Oriental Guardian, September 14, 2010

The crew of a Chinese fishing boat who had been detained in Japan following a collision with Japanese coast guard that occurred in disputed waters on September 7 was released yesterday. Although the pilot of the boat is still in custody, many Chinese newspapers chose to feature the homecoming on today's front page.

The Oriental Guardian made no mention of the issue on its front page. Instead, its layout celebrates the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros, the phenomenally popular video game released in 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. (Although the headline says that Mario himself is 25, the character, created by Shigeru Miyamoto, debuted several years earlier.)

Guo Xiaosong, features director for the Oriental Guardian, posted a microblog updated explaining that the paper had originally wanted to run the cover yesterday, the game's actual 25th anniversary, but it was pushed aside by the news of crosstalk performer Guo Degang's first performance since his tiff with the Beijing media last month.

One commenter noted that the configuration at right (a layout from the game itself) would have made a much cooler cover.

Guo replied apologetically, "It really ought to have gone up that way, but there was the pressure of the ad, and it ultimately was too crowded."