Toad

Toad, known in Japan as Kinopio (キノピオ?), is a fictional character belonging to an anthropomorphic mushroom-like species of the same name in the Mario franchise, created by Shigeru Miyamoto. A citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom, Toad is one of Princess Peach's most loyal attendants and is constantly working on her behalf. He is usually seen as a non-player character (NPC) who provides assistance to Mario and his friends in most games, but there are times when Toad takes center stage and appears as the protagonist, as seen in Super Mario Bros. 2 and Wario's Woods. Starting with Super Mario Sunshine, a newly introduced character known as Toadsworth was introduced as Peach's steward, thus replacing Toad's original role as a helper for various Nintendo Gamecube Mario titles released (causing Toad's roles in these games to diminish). However, Toad later received various other roles (including that of being the captain of the Toad Brigade association in Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel) that allowed him to take a more active role within the later Mario games. Additionally, two Toads (Yellow and Blue) were featured as playable characters along with Mario and Luigi in the recent New Super Mario Bros. Wii.[2]While Toad is actually an individual, there is also in an entire species of the same name based on him named as the toads or Mushroom People (much like Yoshi and Birdo), but actually in Japanese, the original species name was only Kino (キノ?), which means Toad (Kinopio) is a member of the toads (kinos). The majority of Toads have white mushroom caps with red spots and look completely identical to him; however, there have been toads with caps of different colors, such as Toadette, Toadsworth, and Toadbert.