Bowser (Nintendo)
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| Bowser/King Koopa | |
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 Bowser, the king of the Koopas, as he appears in New Super Mario Bros. |
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| Game series | Mario |
| First game | Super Mario Bros. (1985) |
| Created by | Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Voiced by (English) | Video games Isaac Marshall (1996-2001) Scott Burns (2002-present) Eric Newsome (2007) Kenny James (2006 - Present) Television Harvey Atkin |
| Voiced by (Japanese) | Akiko Wada (Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!) Masaharu Satō (OVA trilogy) Takanobu Hozumi (Japanese dub of the Super Mario Bros. film) |
| Live action actor(s) | Dennis Hopper (Super Mario Bros.) |
Bowser is a video game character in Nintendo's Mario series. He is also known as King Koopa. In Japan, he is called Koopa (クッパ Kuppa?), and is the primary antagonist of the Mario series.
Bowser is Mario's archnemesis. He is the leader and most powerful of the turtle-like Koopa race. Although Bowser has joined forces with Mario in a few games,[1] he is considered a "bad guy" due to his ambition to kidnap and dethrone Princess Peach and conquer the Mushroom Kingdom.
Though their origins are unknown, Bowser has eight children; the seven Koopalings and Bowser Jr.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Super Mario Bros
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Bowser made his first appearance in Super Mario Bros as the main villain and boss. He appears at the end of each of the eight worlds. These encounters take place on a bridge over a pool of lava. His attacks include fire breath and Hammer Bros.-style throwing hammers.
In his first appearance, Bowser (King Koopa) appears at the end of each of the eight worlds (e.g. Level X-4), but apart from Level 8-4, they are actually common enemies disguised as Bowser. Defeating "Bowser" with fire balls reveals the disguised enemy. The enemies are as follows: 1-4 - Goomba, 2-4 - Koopa Troopa, 3-4 - Buzzy Beetle, 4-4 - Spiny, 5-4 - Lakitu, 6-4 - Blooper, 7-4 - Hammer Brother.
Due to graphical limitations, the in-game Bowser does not seem to have hair, although the official artwork for the game, as well as the remake in Super Mario All-Stars, depict him with it.
[edit] Super Mario Bros 2
In Super Mario Bros 2 (known outside Japan as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels), Bowser appears and behaves identically to his original incarnation.
[edit] Super Mario Bros 3
In Super Mario Bros. 3, Bowser returns with a new look. For the first time in the games, players saw Bowser with a mane of red hair, spiked bracers, and a face similar to that of an oni, with features like that of a western dragon. This look has remained with Bowser ever since.
The game features the first of two appearances from the Koopalings, which serve as bosses for the end of each world. Bowser only appears at the end of the final world, which takes place in his castle.
[edit] Super Mario World
Bowser's next appearance in a standard 2-D Mario platform adventure was Super Mario World.[2] Bowser appears only as the boss of the last level: his castle in the Valley of Bowser. Bowser's children, the Koopalings, again make an appearance.
In Super Mario World, Nintendo introduces something that would continue to be associated with Bowser through quite a few of his later video game appearances: his Koopa Clown Car.
[edit] Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars
Bowser appeared as the enemy of Mario again in this Role playing game. But later joined forces with Mario, Mallow, Geno and Princess to get help to regain control of his castle. Using the help of his Chain Chomp, he could bash enemies and use claw attacks with an assortment of special moves.
[edit] Super Mario 64
In Super Mario 64 and its update Super Mario 64 DS, Bowser invades Peach's castle and imprisons its inhabitants in the walls with the magic of the stolen Power Stars. In these games, Bowser appears noticeably larger and more menacing than in previous games.
[edit] Paper Mario
Paper Mario sees Bowser continue his quest to kidnap Princess Peach by stealing her castle and flying it into space. Paper Mario is the only Mario RPG game where Bowser is the main villain. In all of the other RPG games Bowser is either an ally or a minor foe.
[edit] Luigi's Mansion
In Luigi's Mansion, Madame Clairvoya tells Luigi that Bowser has been "soundly defeated" by Mario, and speculates that King Boo might have revived him, suggesting that Bowser was presumed destroyed following his latest clash with Mario. His demise is an unconfirmed event however, as the Bowser-like entity of Luigi's Mansion, although possibly Bowser, is never identified, and is merely piloted as a suit by King Boo.
[edit] Super Mario Sunshine
In Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser cons his newly-introduced son, Bowser Jr., into disguising himself as Mario and painting the resort of Isle Delfino with graffiti. Once again, Bowser has grown much larger than he has been in previous games.
