If you've spent more than a few minutes on this website and are not a total fool you'll already know that I'm a long time fan of the Super Mario games. Who isn't? They shaped the landscape of gaming for decades and continue to output quality - and mostly unique - games.
Games in general have been the biggest inspiration on my cartoons and I have always had a particular fondness for the Koopa Kids, Bowser's seven colourful children who debuted in Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1988.
In 2002 Bowser was blessed with another child in Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser Jr. But that doesn't mean that Bowser has eight children, since the introduction of Junior has retroactively altered the royal Koopa lineage!
Nintendo now claim that Jr. is Bowser's only child and the old Kids (officially known as Koopalings these days but the previous term of "Koopa Kids" which originated in the old American cartoon is too ingrained in my brain so that's what I'll continue to call them here) are now relegated to merely "high ranking minions.." Seemingly still related to each other, but not Bowser.
Some people didn't like this and held a grudge against Bowser Jr. I was one them, and I still am, but surely there's more to it than just rewriting the familiy album? What's my problem with Junior?
The subject of discussion
Above is the debut appearance of the Koopa Kids and the first thing you might notice about their designs is the variety.
Each one has some mix of wild hairstyle, diverse colours and unique features. They're all very punk, appropriate for the bratty offspring of the King of the Koopas.
I was always of the opinion that these were their natural forms. Aside from accessories such as glasses and cuffs, this is how they were born - the multicoloured shells and hair weren't artifically dyed or styled, that's just how they are. I might be wrong on that, there has never been any official word either way, but in the weird and wonderful world of Mario this seems perfectly plausible.
The bonus of this idea is that, not only does it make each Kid unique, it actually makes Bowser unique too. It implies that this species - the "Royal Koopa" as I will call it - has no fixed appearance and aside from the anotomical features that they all share (spiked shell, muzzle-styled mouth, claws, teeth, hair) they can look wildly different. Therefore, there is no other Koopa who looks like Bowser, he is an original.
Bowser Jr, Now
Bowser in Super Mario World
Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Island
Now let's look at Bowser Jr. He's just a small Bowser.
Obviously he's smaller and has less prominent features, but the features are all the same as his Dad. Suddenly Bowser is no longer unique, he has a perfect doppelganger who brings (almost) nothing unique to the design.
But Junior's design doesn't seem to be directly influenced by Bowser. In fact, it seems to be directly lifted from Baby Bowser, the infant form of Bowser who appears in the "prequel" series to the Mario games, Yoshi's Island. So not only is the design not original, but the entire concept of a "Young Bowser" is not original!
It has long been my belief that Junior was introduced because the Mario developers really liked the bratty, charismatic Baby Bowser and wanted to give that character more exposure by transplanting him into the greater Mario series. But instead of coming up with some convoluted time travel narrative, they simply made a new Baby Bowser as the child of the current Adult Bowser, perfectly content with fully eliminating the Koopa family as we currently knew it.
To really hammer home the connection, modern interpretations of Baby Bowser actually make him look more like Bowser Jr, giving him the stubby horns, bandana and overall dimensions of his successor!
His features are the same, his colours are the same, even his name is the same! I think I would be more forgiving of Junior if they just switched up some of his design elements a little. A unique colour scheme and name can go a long way!
Stevie Koopa?
Eddie Van Koopa?
Elton Koopa?
Ozzy Koopa?
My image of the Royal Koopa species is derived from the features of Bowser and the Koopa Kids as they originated in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Generally larger than your average Koopa Troopa tortoise: Spiked shell, sharp teeth, exposed claws on the hands and feet, a 'muzzle' style mouth instead of a beak, and hair. No other type of Koopa had all of these features.
Boom Boom, a mini-boss character who was introduced in the same game as the Koopa Kids had some of these features, but not all of them.
The muzzle, spiked shell, and sharp teeth, but only had exposed claws on his feet (later games showed his hands as having the Koopa Troopa-styled pointy fingers) and no hair. He would also switch between a quadrupedal and bipedal stance. In these days I had saw him as a sort of "missing link" between the regular Koopa foot soldiers and the Royal Koopa, though some sources seem to connect him to the Koopa Kids while clearly not being one.
But these "later games," starting with Super Mario 3D World, would reintroduce the character and alter his design. He now has no spikes on his shell (but even later games gave his these spikes again, for mixed consistency) and introduced a partner for him: Pom Pom. This female 'Boom Boom' sports unusually coloured skin/scales - much like Morton Koopa Jr, - a patterned shell, which is fairly unique, and hair! They both also have 'closed' shells, more like the lower ranking turtles, as opposed to the Royal Koopas who all have separated plastrons.
