Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto either loves or hates Toad and is seemingly doing his best to make sure nobody knows the truth.
In a 2012 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Miyamoto was asked who his favorite character to play in Mario Kart is, with the interviewer noting that he likes to play as Toad. Perhaps predictably, Miyamoto said, "I'm sorry that I cannot come up with an interesting answer. Somehow, it's habit to me, but I play with Mario. He's a very balanced character."
When asked who his least favorite character is, he simply answered "Toad," adding, "I understand that he has some popularity. Somehow," when pressed by the interviewer about hating his favorite.
But despite this, Twitter user SpriteCell (via SupperMarioBroth) noticed that in 2014 and 2015, after the release of Mario Kart 8, Miyamoto joined three YouTube creators – Smosh, iJustine, and Rosanna Pansino – and each time he played Mario Kart with them, he played Toad. This of course directly contradicts what he said in the years before.
Shigeru Miyamoto has claimed that Toad is his least favorite character in Mario Kart. Despite this, in all footage of him playing Mario Kart 8, he picked Toad every time. Whether he was joking or specifically picking a character he hates to challenge himself is unknown.
— @mariobrothblog.bsky.social (@mariobrothblog.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-09-30T10:43:59.625Z
So the question is, what's going on?
Did Miyamoto have a change of heart and dedicate his life to his small mushroom son? Was he so committed to the bit that he remembered saying that in an interview in the years prior, and intentionally decided to play as him to cause confusion and result in some ridiculous journalist writing about it 12 years later? Or was it the most obvious answer, that he probably just said it as a joke because the EW writer called Toad his favorite? The world may never know.
One thing we do know for sure though, is Shigeru Miyamoto's favourite child is Pikmin, and that will never change.