[edit] New Super Mario Bros.
In New Super Mario Bros., Bowser is the first boss and the final boss. He is fought the same way as in the original Super Mario Bros., but this time, the lava he falls into disfigures him into a Dry Bones-esque skeleton. The reanimated Bowser skeleton, known as Dry Bowser, is later fought as the game's penultimate battle, with a fully recovered Bowser (along with Bowser Jr.) as the final showdown.
[edit] Yoshi's Island DS
Bowser also appeared in the Nintendo DS game Yoshi's Island DS as the game's main antagonist. In this game, Bowser travels back in time in search of seven legendary stars that can apparently give him the power to rule the universe. The search for these stars lead Bowser to kidnap babies all across the planet thinking that the stars are located in the hearts of certain babies. Bowser appears as the game's final boss, right after his younger self.
[edit] Super Paper Mario
One of Bowser's most recent appearances was in the Wii game Super Paper Mario. Princess Peach is forced to marry him by the mysterious Count Bleck and Nastasia. However, the union between them reveals the Chaos Heart, which would produce The Void that would threaten all of existence. He reluctantly joins up with Mario, Luigi and Peach to stop the evil Count Bleck and his minions.
[edit] Super Mario Galaxy
Bowser reprises his role again as the primary antagonist in Super Mario Galaxy. With a large armada of airships, Bowser and Bowser Jr. descend upon the Mushroom Kingdom to kidnap Princess Peach in order to establish a new galactic empire among the stars.
[edit] Other appearances
[edit] Spin-offs
Bowser appears in the following Mario spin-off titles as the main antagonist: Mario's Time Machine, Mario Is Missing!, Yoshi's Safari, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy and Super Princess Peach.
Bowser also appears in secondary Mario games. He has appeared in every Mario Kart game, and the Mario sport games, such as Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Superstar Baseball, Super Mario Strikers (in the latter most of which he was not a playable character) and Mario Strikers Charged (in which he is a captain). In these games he is not the villain, but he retains his sinister attitude. He is often the heaviest character, which typically means he has excellent power or strength but is also the slowest.
In Nintendo's version of SimCity for the Super NES, Bowser plays the role as a giant monster who attacks the city as one of the six natural disasters.
Bowser appears in Super Smash Bros. Melee, a game that features Nintendo characters fighting each other. He is one of the most powerful and heaviest fighters in the game, but has little speed and mediocre jumping ability. His background symbol is the Super Mushroom, which is also used by Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Dr. Mario. His attacks include: Fire Breath, Koopa Klaw, Bowser Bomb, and the surprisingly quick Whirling Fortress in which he retracts inside his shell and spins to cover horizontal distance. His bulk also allows him to perform a belly-to-belly bodyslam.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the sequel to Melee, Bowser is working with Ganondorf and Master Hand. Their plan is to turn all the fighters into trophies, and create "Subspace", a universe made out of all the other universes. It is revealed that, unlike Ganondorf, Bowser is entirely loyal to the Master Hand. Bowser joins the heroes when he learns that Tabuu is actually in control of the Master Hand. He also has a different form not seen in any Mario Series Game called Giga Bowser, in which he grows three times bigger, longer horns, and darker skin and shell.
Bowser also appears as a villain in the Mario Party games, usually the main villain. He's even introduced a new character in recent games named Koopa Kid, who has the ability to become three separate ones (a feature only shown in Mario Party 5 thus far). Whether Bowser is the father of Koopa Kid or not is unknown, but it is suggested in Mario Party 6 when he says, "Koopa Kids, you have failed me! That's it, no playing with your Mario action figure for a month!"
Bowser is also one of the contestants to appear in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.[3] He has the highest power level out of all 16 characters, but has very low speed and skill.
Both Bowser and his skeleton form, Dry Bowser from New Super Mario Bros, are playable in Mario Kart Wii.
[edit] Appearances outside of video games
Bowser's first appearance in any Mario media outside of the games came in the obscure Mario anime movie, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!. Here, he was voiced, oddly enough, by deep-voiced Japanese female soul singer Akiko Wada. Bowser was then featured as the villain of all three of the Japanese folk tales adapted for the Super Mario Bros. 3 OVA films, even the Wicked Queen in Snow White ("Shirayukihime").
Before American game players could even consider him a regular in the games, Bowser was the regular antagonist in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, voiced by Harvey Atkin. Although he usually went by the "King Koopa" moniker, Bowser frequently took on a new alter-ego, depending on whatever the episode was parodying (a la Yosemite Sam). Although he had only appeared in one game released thus far in North America, Bowser not only commanded his own troops, but also those of Wart from Super Mario Bros. 2.
