And you thought the makers of fangames had it rough.
"Join SMG4 as he goes up against Nintendo and their ninjas in this exciting arc"
—Official description
SMG4 faces the greatest threat to his channel's existence yet: getting sued by Nintendo.
The Lawsuit Arc is the seventh major SMG4 Story Arc, the second arc of Season 12, and the first arc to take place after the Cosmology Lore.
In this arc, Mario's IP contract with his corporate overlords forces him to star in a new game against his will. When Meggy takes a stand for her friend's freedom, Nintendo strikes back with serious legal consequences that could not only keep SMG4 from using any of Nintendo's characters again, but also spell doom for his entire cast of Original Characters.
Episodes
- SMG4 Gets Sued
- Mario Can't Play With You Anymore...
- If Mario Was In... Splatoon 3
- Breaking Luigi
- [NINTENDO HAS CLAIMED THIS VIDEO]
- Goodbye, SMG4
- War of the Fat Italians 2022
Tropes
- Arc Villain: Lawyer Kong (a version of Funky Kong in a suit), who pulls out every legal trick in the book to make sure Mario never associates with SMG4 ever again, creating plenty of grief for Mario's non-Nintendo and original character friends.
- Call-Back:
- Meggy mentions how she went to law school (partially) back in "Mario University" when showing off her in-depth legal knowledge against Lawyer Kong.
- Lawyer Kong cites the events of "SMG4's Origins" when revealing his reason for tossing SMG4 out and resetting the Nintendo characters to their old selves, saying that Nintendo Land used to be normal before he arrived and turned everyone around him into morons.
- Crapsaccharine World: The world behind the firewall acts as this, since despite things appearing normal and friendly on the surface, it becomes immediately clear that such a facade is maintained with an iron fist with any attempts to deviate from it being met with extreme prejudice.
- Death of Personality: Lawyer Kong's firewall reverts Nintendo characters into their default states and removes their memories of their altered lives. Fortunately, the effect can be reversed by exposing them to memes.
- The Dreaded: Nintendo is the one entity that SMG4 is too terrified to anger, as they can simply use a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to accuse him of copyright violation and get his entire channel deleted forever, erasing him and every character on it.
- Everybody Lives: This is the first arc since the Rapper Bob Arc where no one dies a permanent death.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Nintendo mainly enforces their copyright using an army of ninjas. It's a reference to the "Nintendo Ninjas", the internet's term for Nintendo employees who search for and take down leaks and fan works of their games.
- Humanity on Trial: The arc climaxes with SMG4 and Nintendo (represented by Lawyer Kong) going to court to determine the fate of the former's channel. If SMG4 loses the case, all of the non-Nintendo characters will disappear forever. Fortunately, SMG4 wins the case, and thus the world is saved. But not without Miyamoto forcibly giving SMG4, SMG3, Bob and Boopkins different appearances as his condition for sparing them and the others.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Meggy winds up exacerbating SMG4's legal troubles with Nintendo with her attempts to save Mario from Nintendo's captivity, which only pisses off Lawyer Kong into segregating all Nintendo and non-Nintendo properties and forcibly resetting the Nintendo characters to their old selves.
- Not Me This Time: Meggy initially concludes that Mario must have done something stupid yet again when he gets taken away by Nintendo in "SMG4 Gets Sued", and later when she and the other non-Nintendo characters get kicked out of Nintendo Land in "Mario Can't Play With You Anymore...". However, both events turn out to be Nintendo aggressively asserting their ownership of Mario, with no wrong done on his part; in fact, the mass exile turns out to be Meggy's fault.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: At the end of the WOTFI 2022, SMG4 is required by Miyamoto to permanently change into his copyright-friendly original design from "If Mario Was in...Splatoon 3" as a condition for continuing his videos. SMG3 is also given an identical design to match, but with a Beard of Evil, and Boopkins and Bob are abruptly given their own new designs just to make YouTubers stop making comments comparing Spikes and Garos to them.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Characters who aren't affected by memes are considered normal by Nintendo while SMG4 and his gang think the opposite. Not that this really matters, since Lawyer Kong just wants all non-Nintendo characters gone.
- Reset Button:
- Lawyer Kong's firewall doesn't just filter out all non-Nintendo elements from SMG4's universe; it also slowly resets Mario and the other Nintendo characters to their original canon selves before SMG4 arrived, erasing their memories.
- In "Mario Can't Play With You Anymore...", Meggy changes back into an Inkling exactly as she was before "Final Hours" after signing a temporary IP change contract to bypass the Nintendo firewall. However, the contract expires near the end of the next episode, reverting her to her human form.
- Revisiting the Roots:
- After the Cosmology Saga had its episodes spread out over several months with multiple Filler episodes inbetween, this arc returns to the regular arc format of having its installments come out weekly one after the other (with the exception of the non-canon episode "Into the Marioverse", which was made to commemorate the anniversary of Tari’s first appearance).
- Lawyer Kong's decision to quit lawyering and go back to selling weapons is in line with the fate of SMG4's first two Arc Villains, who turn over a new leaf after being bested by our heroes. This is a refreshing change from what they've gotten in the third to sixth arcs, where they are either exiled (SMG3) or killed (Zero (twice) and Francis).
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nintendo characters who are reset also become oblivious to oddities around them, including the resulting depression of everyone outside of the barrier.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: This arc cements Mario fulfilling the "best buds" part with the crew. He's shown to be absolutely miserable when all of his friends have either been "reset" or incapacitated by Nintendo.
- The Worf Effect: It doesn't matter how powerful a non-Nintendo character is. If a DMCA is signed, they die.