So now the combination of features are all over the place. The duo even got newly coloured shells - red, a colour not in use by any of the Koopa Kids, suggesting that they have attained some sort of higher importance, but are they the same species as Bowser? Who knows!
Even worse, some of the very latest games show lesser Koopas like Hammer Bros. and Chargin' Chucks as having brightly coloured hair underneath their helmets, robbing the Koopa Kids of their most unique signature features!
There is no real importance to this observation, it just makes it more complicatied to categorise the various Koopa species when their features are so malleable.
Boom Boom in Super Mario Bros. 3
Boom Boom in Super Mario 3D Land
Pom Pom in Super Mario 3D Land
One thing I must concede about Junior is that he is given a personality. Not a terribly deep one, but that's par for the course in Mario games and not in the scope of this article.
His debut in Super Mario Sunshine included full voice acting (in cutscenes,) something which hasn't been seen (heard?) before or since in a Mario and the Koopa Prince is actually given a motivation for wanting to assist in kidnapping Princess Peach: He believes she is his mother.
Or rather, Bowser tells him as much, and he doesn't really believe it but goes along with the plan anyway. Maybe just for his Dad's sake? Either way it's fine, and something a bit different from the norm.
Junior's actual mother is never revealed. Neither was the case for the Koopa Kids but since Junior's entire "arc" pertained to his parentage it is perhaps more of a notable mystery.
Years later, in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the unthinkable happened - after an absence of XX years, the Koopa Kids returned. They had not appeared in a main Mario game since the Super Nintendo and Bowser Jr's introduction had all but wiped them from history, but suddenly here they were once again, this time alongside the newest Koopa, causing confusion among fans.
Many assumed that Junior ws simply the youngest of Bowser's children, and that his brood was now up to eight members, and while there might be some sense in the youngest Koopa being the favourite, surely he wouldn't be heir to the throne?
Well Nintendo was quick to clarify the matter by announcing that the Koopa Kids are no longer Bowser's children, their relationship having been retroactively eliminated.
The Koopa Cousins arriving in their mother's beat-up old Clown Car
With no further information on the matter it's probably safe to assume that the Koopa Kids are not related to Bowser at all, but I've always liked the notion that they're his nephews and neice, thereby allowing them to still be siblings and still be related to Bowser, but don't outrank Junior. And allowing me to call them the Koopa Cousins as a nod to the original Mario film.
Speaking of Mario films, months before the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) I daydreamed about an epilogue scene wherein Bowser is recuperating after his defeat and hears in the distance:
"Hey, Uncle Bowser!"
as he turns to Kamek and exclaims,
"Oh no, it's my sister's kids!"
setting up the inevitable sequel that will inevitably not feature these characters.
Cyndi Koopa?
I thought a sister would be a good foil for Bowser and tried to make her unique but also share some features with her "children"
Long before Bowser Jr. and even before the Koopa Kids, Mario's original nemesis Donkey Kong had a son of his own. Also a 'Junior.'
The little gorilla would debut in a starring role where he rescued his dad from the big bad Mario, of all people, then showed up several more times by DK's side as a fairly prominent recurring character, even being ordained into the very first Mario Kart title.
Some years later when the UK based studio Rareware started making their highly acclaimed game Donkey Kong Country, the story goes that they updated DK Jr's design to be more modern and hip, sporting a red vest and baseball cap. Supposedly Nintendo weren't on board with this and told them to either revert Jr. back to his old design or take their new design and make it a new character. If this is to be believed they opted for the latter and introduced us to Diddy Kong.
Diddy Kong was Donkey Kong's new "little buddy" and as the Country series grew in both size and popularity, Diddy Kong became a star in his own right and then, when the DKC series started to merge with the Mario series from which it spawned, Diddy slowly started to usurp DK Jr. as the gorilla's sidekick until the former was seemingly written out of the games entirely. [NOTE - I'm not getting into the convoluted and controversial family tree of DKC here. To all intents and purposes the current DK inhabits the same role as the original.]
So what?
So I'm starting to develop the theory that Bowser Jr's existence stems from DK Jr's departure. The DKs shared a close and loving relationship and aside from their clothing the junior DK looked very similar to the senior. Donkey and Diddy are certainly close friends, but they're unrelated and can never really have that loving relationship that DK used to have with his son.
Is it possible then that Nintendo missed that dynamic and decided to introduce a new relationship with Bowser and his own DK Jr? The Koopa Kids had never shown much of a relationship with their father in the games, with only a handful of non-Japanese sources fleshing out their family dynamic.
If so, I think that's a bit of a shame. It's reintroducing one dynamic with different characters, while also eliminating another dyanmic entirely.
