One Mario Kart World character in particular has caught the attention of the gaming public since the game launched alongside the Nintendo Switch 2 last week. Although Cow might appear to be a simple, adorable bovine — players have discovered that the background NPC-turned-playable character is one of the more powerful of the starting line-up of racers.
Now, Japanese social media has picked up on something else: Cow's butt. Specifically, some users seem to have a beef about how mucky Cow’s bottom is sometimes, such as in the shot below shared on X with the caption “Dirty butt!!!!!!." Another user responded with "I love this character so much that I feel sad when people badmouth her, but at the same I also feel like, yep it’s dirty."
ケツきったな！！！！！！#マリオカートワールド #NintendoSwitch2 pic.twitter.com/eSupIAP2Y3
— ゆゆキチ📛 (@YuyukichiRTA) June 5, 2025
As commenters continued to chew the cud on Cow’s butt, the discussion soon attracted the attention of a farmer, who expressed admiration for the game’s realism and attention to detail.
"Honestly, cow butts are about this mucky. Especially when set out to pasture, herds can end up covered in mud," Renta explained in a tweet viewed an incredible 8.4 million times. According to their Twitter / X profile, Renta studied livestock farming at university and now works as a rice farmer in Japan’s Gifu prefecture. “The strangest thing about this game is that the dirtiness of the cow’s butts has been recreated with incredible realism,” Renta enthused.
“I think you’d have to love cows to be able to do this.” Adding more info, Renta shared some cute photos of real cows and explained that farmers battle to keep cow butts clean every day: “They’re basically clean as long as you scrub the floors and make sure they are healthy.”
めっちゃバズっててわろた
補足すると農家さんも牛のケツと日々激闘しているので床掃除と健康を整えれば基本的には綺麗ですし、
ブラシやシャワーで落としたりしていますので、そこは誤解のないようお願いします。それも愛です。あと牛はいいぞ、可愛いから。 pic.twitter.com/tchxn78Ojd
— 蓮田/Renta (@taihibansei) June 7, 2025
Mario Kart’s new milker racer also scrubs up apparently; her butt is clean when you start a race, however driving through mud makes her behind gradually get dirtier.
Although Moo Moo Cows have been spotted grazing in the background of Mario Kart games ever since 1996’s Mario Kart 64, this is the first time they have got behind the wheel. In a previous interview with IGN, the game’s art director Masaaki Ishikawa explained how the idea for a playable Cow racer came about:
“One of the designers came up with that silly sketch of Cow cruising along, and I thought to myself, 'This is it!' (Laughs) So that's when we realized the course surroundings actually contained a lot of untapped resources."
This led the developers to make other Mario series NPCs like the red fish Cheep Cheep and the cactus Pokey into controllable characters for the first time.
Cow’s reveal two months ago got fans all excited as the reaction videos on YouTube show. Since Mario Kart World came out last week, many players who managed to get the game and a Switch 2 have been maining the Cow, filling online lobbies with kart and motorcycle-riding bovines. It remains to see if Cow retains her popularity as more players unlock the game’s other racers.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