In this series, Bowser was drawn completely different from the artwork for the games; and he was called Koopa. Here, like the in-game sprite of Bowser in the first game, he had no hair and instead he wore a crown on the top of his head. He also had green scales all over his body, except his belly, which was coloured a darker shade of yellow than in the game artwork. Bowser also never appeared to breathe fire (though he did hold fire in his hands and was able to control it). Also in the first series, he used an array of weapons called Koopa Sceptres that could turn whatever it blasted into something else, such as bricks or ice. In spite of the discrepancies from his official game artwork appearance, this version of Bowser frequently appeared in Mario merchandise over the course of the cartoons' run. Bowser's character design closely resembles Wart in his green body and crown.
The earliest appearance of the Baby Bowser character was not in a game, but rather in the cartoon series The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!. In the episode in question, "Two Plumbers and a Baby", the adult Bowser dresses and behaves as a baby, wearing a bib, bonnet, and diapers, and calling himself "King Goo Goo Gaga Koopa". He plots to turn people into babies using the Fountain of Youth and make them into slaves. At the end of the episode, he himself falls into the fountain, turning himself into a baby. Upset, he walks off, swearing revenge. Baby Bowser later appeared in an episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 called "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel". Here, the adult Bowser and his son, Ludwig von Koopa attempt to travel to the past to prevent Mario and Luigi from ever coming to the Mushroom Kingdom, but the Mario Bros. and Toad stow away on the Doomship in an attempt to stop them. As a result of some turbulence caused by the Koopa King's lack of patience, Ludwig's time-travel device de-ages the bodies of him, Bowser, Mario, Luigi, and Toad into baby bodies (their minds are not affected by the change, as evidenced by the fact that they can still speak normal English). The design of this version of Baby Bowser is inconsistent between these two appearances and, of course, looks nothing at all like the later Nintendo designs.
A live portrayal of the cartoon version of Bowser was featured as part of the Ice Capades that same year. Here, he is portrayed by Christopher Hewett (a point so obvious that one of the hosts of the show points out that he "looks like Mr. Belvedere"), wearing a rather poor costume with no mask. Even more obscure than his Ice Capades appearance was Bowser's role as the host of a short-lived children's show. King Koopa's Kool Kartoons featured a man wearing the same Bowser costume as the one at the Ice Capades, except this time, the costume actually had a mask that resembled King Koopa's face. In each episode, this man would play public domain cartoon shorts for a live audience of children and would then give them gift certificates and/or various NES products. The show was only broadcast in Southern California during the holiday season of 1989.
Bowser's next media appearance was as the regular antagonist in the Mario comics published as part of the Nintendo Comics System, which used the same design as the cartoons. These comics state Bowser's full name to be King Bowser Koopa.[4]
Back in the world of Mario's cartoons, Bowser continued to antagonize the Mushroom Kingdom regularly on The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, this time with the help of his seven children. Although Bowser liked to think of himself as a really nasty villain, he cared very much for his children, often doing whatever he could to please them (especially the constantly-whining Kootie Pie). It has often been said in press material, such as the DVD releases of the show, that Bowser had been stuck in a place called the Banishment Zone between the events of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and those of The Super Mario Bros. 3, but such information is never actually stated in the shows themselves. Bowser would stay the main villain on the Super Mario World cartoon, although there his appearances there were less frequent.
Bowser returned to American-published comics with a manga-like serial based on Super Mario World that ran in Nintendo Power throughout 1992. The storyline to Super Mario Adventures was apparently inspired by the aforementioned anime movie, as it also featured Bowser intending to marry Princess Toadstool in order to take over her kingdom. This time, he had also captured many Yoshis and had a hypnotist Magikoopa brainwash them into carrying his gigantic wedding cake. But even after having the same Magikoopa hypnotize the Princess into agreeing to marry him, Bowser still did not emerge victorious.
Books based on the 'choose your adventure' theme were then released, in which the reader guided various Mario characters through some sort of adventure. Bowser was almost always the villain in the books, scheming a new plan for power.
As simply “Koopa”, he was then featured as the villain of the Super Mario Bros. movie, where he was the tyrannical ruler of the parallel-universe city of Dinohattan. In the movie, Koopa — portrayed by Dennis Hopper — had the appearance of a human evolved from a Tyrannosaurus rex. Not content with ruling one (rather small) pocket dimension, Koopa was constantly in search of a piece of meteorite that would bring him to Earth to begin conquest of mammalian humanity. In the end, not only does Koopa fail in his attempted takeover, he is also zapped by his own de-evolution guns, first de-evolving him into a T-Rex, and then into a puddle of primordial ooze.