The old versions of these characters also made more sense in the context of real-world wildlife. I'm no zoologist but I think I'm right in saying that mammals tend to give birth in small numbers, often only to a single child, then spend a long time nurturing them and forming a close bond with them.
Reptiles on the other hand may lay a whole clutch of eggs with them having to essentially fend for themselves as soon as they hatch. So DK having one child who he is very close with and Bowser having seven who are sent out on missions alone and have a rowdy, bickering sort of relationship is a great contrast.
Now, I said Junior had a personality but much like his appearance and name, this is basically copied from his dad. Specifically he shares many traits with Baby Bowser, the brattiness, selfishness and even a level of precociousness.
I would however argue that his most defining and unique characteristic is his relationship with his father.
Junior can obviously be a handful and he causes Bowser some grief, but in general their relationship seems to be portrayed as quite loving, with Bowser protecting, humouring and playing with his son.
I'm reminded of another father and son duo...
With a derivative design and a dreivative name, does Bowser Jr. fare any better in battle? Well, yes and no.
His standard "natural" abilities are pretty standard among Royal Koopas - Fire breath, spinning in his shell, general stomping (though Junior has less weight to throw around than his dad) but he does have one or two novelties at his disposal.
In his introduction in Super Mario Sunshine Bowser Jr. carried a paintbrush. Adorned with the emblem of Professor E. Gadd which implies it is in some way technological, but in practice comes off as much more magical.
This brush allows Junior to spread paint-like 'goop' which has a number of applications from generating monsters to opening portals to generally making a big mess.
This artefact disappeared straight after this game and was not considered a part of Junior's recurring arsenal for many years, but has recently started showing up again, this time with Jr's insignia so perhaps it will go on to be a signature weapon in future appearances.
His other tool was a blue bandana with Mario's nose and moustache drawn on it. When Jr. covers his face with the mask he transforms into "Shadow Mario" a doppelganger who frames the real Mario for his crimes.
At the time I heard a lot of people implying that the magic paintbrush facilitated this transformation, but it always seemed much more obvious to me that it was the bandana, seeing as it shared its imagery and colour scheme with Shadow Mario,
This was a very interesting and unique concept, but this was the one that never appeared again. Following this appearance Jr's bandana became the white one with the crudely drawn teeth on it - a nice little bit of characterisation to imply that he wishes to look more intimidating - but this scarf does not seem to offer any special abilities and is purely decorative.
It's a shame because the magic bandana has some potential to it. Can the design be changed to alter the transformation? Rub off the moustache and replace it with, say, a pair of lips to transform into Peach? Or multiple bandanas of differing colours and designs to make different coloured "shadow" counterparts? An interesting mechanic but not much to bolster Jr.s personality since it involves him hiding behind alternative identities even more often.
The other tool at Jr's disposal is the one he has come to be most associated with, the Junior Clown Car.
Introduced in New Super Mario Bros Wii - the game that revived the Koopa Kids - the Junior Clown Car is a miniature version of the vehicle used by Bowser in Super Mario World. By this point Bowser wasn't often seen in his own car and Jr's version was given an even wider variety of wacky cartoon tools and weapons hidden inside it.
In recent times Junior attacks from the comfort of the Clown Car in RPGs, in Super Smash Bros and even in tennis games! Some Jr. fans don't like this, since the car's abundance of abilities overshadow Jr's and it feels less like you're directly controlling him.
And I sympathise with that. I'm very glad the Koopa Kids are playable in Smash Bros thanks to being alternate models for Bowser Jr. and that's the only real way it can work, but I would prefer to see them outside of the vehicles and showcasing their individuality.
However, in the case of Jr. himself I quite like his frequent use of the Clown Car. Granted, it would work better if Jr. was even younger, because it implies that he's too weak to fight personally and needs this armoured "battle pram" to protect him, but I think it goes a decent way of differentiating him from Bowser Sr.
Conecptually though, it's not as interesting as the bursh and bandana because it is once again a feature derived directly from his dad!
So I've spent a lot of time criticising Bowser Jr. for his design, his abilities and his greater role in Mario's world.
But could I take the concept of "Bowser's newborn son" and reinvent it with design and theming that I think are more unique?
For starters, would you believe there already exists a character in the Mario diegesis who not only represents these themes really well, but may have actually been designed as a new Koopa prince?
The first Paper Mario game featured a character called Jr. Troopa, seemingly a newly hatched Koopa Troopa who features as Mario's introduction to the battle system. He then shows up multiple times throughout the game to fight several more times, showing off new techniques in every battle as well as his determination to beat Mario and frustration at his repeated defeats in comical cut scenes.
