Mii

Lore & Background

In the sprawling cast of Mushroom Kingdom racers, the Mii occupies a unique ontological space. Every other character — from the mustachioed plumber to the green-clad dinosaur — exists with a name, a history, and a set of relationships that the games and spin-offs flesh out. The Mii, by contrast, is defined entirely by the player who made it. Its height, its face, its outfit, its little accessories: all of it is a personal signature. When it hops into a kart and peels off the starting line, it is not a character in a story so much as the player's own presence stamped into the world.

This absence of fixed lore is itself a kind of lore. The Mii says, in the language of game design, that the Mushroom Kingdom's circuits are open to anyone. You do not need to be a princess or a plumber or a turtle villain to earn a spot on the grid. You just need to be you, rendered in Nintendo's soft, rounded aesthetic, and willing to drift off a hairpin at the last possible moment.

In multiplayer lobbies and online races, Miis add a layer of personal identity that no preset character can replicate. Two players can both select the Mii slot, and suddenly the race is not just about speed and item luck — it is about two distinct human beings, wearing their own little avatars, trying to out-drive each other across the same colorful track.

In Their Own Story

The countdown hangs in the air: three, two, one. The grid stretches out in a long, sun-baked row of karts, each one humming with engine noise. Mario revs to the left. Peach bounces on her suspension. Somewhere in the middle of the pack, a small, round-faced figure in a hand-drawn orange T-shirt and a backwards cap grips the wheel with both hands. No one else on the track looks quite like that. No one else *is* that. The light flips to green, and the little Mii lurches forward, drifting wide around the first chicane, tires squealing on the painted asphalt. The crowd of spectators — Toads, Koopas, a stray Piranha Plant — cheers in a wash of color. The Mii does not cheer back. It just keeps its eyes on the next corner, because this track, this kart, this tiny sculpted face on the windshield — all of it belongs to the hands that made it.

Reader's Guide

The Mii's place in Mario Kart is a small window into how Nintendo treats player identity across its entire ecosystem. The Mii Maker, available on 3DS, Wii U, and Switch, lets players sculpt a character from scratch — face shape, skin tone, outfit, accessories — and then carry that avatar into Mario Kart, Wii Sports, New Super Mario Bros. U, and dozens of other titles. In the kart games specifically, the Mii is not a DLC unlock or a hidden trophy reward; it is a first-class, always-available option sitting right in the character-select grid. That design choice matters. It signals that the player is not a spectator in the Mushroom Kingdom's racing culture but a full participant.

The competitive scene has embraced Miis in a quieter way. In speedrun and online time-trial communities, a Mii's name on the results screen is a personal signature in a way that "Mario" or "Luigi" never quite is. The Mii becomes a handle, a little brand. Meanwhile, Nintendo has woven cross-franchise references into the series in ways that make the Mii feel at home: the same Mii you raced in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe can appear in a Mario Sports Mix match or a Wii Sports tennis match, reinforcing the idea that the Mushroom Kingdom's world is a shared playground rather than a single franchise silo.

From a genre standpoint, Mario Kart defined the kart-racing category in 1992, and the Mii is the latest evolution of its core promise: that racing is not just about the characters on the box art. It is about the person holding the controller, and the Mii is the visual proof of that.

Did You Know?

• The Mii is one of the few characters in Mario Kart with no fixed team color, no dedicated kart model, and no voice lines — its entire identity is whatever the player decides it is.
• Miis can be created on Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and Switch, and transferred between those platforms, meaning a Mii sculpted on a 3DS in a kitchen can later race in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on a Switch in a living room.
• In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Mii appears in the character-select grid alongside every other racer, including unlockable characters, with no special conditions or trophies required to pick it.
• Because the Mii has no canonical personality, it has never been given a role in Mario Kart cutscenes, story modes, or promotional material that treat it as a 'character' with dialogue or relationships.