Strangely, the official novelization and the Golden Books adaptation of the Super Mario Bros. film refers to Princess Daisy's father, the original king of Dinohatten who King Koopa usurped, as King Bowser.
[edit] Bowser's children
In Super Mario Bros. 3, Bowser is for the first time joined by his seven children, the Koopalings. Their names are puns on real-life historical figures and celebrities: Ludwig von Koopa, Lemmy Koopa, Roy Koopa, Iggy Koopa, Wendy O. Koopa, Morton Koopa Jr., and Larry Koopa. On their cartoon shows, they've lost their original names to be Kooky Von Koopa , Hip, Bully, Hop, Kootie Pie, Big Mouth, and Cheatsy, respectively.
The Koopalings continued to accompany Bowser for Super Mario World, Mario is Missing!, Yoshi's Safari, and Hotel Mario, as well as the cartoon shows, comic books and adventure books, but mysteriously disappeared afterwards. They did, however, make a returning appearance as mini-bosses in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
In Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser is joined by what appears to be his eighth child, Bowser Jr., who later goes on to serve as his partner in subsequent Mario sports games. Bowser Jr. closely resembles a younger Bowser.
Throughout the Mario Party series, Bowser is accompanied by a seemingly infinite number of little Koopas who resemble him, dubbed "Baby Bowsers" until Mario Party 4, at which point they were called "Koopa Kids". Starting with Mario Party 5, three differently-colored Koopa Kids (Blue, Red, and Green K. Kid) appeared. In the console game, there was only one of each color, but Mario Party Advance featured many in the Koopa Kid (therein known as "Mini Bowser") mini-games. The real relationship between Bowser and these Koopa Kids from the Mario Party series is unclear presently. It is expected that they simply work for Bowser because they call him "Mr. Bowser". Also, in Mario Party 7, after Koopa Kid has done his deed he says, "I'll bet Mr. Bowser will totally give me a raise after this!"
[edit] Koopa Clown Car
The Koopa Clown Car is Bowser's most commonly seen mode of transportation. It resembles a manic white and yellow clown face with a green propeller on its underside. The Koopa Clown Car was first seen in Super Mario World, where Bowser used it against Mario in the final stage of the game. During the battle, Bowser deploys Mechakoopas (which Mario can throw back at Bowser), launches massive cannon balls from the interior, and attempts to crush Mario with the propeller.
The Clown Car has also been featured in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Paper Mario, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and most recently Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was also used in the Super Mario World cartoon episode "Send in the Clown", which, fittingly, revolved around a phony circus that Bowser was staging. In Mario Kart DS, Bowser has a kart, called the "Hurricane", which resembles an airplane painted in the same clown style. The Clown Car — with Bowser inside — is a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
The latest appearances of the Koopa Clown Car include Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, where Bowser uses it to chase Wario and Waluigi after Wario accidentally hits Bowser with a golf ball; Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the Subspace Emissary (essentially, as his getaway car), and in Mario Party 8.
[edit] Name issues
Bowser has been known by different names over the years, much like Princess Peach (formerly Toadstool) and Sega's Doctor Eggman (formerly Robotnik). In Japan, he has always been known as simply "Koopa" (or "Kuppa" in transliterating the katakana used to write his name). In the Japanese manual for the original Super Mario Bros., his name is shown to be Daimaō: Koopa ("Great Demon King: Koopa"). When Super Mario Bros. was released outside of Japan, he went by the name of Bowser, King of the Koopas. "Koopa" was given to the turtle enemies (who would be Bowser's direct subjects.) The reason for the name change is unknown.
The American cartoons[5][6] and the Super Mario Bros. film consistently refer to Bowser as King Koopa or simply Koopa and almost never as "Bowser" (there are some instances where he states his full name as "Bowser Koopa"). In the Super Mario Bros Super Show, Bowser concocts many different schemes and often goes through many alter-egos, referring to himself in names that often mix "Koopa" with the appropriate alter-ego to act as parodies of various different figures in history and fiction, such as Count Koopula (Dracula), Koopfinger (Goldfinger), and Koopzilla (Godzilla). Bowser's children refer to him mostly as King Dad or simply "Dad" in the cartoons.
[edit] References
- ^ Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Super Paper Mario.
- ^ Super Mario World manual, pg. 2
- ^ IGN: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Image
- ^ "The Buddy System"
- ^ http;//www.tv.com/the-super-mario-bros.-...
- ^ http://www.tv.com/captain-n-and-the-adventures...
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