Already this shows a personality arguably more robust than Bowser Jr. as well as a well-rounded set of abilities.
His design is also very well done. Having only just hatched, he is still mostly hidden inside an eggshell. Pretty cute, but how is this newborn so strong? As you progress through the game and fight Jr. Troopa more, he qucikly outpaces adult Koopa Troopas in power and in his final confrontation he easily dispatches the Koopa Bros, a team of four ninja Koopa Troopas who act as a boss earlier in the game and are ostensibly stonger than your average Troopa.
Well I have a theory that Jr. Troopa isn't a Koopa Troopa at all, but is supposed to be a Royal Koopa.
Hidden inside his egg we don't see his tortoise shell or any evidence of hair, but he also doesn't have the beak of a regular Koopa Troopa. In fact,t his rounded snout and dot eyes are very similar to those of Bowser Jr.
That would explain why he is much stronger than the average Koopa Troopa, and take a look at his Japanese name:
コワッパ
Jr. Troopa
クッパ
Bowser
In Japan this character is called Kowappa, which means "brat," but is written in Katakana, perhaps as a direct reference to Bowser's Japanese name (Koopa) since they share half of the same characters and to the best of my knowledge this sort of language connection is common (and deliberate) in the Japanese language.
Is it possible this character was supposed to be a new son for Bowser, but perhaps Nintendo didn't like the idea of introducing someone so important in a spin-off game? Or maybe Super Mario Sunshine was already in development and they already knew they had a new Baby Bowser on the horizon?
An unlikely theory, perhaps, but I still think Jr. Troopa has lots going for him.
His techniques involve increasing his defense by closing up his eggshell, growing a spike on his head to make him immune to jump attacks, growing wings to allow flight and protect against hammer attacks and even learning sorcery to attack with magical blasts and heal himself.
Thematically this is great because his neonatal form might suggest that he hasn't grown into his final features yet - maybe he will have wings like a Paratroopa or spikes like a Spiny (this is going against the standard species format a bit but considering my previous point of Royal Koopa diversity, think of it like the baby from The Incredibles) and his pure white shell is the "blank canvas" on which he experiments with temporary new abilities.
But just growing new appendages is a little bit sloppy and I'd rather he didn't have a standard wooden magicians staff so as not to overlap too much with the magic wands of Kamek and the Koopa Kids, so my proposal for a new Bowser Jr. is to use the Jr. Troopa design, but re-equip him with the magic paintbrush and change his name...
The name Junior Koopa works both in the context of his Japanese name (Koopa Jr.) by merely swapping the names around, but it also fits the pattern of the Koopa Kids, using the name "Koopa" as the family surname and cementing "Junior" as the first name, making it the only one required to identify him.
His main gimmick it to use his paintbrush to paint his own egg shell (the "blank canvas") in different colours which pertain to different battle modes, the "living paint" of the brush generating the extra appendages.
The three main abilities are derived from the Paper Mario battles but also cover standard Mario attack patterns (ie: Jumping, fireballs, throwing shells)
You'll notice they are represented by the primary colours, so what happens if we use secondary colours?
Your elementary school art classes are no doubt kicking in as you recognise that the secondary colours combine the abilities of their two primary ingredients and make for a rather diverse but easy to understand set of moves.
Of course there should also be a tertiary option, right? I wouldn't really want the ultimate form to be brown so I'd take a page out of Paper Mario: Color Splashs book and use black to represent all colours mixed together. Of course, that mode wouldn't be present in his first appearance, it would be a special but inevitable mode that we look forward to seeing some time down the road. He can also be pink:
This is all geared towards my tastes, of course. I love a good bit of theming.
I much prefer a design that differs from Bowser (though I will admit that I stole it from another game so it can hardly be called "unique," if anything this proposal simultaneously overwrites Jr. Troopa, but he's never goig to show up again so I think we're safe.)
Of course he can still have his relationship with Bowser, and maybe it's even cuter when he's even younger, if cuteness is your thing.
The addition of his wing power means there is no longer a need for a permament Clown Car association, but if you really wanted to keep that around, rather than another copy of Bowser's, why not make it an egg cup? Keep the theming, maybe give him a whole breakfast motif!
Yes, this is a critique but I like to think of it as more of an "artistic analysis."
If you like Bowser Jr. exactly the way his is, great! I wish you well and I hope you get to see much more of him.
My mantra is always that I criticise the things I don't like, but I don't criticise people who like the things I don't like. We've all got out own reasons for liking or disliking something, I'm not trying to say that things should be changed or that you should care at all what I think.
But if you've read all this I at least hope you can see where I'm coming from and think of it merely as food for thought. Goodbye!
