Mario Zeppeli

Mario Zeppeli (マリオ ・ ツェペリ) a posthumous minor character briefly featured in Battle Tendency. The father of Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, he was cooperating with Lisa Lisa in the fight against the Pillar Men.

Appearance
Mario Zeppeli was a middle-aged Italian, who had a regular haircut and a mustache. In the colored manga his hair is blonde like his children's, when in the anime adaptation, it is dark brown. During his first brief appearance on the Zeppeli Family Tree in Chapter 63, he's presented without his mustache.

Personality
Mario Zeppeli is characterized as hard-working, trustworthy, and a wholesome family man. Although he loved his family, Mario had to abandon them in order to investigate the Pillar Men.

Mario was a selfless person, sacrificing himself to save a young man from one of the Pillar Men's trap without knowing it was his own son.

Ripple
Unlike Caesar, Mario had known since he was young of the fate of his father, Will Anthonio Zeppeli. Because of this, he had researched the Stone Masks, and was able to find the Pillar Men long before Germany's discovery. Since then, he had been traveling the world in order to discover a way to destroy the creatures that were in the wall. Though he had not been shown using it, Mario had spent his life training his Ripple, following in the footsteps of his father.

History
Mario Zeppeli, son of Will Anthonio Zeppeli, lived in Naples and worked as a carpenter. Considered the best carpenter in the city, Mario had a happy life, having a work he loved and a large family. At one point, Mario's wife died.

Sometime during Caesar's youth, Mario suddenly left his five children without telling them about his investigation on the Pillar Men. Although he left them his money, the money was swindled by relatives and the children ended up penniless. Caesar felt betrayed and grew to hate his father.

Years later, Mario would head to the site where the Pillar Men were discovered, unknowingly trailed by his bloodthirsty son. When Caesar stops to pick a jewel from the wall, Mario saves him by pushing him out of the way of Wamuu's trap, and becomes absorbed into the wall. Before he's absorbed completely, he tells his son to report his death to his colleague, Lisa Lisa, as she was the only one capable of rivaling the creatures. This selfless act earned him Caesar's admiration postmortem, and caused him to seek revenge against the Pillar Men.

Gallery
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