Captain Olimar

Template:Nihongo is the main character of Nintendo's Pikmin video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the main playable character in Pikmin (2001), Pikmin 2 (2004), and Hey! Pikmin (2017), and is a major character in Pikmin 3 (2013) and Pikmin 4 (2023).

In many of these games, Olimar explores the surface of a distant planet resembling Earth with the goals of either repairing his damaged spaceship or locating treasures by means of leading and commanding the native Pikmin creatures.<ref name="ign" /> Olimar is married to an unnamed wife, and has an unnamed son and daughter.<ref name="wife" />

Olimar also appears in other Nintendo games, notably as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series since Brawl.

Appearances

Pikmin series

Captain Olimar was introduced in the first installment of the series, Pikmin, where he is a pilot who works for Hocotate Freight.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> While on vacation, his cargo transport spacecraft, the S.S. Dolphin, collides with a meteor and crash-lands onto the surface of an unknown planet. In order to escape and go home, he directs the native species of anthropomorphic plants, the titular Pikmin, to help him find the 30 parts of his ship in the 30 days his life support system has left to function.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His fate depends on the player's actions. If the required 25 ship parts are collected, the S.S. Dolphin is able to successfully take off, and he returns to Hocotate. If they are not, the S.S. Dolphin crashes while attempting to take-off, and he dies upon impact, causing the Pikmin to bring his corpse to their home, the Onion, which revives him and transforms him into a Pikmin-like creature; marking the game's non-canon "bad ending".<ref name="timeline">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="spark">Template:Cite web</ref>

In Pikmin 2, he returns to his home planet to learn that Hocotate Freight is in severe debt. His own ship then gets sold off, to his dismay. After discovering that something he brought back from the unknown planet is extremely valuable, his boss sends him and a co-worker, Louie, back to the planet to find more.<ref name="timeline" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="spark" /> After repaying the debt and returning to Hocotate, Olimar notices that Louie is not in the ship, and thus returns to the planet alongside his boss, to rescue him. They find Louie seemingly unconscious on top of a dangerous creature Olimar later names the "Titan Dweevil", which they defeat, and then rescue Louie; Olimar later suspects that Louie was controlling the Dweevil.<ref name="timeline" />

Olimar is not the main character in Pikmin 3,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but he appears in the game through his journal entries that instruct the player how to use the Pikmin as well as the game mechanics,<ref name="nwr">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in the multiplayer mode "Bingo Battle".<ref name="nwr"/> Player characters Alph, Brittany, and Charlie, who crash-landed on the planet shortly after Olimar, seek to locate him in order to retrieve a crucial piece of their ship, which he took mistaking it for treasure. The final level has the player characters attempt to rescue Olimar from the game's final boss, the Plasm Wraith.<ref name="timeline" /> In the game's Nintendo Switch port, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Olimar appears as a playable character alongside Louie in an additional story campaign.<ref name="timeline" />

Olimar reappears as the only playable character in the spin-off game Hey! Pikmin, where he crash-lands on an unknown planet in his new ship, the S.S. Dolphin II. He learns that in order to bring his ship back in working order, he must collect 30,000 of a substance known as sparklium. He soon encounters the Pikmin, which he figures out can be used to collect sparklium, through making them obtain sparklium-dense treasures and seeds.<ref name="timeline" />

Olimar once again is not the main character in Pikmin 4. In the game, Olimar has once again crashed onto a mysterious planet, and a group of characters comprising the Rescue Corps are sent to find him.<ref name="spark" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He is found throughout the game in a "leafified" state, where he transforms castaways into a similar state, is obsessed with "dandori", and often challenges the player character and Oatchi to "Dandori Battles", where he uses a "space-dog" of his own, Moss.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After his fourth defeat, he collapses,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and is cured by the Rescue Corps by using "glowsap". He then resides at the home base for the rest of the game.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> An optional side campaign, "Olimar's Shipwreck Tale",<ref name="radar">Template:Cite web</ref> explains that Olimar's "leafified" state was caused by him crashing onto the planet for a second time, as when he attempted to take off after repairing his ship, Moss snuck inside it. She was unable to breathe outside of the planet's atmosphere, so Olimar attempted to re-land on the planet, but he fatally crashed, leading to an event similar to Pikmin's bad ending, where the Pikmin revive him by bringing him to the Onion, causing him to become a "leafling".<ref>Template:Cite video game</ref>

