically says that in Super Mario World, all three of the tricolor Yoshis can never appear together in the same scene (as in same level), and that similarly, the tricolor Yoshis and the regular Yoshi can never appear together in the same scene either. It appears clear to me that they're referring to the red, blue, and yellow Baby Yoshis in Super Mario World when it comes to "tricolor Yoshis", making it very clear that the Baby Yoshis in the picture with the supposed magenta Baby Yoshi are supposed to be the red, blue, and yellow Baby Yoshis from World, and that they did not invent a magenta Yoshi for the book.

...Okay, but that tangent only confirms that the one "magenta" Baby Yoshi is supposed to be the red Baby Yoshi, not that the magenta Balloon Baby Yoshi from NSMBU is supposed to be red too. But it also means that things that are supposed to be red could be colored more magenta-ish and that our editors can mistake such shade of red for magenta. Still, this does not confirm which color this Balloon Baby Yoshi is supposed to be.

As a reminder, here are the possible answers again I've listed throughout this post:

1. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is magenta (take coloration at face value).
2. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is pink (round out to what color Yoshi "magenta" defines closest; keep early in-game coloration of Pink Yoshi in mind).
3. The Balloon Baby Yoshi is red (round out to what color Yoshi this Baby Yoshi resembles closest; keep the tricolor Baby Yoshis from World in mind).

What do you guys think? rend (talk) (edits) 10:12, February 23, 2025 (EST)