Mad Scienstein/Arewo Shitain Thread

warelander

Some random guy online
We already got several character threads, however I do feel like this particular one deserves some special attention:
Dr._Arewo_Stein_Artwork_-_Wario_Land_4.png

Mad Scienstein or Arewo Shitain-hakase made his first appearence in the Japan-only title For The Frog The Bell Tolls, but would later resurface in Wario Land 3, Dr. Mario 64 and Wario Land 4.

(For the record, Scienstein being the same character between Land 3 and 4 is confirmed on the japanese Land 4 website.)

I find him to be a pretty interesting case, he is in a way, to Wario what many Mario 2 characters are to Mario, but thanks to the lack of a consistent cast in the Land series he also ended up being one of the most notable characters in Wario Land, second only to Captain Syrup.

Either way I like him quite a lot, both from his FTFTBT and Marioverse appearences and I want him back in any new Wario platformer that we could maybe get, plus he creates a link between FTFTBT and Wario, which is fine by me.
 
I hope this thread turns into a debate over whether or not Mad Scienstein and Arewo Shitain are the same character.
Speaking of which, a part of me suspects that Mad Scienstein in Land 3 and Dr. Mario 64 may have initially been meant to be a mere homage to Shitain, hence his slight redesign, name change to Maddo Shitain in Japan and his seeming allegiance with Rudy, despite him being a good guy in FTFTBT.

I guess at one point during Land 4's development they just decided to merge the characters, hence the return to his original design and japanese name and him no longer being a bad guy. We do have at least one official source linking the characters and even with the Land 3/DM64 design you can see the similarities to his other design, so I'll believe it, but I can see others being iffy on that idea.
 
Shitstain is a phoney and a quack, how could he possibly develop the ingenious invisibility potion with such a feeble intellect? The golden pyramid is just a myth like bigfoot, nessie and the female orgasm.
 
My main issue is using websites as sources which can be a bit dubious. Sometimes it's clear that the developers had a hand providing materials for the website such as the WarioWare: Mega Microgame$! website having images of the various live action animals used and has information that is referenced later like Spitz being Dribble's superior. Other times, the website may have been tasked to a team that only had basic materials and their job was to merely promote the game and that's it.

I know the Mario Wiki has to maintain some kind of consistent standard but I don't think it's infallible.
 
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My main issue is using websites as sources which can be a bit dubious. Sometimes it's clear that the developers had a hand providing materials for the website such as the WarioWare: Mega Microgame$! website having images of the various live action animals used and has information that is referenced later like Spitz being Dribble's superior. Other times, the website may have been tasked to a team that only had basic materials and their job was to merely promote the game and that's it.

I know the Mario Wiki has to maintain some kind of consistent standard but I don't think it's infallible.
Oh totally, I mean things like Prima guide books also love to state things that nobody who worked on the game intended, like how the Mario Kart Wii guide mentions Toadette being Toad's sister, which has been directly denied by Nintendo several times over.

Truthfully, I don't find website infos like that to be 100% infallible, I mean the japanese GBA Wario game sites also give him a fascination with feces, that's never been demonstrated in the games at all.

My stance is that I find it easy to go along with the idea of them being the same character, but I'm also fully expecting that this idea could be shot down, should Scienstein/Shitain ever return.
 
If they're the same character, I'm curious why he started off as a villain in Wario Land 3 and Dr Mario 64 before becoming 'heroic' (or at least neutral) in Wario Land 4. Did he get disillusioned with evil? Have a falling out with Rudy the Clown?
 
To me, they look too different to be the same character, but maybe we have to take these inconsistencies for granted.
For example, compare cartoon Bowser with game Bowser:
180px-TAoSMB3Bowser.jpg

91px-BowserSMW1.png

Bowsers design has been more or less consistent from SMB3 onwards, but in the cartoons he has always looked much different.
This happens quite often with video game characters.
 
Eh, character design changes can be quite ridiculous in the Mario series, so I wouldn't take those differences too seriously. I mean, look at King Boo. He's apparently the same character in both the Luigi's Mansion games and the Mario sports games, and he looks completely different in each. Or heck, even between Luigi's Mansion 1 and Dark Moon to be honest:

250px-Mario_Party_Star_Rush_King_Boo.png

200px-KingBoowser.jpg


180px-King_Boo_Artwork_-_Luigi%27s_Mansion_Dark_Moon.png


Quite a few other characters went through major design changes too. Bowser looked weird in Super Mario Bros 1, and he always looks just a bit different in every spinoff. And in our beloved Wario series, well the WarioWare Inc cast changed big time due to the art evolution.

Different appearances don't necessary mean different characters. Or anything.
 
@Just a Wario Fan @CM30 I'm not really convinced with those arguments. While yes Bowser,Wario, and King Boo have changed over the years, their basic designs have remained consistent and all their designs are still recognizable even from the very beginning (barring that bizarre Super Mario Sunshine King Boo). Visually, the only thing that really ties Arewo-Shitain and Mad Scienstein together are both of them being derived from the generic mad scientist/old professor archetype which we've also seen with Professor E. Gadd.

Sadly, we'll probably never have anything more conclusive than that blurb from that Japanese website.
 
@Just a Wario Fan @CM30 I'm not really convinced with those arguments. While yes Bowser,Wario, and King Boo have changed over the years, their basic designs have remained consistent and all their designs are still recognizable even from the very beginning (barring that bizarre Super Mario Sunshine King Boo). Visually, the only thing that really ties Arewo-Shitain and Mad Scienstein together are both of them being derived from the generic mad scientist/old professor archetype which we've also seen with Professor E. Gadd.

Sadly, we'll probably never have anything more conclusive than that blurb from that Japanese website.

So you mean that they are, together with E. Gadd and Dr. Crygor, just a bunch of unrelated men of science who just happen to all fall under the ¨mad scientist¨ trope?
 
So you mean that they are, together with E. Gadd and Dr. Crygor, just a bunch of unrelated men of science who just happen to all fall under the ¨mad scientist¨ trope?
...are you suggesting that, on the contrary, all these characters were deliberately all meant to be related thus that's why they all look similar?
 
...are you suggesting that, on the contrary, all these characters were deliberately all meant to be related thus that's why they all look similar?

No, of course not. I mean that they are all ¨mad scientists¨ and that's why they look similar. Of course they are unrelated. Dr. Crygor and E. Gadd haven't even met each other in any of the games.
 
Oh sorry, the way you phrased things made it seem like you were trying to make me elaborate on my point but I wasn't sure.
 
It should be said that Scienstein does have the exact same swirly glasses, nose and a similar enough beard, that Arewo Shitain has, which kind of leans back into my theroy, that Scienstein may have taken design elements from Arewo as an homage and that this may have been the original intent, rather then them being the same.

I dunno, to me they look close enough for me to buy into it and them bothering to reference Land 3 at all strikes me as very random, if there really wasn't any direction to have Arewo portray himself as Scienstein, but it's nowhere near as clear cut as saying that Arewo in FTFTBT and Land 4 are the same, since with that one it really goes without saying by just looking at his design and japanese name.
 
Those glasses are pretty common in Japanese stuff. Even within the Mario series, Fawful, E. Gadd, Professor Frankly, and Iggy(for a time) all had them so that in itself isn't really enough to tie them together.
 
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