vovat | Last Kamek Standing

Super Mario World was the first game to introduce Magikoopas, Koopas with magical powers of transformation and teleportation. Later games give at least some of them additional powers, but those two are typically retained. The Japanese name for Magikoopas is "Kamekku," based on "kame," the word for "turtle." This becomes a little confusing, as Super Mario World brings in a Magikoopa actually NAMED Kamek, and the translations sometimes make it unclear whether a specific enemy is THE Kamek, or just a generic Magikoopa.

The Kamek of Super Mario World is the young Bowser's caretaker. Upon learning that two babies who have just been born are destined to be problematic to the future King Koopa, Kamek tries to kidnap them, but is thwarted by the Yoshis. During the game, Kamek has his toadies always on call to capture Baby Mario if a Yoshi leaves him alone for long enough, and shows up personally on his flying broom to make the bosses grow in size. I guess he and Rita Repulsa must have gone to the same school of villainy. When he shows up in later games, it's usually as Bowser's right-hand turtle. The Paper Mario games bring in Kammy Koopa, sort of a female equivalent of Kamek, as Bowser's main assistant. I wonder if the two of them are related.