Other appearances

Olimar has been featured in four Super Smash Bros. games; he appears in Melee as a trophy,<ref name="melee">Template:Cite web</ref> and in Brawl as a playable character, commanding his Pikmin to fight.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He reappears as a playable character in both Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> An Olimar amiibo, compatible with the games, was released on September 11, 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although not a playable character, five Miis can reenact Olimar and four Pikmin (blue, red, yellow, and white, in that order of players) in Pikmin Adventure, a minigame in Nintendo Land.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Concept and creation

Olimar is an extremely small<ref name="smalimar" /> humanoid alien "Hocotatian" with a large nose, wearing a spacesuit<ref name="look" /> and a circular space helmet<ref name="helmet" /> with an antenna.<ref name="look">Template:Cite web</ref> Standing Template:Convert tall,<ref name="smalimar">Template:Cite book</ref> Olimar was named after Mario; in Japanese, the name Template:Nihongo is an anagram of Template:Nihongo<ref name="ign">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Captain Olimar was a late addition in Pikmin; Miyamoto said that since during the initial development of the game, the Pikmin would be utilized as weapons to be shot by the player themselves, "it wouldn't be interesting enough" to have a player character.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although Olimar was a late addition to Pikmin, his role as the leader of the Pikmin was included since the original conception of the game. Miyamoto stated that he "started thinking about a game about lots of small people carrying things in a line, following a leader, with everyone going in the same direction", in an interview with The Telegraph.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In an interview with 4Gamer, Miyamoto revealed that he aimed to make Olimar simple to control, like a cursor. He also revealed that while the decision to include more than two main characters in Pikmin 3 was partially his, the decision for them to be new characters, instead of old ones such as Olimar, was an "on the spot" choice by the team, without his input. Despite this, he assumed that Olimar would appear around halfway through the game.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Critical reception

Writing for The Observer, Tom Chatfield listed Olimar as one of his top ten video game characters, due to him uniquely being a standard "salaried employee... [who is] married with a wife and children".<ref name="wife">Template:Cite news</ref> Writing for Nintendo World Report, Steven Rodriguez praised his characterization in Pikmin, enjoying the way his journal entries "[cause] his sense of isolation, discovery, and beauty to become ours – all without long cinemas or dialog."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Robin Wilde, writing for Nintendojo, compared Olimar to Charles Marlow from the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness, as they both use others to "do their bidding". Wilde notes, however, that unlike Marlow, who treats his workers cruelly, Olimar is much more compassionate, is saddened if Pikmin perish, and is the one who "brings [them] life and purpose". He also argues that once Olimar helps "create a society capable of sustaining [them,]" they no longer need him.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Kotaku writer Peter Tieryas offered a darker interpretation, describing Olimar as a "villainous alien intruder" in Pikmin, since his crash-landing disrupts the planet's natural order, he kills and harvests the corpses of species such as Bulborbs—which he describes as "minding their own business"—and he "greedily" decides to kill the "innocent" Emperor Bulblax to retrieve his safe. Tieryas notes that while he does show doubts about his actions, he also tries to justify them.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fellow Kotaku writer Ian Walker argued that Olimar was one of the most powerful characters in the Super Smash Bros. series, noting community reactions, and comparing him to BrawlTemplate:'s Meta Knight.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Walker later discussed a nerf to Olimar in Ultimate, criticizing the changes to his shield, stating "Olimar's shield issues... fly directly in the face of basic game mechanics."<ref name="helmet">Template:Cite web</ref> Eurogamer writer Tom Bramwell praised his Brawl appearance, calling his fighting style "particularly eye-catching", since he "[uses] an army of Pikmin". His Final Smash was also his favorite in the game.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> IGN ranked him as the 17th best Super Smash Bros. character, describing him as being a character not suited for beginners, but also one that "[rewards] those who learn the abilities of each [Pikmin type]." They also considered him to be a "wonderful example of how even the most unlikely of characters can make for a great Smash fighter."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>