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"Lord Bowser is expecting the Big Paint Star, and I have no intention of disappointing him. Have you even seen his disappointed face? It’s heartbreaking! Enough small talk. Let’s get this over with."
— Larry Koopa

Larry Koopa is a boss from Paper Mario: Color Splash. He is fought on the Sunset Express, a train he used to get to the Starlight Cape (Last known whereabouts of the Orange Big Paint Star) before Mario could.

Paper Mario: Color Splash[]

Tangerino Grill[]

Larry Koopa made his first appearance at the Tangerino Grill, but only by voice, as his appearance was obscured by a set of curtains. The Grill's staff refer to him as the VIP Diner, and request that Mario fill in for the chef and serve him a steak. If Mario successfully cooks the steak (In a boss battle), Larry will be pleased and flee to the Sunset Express.

Sunset Express[]

Larry is then fought on top of the Sunset Express. In battle, he will attack Mario with waves of Shy Guys. But once he takes damage, one of the Shy Guys will throw hearts into the train's firebox. This emits a stream of smoke from the locomotive that recovers 999 HP for Larry, rendering him impossible to defeat. So, Mario must help a Toad scare the Shy Guy off by fighting off three waves of other Shy Guys. When the Toad successfully fends off the Shy Guy, Larry will quickly use a spell that blows smoke into Mario's face, blinding him. Mario will miss every attack, and Larry will dodge any Thing Cards Mario uses. To stop Larry from dodging every attack, Mario must use a Cork Thing Card to clog the trains whistle. The rest of the fight is pretty straight forward, with Larry able to drop-kick or jump on Mario. However, if Mario takes too long to defeat him, Larry will use a finishing move where he jumps on Mario five times, defeating Mario instantly.

Trivia[]

  • Larry is the only Koopaling who didn't already have his big paint star by the time he had to fight Mario despite the fact Larry had more time to get the big paint star Bowser ordered him to get than Morton, Iggy, Ludwig and Wendy had, literal days in fact based on Wendy's dialogue when saying she was waiting in the clam shell for days and was beginning to think that Mario "stood her up" with how long he took. This is likely due to the fact Larry is lazy and doesn't wanna do the work that he is ordered to, which is a consistent part of his personality across many games such as Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam where he was implied to be slacking off playing video games, and it is something he does often enough that Roy and Wendy guessed that's what he was doing and expected this from him.
  • When Larry fights Mario, it reflects his laziness by having him stand on top of the smokestack while summoning minions over and over while recovering HP every time he takes damage.
  • While the English version of Larry's quote talking about how Bowser ordered him to get the orange big paint star was "Lord Bowser is expecting the Big Paint Star, and I have no intention of disappointing him. Have you even seen his disappointed face? It’s heartbreaking!" the Japanese version 「ビッグ大ペンキスターを持ちかえらないと、さまオイラ こわーい クッパ様にしかられちゃう!」 actually accurately translates into "If I don't bring back the Big Paint Star, scary Lord Bowser is going to scold me!" which is a direct reference to his quote in the Japanese instruction booklet for Super Mario Bros. 3 that goes 「マヌケな国王から巻き上げた杖は全部で7本。オレ達兄弟が1本ずつ持ってるって訳さ。オヤジに怒鳴られるのはイヤだから、そう簡単に渡す訳にはいかないぜ。」which translates into "There are a total of 7 wands we managed to steal from those idiot kings. My siblings and I have one each. I'm not going to give mine away so easily because I don't want to get yelled at by my old man!" (old man referring to father) this, alongside many quotes from a variety of other games, indicates Larry does what he is ordered to out of fear of what will happen if he didn't do what Bowser orders, even if he doesn't wanna do it.
  • The fact Larry makes sure to mention that he's only doing this because he doesn't want to get scolded by Bowser (or because he doesn't want to disappoint Bowser in the English version) implies he doesn't wanna do it, but does it anyway more out of feeling like he's obligated to, since in Bowser Junior's Journey when Larry had to give Bowser Junior a tutorial, he made sure to specify "Ludwig said it's my turn, are you listening?" and half-baked it and it's shown that he didn't really agree with Ludwig's approach not only when he made fun of Ludwig after Junior wouldn't listen to him, but also when he leaves after saying "C'mon Wendy, it's not worth it. The kid says he doesn't need us, let him prove it!" showing that Larry believed in more of a sink or swim approach with Junior, which was also the case when Larry decided his approach at first would be to fight Junior who was clearly not listening to Ludwig's advice. This implies that Larry might have not had much of an opinion on finding the Big Paint Stars for Bowser, especially since he was likely slacking off at the Tangerino Grill the same way he was slacking off playing video games in Paper Jam (although this is not confirmed) alongside many other things Bowser has ordered him to do and only attempted to reach Starlight Cape before Mario and get the Big Paint Star before him because he felt obligated to, since he worries Bowser will yell at him if he doesn't.
  • The English version of one of the quotes Larry says after losing was "I can’t ever face Lord Bowser again! I’ll have to go on the lam. No, maybe I’ll go on the lamb…" although the Japanese original version was 「さまクッパ様にしかられちゃう~かえこわくて 帰れないよ~!」which accurately translates into "Lord Bowser is going to scold me! I'm scared and I can't go home!" as the English translation changed it so that Larry rethinks whether or not he'll run away. In the Japanese version, he just says he's scared and can't go home and doesn't rethink the decision of having to run away. He likely shows up at the end because it turned out that Bowser was being possessed by the black paint when he gave Larry the order, which would therefore mean Larry wouldn't get in trouble for losing to Mario and not even touching the Orange Big Paint Star that Bowser ordered him to get.
  • It was specified that Larry ordered his minions to hijack the Sunset Express specifically because he heard Mario was headed to Starlight Cape, it's likely he was slacking off and as soon as he heard Mario was headed to Starlight Cape, he realized he hasn't even touched the Orange Big Paint Star yet.
  • It's possible the minions on the Sunset Express talking about having issues with their jobs and not wanting to do their jobs due to it being exhausting thankless work that they believe they are forced to do is similar to how Larry specifies that Bowser wants the Big Paint Star, so he's getting it to avoid disappointing Bowser (to avoid being scolded by Bowser) which implies Larry too is doing his job out of feeling like it's an obligation that he has to do rather than because he wants to. (Similarly, the minions that helped Iggy fight Mario would mock Mario for the fact he can't touch their chariots when attempting to attack their chariots, which is similar to something Iggy would do, while the minions that helped Ludwig fight Mario speak similarly to Ludwig whereas they speak like actual soldiers who are serious about their jobs, Ludwig was seen speaking like this in Bowser Junior's Journey when reporting to Bowser about how much Bowser Junior has grown up.)
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