Captain Olimar
A tiny captain with a big heart who tamed the wilds of an alien world.
Captain Olimar (キャプテン・オリマー, Kyaputen Orimā) 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. Olimar is married to an unnamed wife, and has an unnamed son and daughter. Olimar also appears in other Nintendo games, notably as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series since Brawl.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Pikmin
- First
- Pikmin (2001)
- Creator
- Shigeru Miyamoto
- Voice
- Kazumi Totaka
- Home
- Hocotate
- Species
- Hocotatian
Lore & Background
Olimar is an extremely small humanoid alien 'Hocotatian' with a large nose, wearing a spacesuit and a circular space helmet with an antenna. Standing 19 mm (0.75 in) tall, Olimar was named after Mario; in Japanese, the name 'Olimar' (オリマー, Orimā) is an anagram of 'Mario' (マリオ). 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. 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. In an interview with 4Gamer, Miyamoto revealed that he aimed to make Olimar simple to control, like a cursor.
Reader's Guide
Olimar has been featured in four Super Smash Bros. games; he appears in Melee as a trophy, and in Brawl as a playable character, commanding his Pikmin to fight. He reappears as a playable character in both Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. An Olimar amiibo, compatible with the games, was released on September 11, 2014. 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. 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'. 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.' 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'. 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. 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 Brawl's Meta Knight. Eurogamer writer Tom Bramwell praised his Brawl appearance, calling his fighting style 'particularly eye-catching', since he '[uses] an army of Pikmin'. 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].'
More in Lore & History
Elsewhere in Pikmin
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced