We've certainly been getting a lot of great new Bowser content lately! A new TV spot for the "Super Mario Galaxy Movie" aired during the NBA slam dunk competition last weekend, and it's a hoot!

Pint-sized Bowser shakes his butt at Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi yelling "Byeeee suckaaaaas!" and then takes off running. Mario calls him back, but he shouts back "you can't catch the wind!" A wide camera shot is then shown of them all just standing there watching him for a few seconds. Mario takes a few steps forward and snatches him (somehow not getting stabbed by his back spikes). Just look at that little bundle of rage!

Mini-Bowser then claims "it was a metaphor!" before suddenly sinking his teeth into Mario's thumb, making him scream. Mario shakes him off, with Yoshi and Luigi just staring at the sight mildly concerned at best. Then, like some sort of ankle-biting lapdog like a chihuahua or something, Bowser sinks his teeth into Mario's knee, making him scream out in pain again. The camera zooms in on his death-like psychotic stare too, haha!

It's pretty funny how Bowser has it out for Mario, but is rather kind to Luigi by comparison. I must say, Mario showed quite an impressive display of restraint not to give Bowser a good whack to make him stop biting him. Instead it was Yoshi that lashed his sticky gecko-like tongue out to attach to Bowser's shell, and retract him inside his mouth (somehow also not being stabbed by Bowser's backspikes!)

Now it's Bowser that is the one screaming, with the sound muffled from being inside Yoshi's mouth. Mario reluctantly mentions that Yoshi should probably spit him out. Bowser sits with splayed legs on top of Luigi's open palm laughing it off as if he just came off of some sort of rollercoaster mentioning "that was intense!"

This movie looks like it's going to be hilarious! There's already some savage inter-character dynamics going on here, and I'd like to see how the story fits into it all. Yoshi looks like he's going to be a very cute addition as well, and it's so good to see him, as he's my second-favorite Mario character!

I must say though - it's pretty amazing to watch the insane character arc that Bowser has already gone through in a little over one movie. He goes from the evil tyrant turtle king, burning the penguin's ice kingdom and stealing their star, and ruling his army of Koopas from atop his mighty throne, to a little pint-sized brat! It's definitely a case of "oh how the mighty have fallen..."

Oh how I hope we are on a new 3-year cycle of brand spanking new Mario movies from now until forever! We got new movie posters of the characters appearing in the movie today, and they are GREAT!

First, we have our big bad Koopa King (back to his full size?) standing on the edge of a bridge as an axe-weilding psycho! Hold on! Bridge? Axe? Have you learned nothing from 1985, my king!?

I think what people like most about the movie poster is that Bowser seems to resemble his look from the games a lot more. His colors pop a lot with the glow of the lava underneath! I for one like characters with a lot of color saturation, as they really stand out! I also think it's awesome how the looks on every single Koopa Troopa behind him is of joy and excitement! They legitmately love their king!

Not to be outdone, his son's poster also looks equally impressive in a different way! The colors seem downright psychedelic! The pink/green complementing colors looks amazing, and definitely has a Super Mario Wonder-like feel, and also a Galaxy feel. There's amazing attention to detail with each of his scales drawn in as well. I don't think he's ever looked better!

I am so excited for this movie! I am almost deliberately going in cold without hearing any potential spoilers about how the story is going to shape out. I'm predicting maybe something like a Bowser's Fury, but in reverse: where perhaps Bowser has to rescue his son from some sort of corrupting force.

Or perhaps they have vowed to rule to the galaxy as father and son! We will have to find out on April 1st! (Oh please don't be an April Fool's joke! Please be real, new Mario movie!)

Nintendo released the opening cinematic to Mario Tennis Fever today, and it looks amazing! Bowser is featured throughout the entire opening FMV, and in my opinion, he's never looked better:

Bowser makes quite the entrance, stomping in likely shaking the whole stadium as he spins to put all his weight into a thunderous backhand as his name comes on the screen.

A few seconds later, we see that he's playing a doubles match and his teammate is... Mario!? With remarkable teamwork and chemistry, they get a point against Daisy and Peach, and then tap their racquets together in a show of unity.

OK, hold the phone here! I can't believe my eyes. Mario and Bowser working together, and they seem unstoppable in the effort! Peach and Daisy retreat to the sidelines to grab some special power racquets. On Peach's next shot in, a fireball explosion goes off burning Mario's butt. As Mario runs around their side of the court with his shorts on fire, Bowser stares on with a look of genuine concern!

Bro even looks genuinely worried... for Mario of all people! What exactly is going on here!? Is it just simply that:

A) Bowser is concerned for his own hide, wondering if he's getting a preview of what will happen to him next.
B) Bowser is legitimately concerned about his teammate's wellbeing so they can win the game together.
C) Bowser is not, has not, and will never be an actual bad guy: he is merely an actor playing the role as villain, but he's actually great pals with Mario and friends.
D) Some other possibility I haven't thought of.

I've seen a lot of people like the still of Bowser looking completely shocked, as he looks quite adorable. He's just proving all along that he's one big colorful teddybear with his heart in the right place! The Bowser shocked face likely will live on as quite meme-worthy!

Perhaps this teammate concern only goes one way though. There was no cut to Mario looking bothered by poor Bowser slipping and faceplanting into a pit of mud or oil from Daisy's powerup. The mighty king needs no sympathy, however! He shakes it off, and lunges into an insanely powerful forehand:

You know, Bowser might look big and clumsy, but he's got some surprisingly quick explosive power to him, and some impressive agility!

Look how high he can jump too!

What a fantastically produced and action-packed opening cinematic! I for one want to see more of this Mario + Bowser teamwork, as they seem absolutely unstoppable together!

As you can see, I went a little nuts with the screenshots above! There were just so many great moments in the opening FMV! It's so crazy how Nintendo hardware has advanced so much now that the in game character models basically look as good as a pre-rendered cinematic like this. When I was a teen, the best graphics we got of Bowser in 3D were low poly and very blocky. Now he is high poly and very smooth!

Thankfully you won't have to wait long after watching this video to be able to play the game! Mario Tennis Fever is available both physically and digitally on February 12, 2026 (in North America where I'm from).

This is definitely a must buy for me once I eventually get around to getting a Switch 2 for myself! I absolutely loved the original Mario Tennis for the N64. It actually made me pick up tennis in real life after (who said videogames were bad for you!?) I also liked Mario Power Tennis for the Nintendo GameCube. I have Mario Tennis Aces for the Switch, but I wasn't quite as keen on that one. It seemed sort of gimmicky with the broken rackets and powerups and stuff. Maybe there was a setting to turn them off or something I couldn't find because I'm a boomer.

(Note: Not actually a boomer, but an older millenial, still in disbelief that his favorite franchise he grew up with in childhood is still megapopular to this day.)

The Bowser Shrine was launched 19 years ago on December 18, 2006 right after coming back from a fancy Italian restaurant celebrating my milestone 21st birthday at the time! Little did I know that the big building across the street of that restaurant belonged to my future employer once I got hired there a little over a year later. It's been nearly 18 years of working there ever since!

I remember when I came home from the restaurant after celebrating my big occassion that it was quite important to me to have my domain registered on the day of my birthday. Technically, I succeeded in doing this: at least in my timezone! I forgot that HostGator, my domain host, was two hours ahead of me in Florida. Therefore, my official WHOIS registration technically occurred on December 19, 2006, doh!

I guess that was an early lesson that sometimes life doesn't work out perfectly as you expect. It is a tendency for young folk to be more idealistic, and then you learn over time that... it's kind of hard to be perfect! I'll admit that I can sometimes have some perfectionsitic-like tendencies towards things that are really important to me, and sometimes that just results in a lot of pressure and stress!

I remember so badly wanting to build and release this website even earlier than I did, but I really wanted to focus on finishing technical college at the time. The grand majority of the website was built after graduation in about a six month stretch as I looked for a long-term career type job. It was a great exercise as a fun little project and to keep my skills sharp.

During early offline development of The Bowser Shrine, I woke up on Sunday, March 12, 2006 with terrible crushing tension headaches and dizziness. The night before I was playing Super Smash Bros. Melee at my friend's house for pretty much the entire day. This was back in the day when I was a serious high-level SSB:M player that had the privilege of playing many of the best players to ever play the game in the world at the time! Perhaps all the long hours of coding at college, then working on The Bowser Shrine, and also trying to keep up in the competitive Smash Bros. scene caught up with me. I'm still trying to solve these headaches (and the bizarre severe eye strain with digital screens) to this day.

This was a bit of a challenging year for me, as the eye strain was really bad at the beginning of the year. For example, the Bowser-88 post that I did about my Joy Station Collectibles Bowser statue was done at the end of August, but I had actually received this awesome statue back in February. Better late than never I guess!

Starting in the spring, I did a six month program of binocular vision therapy - which is something I also did about a decade ago. I started to get some seemingly spontaneous symptom improvements about 2 months ago or so. Despite these struggles, I still managed to do 8 new posts this year! I mean, there was a lot of stuff to talk about, from the release of a new major Nintendo system in the Switch 2, to the 40-year anniversary of Super Mario Bros. in Japan and North America, to the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy movie, etc!

In more recent years, I have treated this website as a sort of blog, posting my own personal musings of Bowser-related content that I would come across, or honoring certain anniversaries or events! If my website seems like it came straight out of the 2000s, that's because it did, lol! One of the biggest things needed is some sort of bi-directional interactivity. The only way that it has been possible the last 19 years is to email me (and people still do, thank you!)

It's hard to believe that The Bowser Shrine has always existed as an incomplete work-in-progess for 19 years now (with me now officially middle-aged to boot!) While it can be easy to view this as a failure from a glass-half-empty standpoint, another way of looking at it is that we are all a work-in-progress. Every year we try to be the best version of ourselves. Despite all this, my Bowser fansite remains one of the longest-running Mario franchise-related websites left running uninterrupted on the internet. It's also the only Mario character-related website left on the internet. There used to be tons of great Yoshi fansites years ago for example, but they are all gone now.

Call me old school, but I still love everything being collected in one convenient area with an enormous wealth of easy to find content. Instead of trying to find some old Bowser content on social media through an infinite scroll (if it even lets you), or a search (if it even works properly), one can just click on a conveneint link on the side! A website like this also allows me to offer unique content like the Mailbag or Fan Fictions. With the internet being so large and actively used by so many so often, I will basically look for ways in which I can still provide some unique content.

Bowser has been a lifelong obsession of mine since I was 4 or 5 years old. Despite now being 40 years old, that same enthusiasm remains. I remain remarkably consistent that way, and should continue to be for pretty much the end of my time! I remain fully committed to keeping this website and its content online for as long as I live, whether I ever finish it in the way I envisioned it from the beginning or not!

I had a wonderful birthday at a fancy Italian restaurant, and my family gifted me The Mighty Bowser Lego Set! As you can see, some things never change...

After 3 years, we finally got our first look at the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie early this morning. Given the last film made over a billion bucks over-and-above its budget, and seemed to be universally loved by all, it was almost a given a sequel wouldn't be far behind! The next Mario movie will be called The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and releases on April 3, 2026. Here is the first official trailer below:

How spoiled must Koopa fans be to have the Koopa King grace the opening of both official trailers to the Mario movie? Recall how the last official Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer started with Bowser's floating fortress ominously approaching the penguin's ice castle, along with one of the most impressive entrances fit for a king!

Now as this new trailer starts, just look at the concentration of this man:

And then as Bowser's eyes shoot open with a blaze of fury and a cute snarl, he is weilding two paintbrushes as if locked in battle! It's an art battle against himself, perhaps trying to outdo all the other paintings he's been making to pass the time while in captivity! He paints all over the canvas with furious strokes, even slamming entire paint cans against it. Eventually, he seems to have the eureka moment that he's one dab away from putting the icing on the cake. Once he does, he's almost shocked himself by his own artistic abilities, standing with disbelief as paint is still splattered all over him!

Just like the last opening trailer from 3 years ago, there's so many little things I picked up on that I liked so much! Once again, the sound engineering! All the sword-like sounds of battle as Bowser attacks this canvas really fit the mood to the ferocity! As he takes the paintbrush out of his mouth that he was holding while he has his revelation, he gives his lips an audible lick, and it all seems so believable! The music hits a hard note right as the tip of Bowser's paintbrush makes its final dab. It all seems so well choreographed!

Bowser's animations are all so fluid and fantastic as well! Whichever team of people gets to animate Bowser seem to really enjoy what they do and put a lot of heart into it! Bowser is given such an incredible range of exaggerated expressions - the likes of which we haven't really seen before in any Mario games. One just can't have his jaws opening and closing while he's speaking. His entire unique facial structure must move as he talks and interacts with his world!

Luigi then scares the life out of poor mini Bowser by fasceitiously saying "Hey big guy!" Bowser's high-pitched chipmunk-like voice from when we last left him then returns! I quite like that attention to detail where if we are up close to mini Bowser, he sounds like his normal growly self. However, if it's a wide shot with the other much bigger characters in frame, he sounds like a pip squeak again!

Instead of a small birdcage, a miniture fortress was built for the tiny king to rule over! This is honestly pretty nice of Bowser's captors to do for him! He's probably been spending a lot of time in there already. I guess now he knows firsthand what it's like to be kidnapped after doing it to Princess Peach for so long!

Bowser dances and skips up his spiral staircase as he cleans the paint off of himself with a rag, humming his theme from Super Mario 64! I loved this little touch, as that's my favorite Bowser music to date, and I've had it as my iPhone ringtone for a while now. His piano is also visible a floor up, suggesting that we might get another example of Bowser's musical side later in this movie. Bowser trims a little bonzai bush, grabs a painting, and then heads out on the top balcony of his mini castle.

Interestingly enough, Bowser greets Luigi with excitement, and greets Mario with almost no enthusiasm, almost suggesting that he's starting to play favorites amongst the brothers! It was actually Bowser that wanted to see the brothers to show them that he had made a masterpiece painting for Princess Peach!

For those that saw the trailer before this update, you knew this was coming...

I nearly dropped my aforementioned iPhone laughing at this! Bowser painted himself as a ripped GigaChad while Peach stares up at him with awe as if he's some sort of sculpted Greek God! Bowser appears super excited behind the painting grinning while he awaits approval! Luigi enthusiastically says "love the colors!" while a frowning Mario leans in and carefully mentions "it's trash..." Bowser looks hilariously dejected for a split second, and then rages and destroys his masterpiece on the spot! These movies have had great comedy to them, and this one will no doubt be very entertaining!

Bowser then laughs off his explosive outburst after being insulted by Mario, saying "that's the old Bowser talking!" while backpedalling and saying "still working through my demons I suppose!" He then mentions he needs his 8 hours (of sleep) "or else I really turn into a monster..." He then proceeds to accidentally close the door onto his own tail (YEEOUCH!)

The Koopa King was on screen for the entire first half of the new trailer! Finally the trailer starts showing the other parts of the movie, and it looks absolutely gorgeous! Many have commented on the very impressive lighting that Illumination gets in each frame (I guess they aren't called Illumination for nothing!) I like when Peach and Toad dive into a water world with a Blooper and the music muffles during the time they are submerged. There's also an exciting dirtbike race that gets the Mario Kart vibes going again.

Suddenly, out of nowhere...

Bowser Jr. drops down into frame with a thud, carrying his paintbrush, with his Koopa Clown Car in the background. A shiny ooze pools around his brush as its against the ground, and it starts to take over his body like Venom. With his bandana now around his mouth and his eyes glowing like purple lasers, he extends his paintbrush, which morphs into a spiked mace ball. He introduces himself before claiming he's there to rescue his father and begins his attack.

There's a few interesting aspects of Bowser Jr.'s depiction in this movie. The first many noticed is that this is the Bowser Jr. as he appeared in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. When he talks, the scary mouth drawn on his bandana moves to his speech. Speaking of talking, Bowser Jr. is being voiced by Benny Safdie instead of Caety Sagoian as in the video games. This makes Bowser Jr. sound more like a teenager rather than kid-like.

You be the judge whether you think that voice fits the character or not. A lot on social media don't seem to think that it does. I can understand where they are coming from, but I weirdly don't seem to mind the vocal performance all that much. Benny Safdie seemed to give Bowser Jr. a bratty type of tone fit for a cartoon character. It's just that Bowser Jr.'s body still looks quite small, so it's odd to have his voice even more than a little bit deep.

Another gripe fans have is that Bowser Jr. doesn't have his black beady eyes normally associated with young royal Koopas! Even Baby Bowser had them when he was his age! I'm not sure if this means that Bowser Jr. has grown up a little bit or what. Perhaps he was hard to animate and make expressive without the existance of some form of sclera. I must say, that animation of him talking looks outstanding! It's odd to see Bowser Jr. having ambitious desires as well, as he mostly would follow in his father's footsteps in the games. Perhaps he's been thurst into a role of early young leadership in order to gain his father back. I'm sure Bowser Jr. will turn out fine! At least, I seem to be the most optimistic about it!

These Illumination movies go so hard and offer such good entertainment value and fan service! I certainly can't wait for this movie as well! Mario fans had to wait decades for a proper movie to come out to do the series justice (we won't talk about that Super Mario Bros. (1993) live action wreck). In a way, I'm glad that the movies were made this late when the technology had advanced enough to really make the spectacle impressive! This is the best Bowser and the other Mario characters have ever looked!