Allegedly, Nintendo has taken down a lewd piece of 3D art depicting none other than Super Mario antagonist Bowser from its creator's Patreon. The Mario franchise is no stranger to NSFW depictions of its characters, and neither is the internet. However, what is new this time around is Nintendo's claimed response to said depiction.
Lately, Nintendo has been uncharacteristically responsive to fans, at least in a positive manner. However, this time around, the interaction is less friendly, and more like Nintendo being protective of its IP, which is much more in-character for the company. Although, in this specific case, it is not a fan-made game, a mod, or anything else along those lines. This time, Nintendo is bringing the hammer down on a much less innocent form of fan work.
Per a recent Polygon report, an artist on Patreon known as AkkoArcade (who specializes in NSFW 3D art) may be the target of Nintendo's ire. The artist took to Twitter to share a screenshot of a DMCA takedown notice they received regarding a piece of their work: a rendering of Bowser's penis. Polygon spoke with Patreon about the takedown, where the platform said, "The image in question was included in much a larger list of DMCA notices of potentially infringing works and was not specifically targeted." Despite this response, Polygon was unable to learn what other works were removed.
AkkoArcade added on Twitter that it is technically possible for the takedown to come from somewhere else, such as someone pretending to be Nintendo, although it is unclear how likely that would be. Additionally, the artist followed up by first announcing that they will continue to make their art, but will not name what belongs to whom. They will also make the image that may have offended Nintendo open-source in order to circumvent the company's ire.
Surely, Nintendo has more pressing issues in 2021 than a detailed depiction of the less child-friendly aspects of one of its own characters, so it is hard to say if Mr. Shuntaro Furukawa personally made the call or if it is simply a Nintendo employee's job to look for copyright infringements and issue DMCA notices accordingly. And again, there's always the possibility that this takedown came from elsewhere, so perhaps Nintendo truly had no knowledge of the Bowser render. What can be said with certainty is that there is a .rar file containing a 3D depiction of Bowser's "fury" floating around online, possibly to Nintendo's dismay (and apparently some Mario fans' pleasure).
Source: Polygon