Well, after thinking that a stretch of 3 months between updates was the longest there would ever be here on The Bowser Shrine, it has now been nearly 9 months since my last update. Feel free to totally not believe anything I say anymore. I will stop making promises that I am unsure if I could keep. As I've stated before, I really hate to make excuses, or talk about any offline stuff unrelated to The Bowser Shrine. However, after such a long stretch of people seeing nothing happening here at all, it is about time everyone hears from me to avoid the impression that the site is dead.

2009 has been a very busy year for me. This is the first time I have worked a full-time job for more than one year. It isn't like grade school or college where you get a long summer break between years/semesters. I really do miss those. In the work world, you get about 3 weeks vacation to use in a year, instead of the 2-4 months one is used to from school/college summer holidays. I've already almost depleted my accrued holiday time for 2009 on two great trips this summer. Last month, I took a trip to Las Vegas with about 10 other friends for a bachelor party for about 4 days, which was totally awesome. And yesterday, I just came back from an amazing 2 week vacation to London, England, and I also got to visit Paris for a day during that time. It's been an expensive summer for me for sure, but I really felt that I've needed it.

I've been pretty serious about my career this year, but that has come with the cost of a good deal of my free time and online life. As I once stated in an earlier update, 90% of what you see on The Bowser Shrine was created while I was inbetween jobs for a few months. All I've managed to do since then it seems was maintain a few simple media updates. It takes a long, concentrated effort from me to construct the subpages exactly as I envision them. Another thing which perhaps is holding me back is that I have the tendency to be a perfectionist with a lot of things. This means that I don't feel comfortable working on something I really care about unless I feel like I can do the perfect job (e.g. ensuring I am completely engaged and in the mood, have had plenty of sleep, etc). This causes a tendency of procrastination if those certain requirements aren't met. Basically, I'll admit that there were some times when I could have definitely worked on The Bowser Shrine in some instances over this past stretch, but was either too tired from the work week before, or not feeling engaged enough. I often wish I didn't work this way, although in the past it has produced some pretty incredible results which I may share later. This kind of inconsistency can be very frustrating.

This site is by no means dead, and I do apologize for the inactivity and lack of updates. I'm sure you're sick of hearing me apologize and make excuses, and just want results. I can definitely understand that, but I just really want to make sure that I maintain the same degree of quality I have kept so far. I am still totally obsessed with Bowser, and will make sure I finish building my shrine for him. Believe me when I say that the guilt of going so long without any update at all has been eating me away from the inside. It is quite hard for me to believe that nearly 9 months passed by so quickly. It honestly just felt like only a couple of months. I'm not sure where the time goes for me anymore

I have noticed that my unique hit counter has spun to over 200,000 visitors now. That is extremely impressive, and it was only one year ago where it had just passed the 100,000 mark. It seems like word-of-mouth might be getting around, and I hope that the visitors that do come are satisfied with what I have so far. I still have so much more planned though (e.g. the gray links), I just wish I had the free time to do it!

As for when you're finally going to see an actual update on The Bowser Shrine for 2009, I can't make any promise. I will try to maybe get one in for this month of August, but unfortunately I have a large list of things to do which are probably higher-priority, and I pretty much only have weekends to do a lot of this stuff. It just seems like it never ends when it comes important real life stuff that I need to get done! When that update finally does come, I will definitely try to make up for that ridiculously long stretch, and maybe even make it worthwhile somehow. I just hope that update can be delivered sooner rather than later.

Take care now!

As a preview for this update, this one will mostly feature plenty of new/updated media. We're mostly talking about new renders, screenshots, etc. Unfortunately I didn't quite have time to get to the latest mailbag questions, and fan fictions that have been submitted recently. These usually take the longest, and I am planning a separate mass update to finally catch up. I've recently had 3 mailbag submissions over the past couple months, and a backlog of about 8 fan fictions dating back to even last year! I will maybe try to post a fan fiction a week or something to finally catch up on this, because I've really felt guilty for making everyone wait so long. Alright, lets get this update going!

So I went Paintballing with some friends a couple months ago one weekend and just happened to fix my gaze upon the rule board that I'm sure is often deliberately overlooked (LoL at "No head shots" being scratched out!). To my astonishment, in the lower right hand corner of the board was an image of a bipedal, spikey-back turtle-like character just like Bowser! Upon closer look, I couldn't believe just how similar this creature was to the Koopa King! He had 3-toeclawed feet like Bowser, a rippled soft stomach like Bowser, a spikey tail and back like Bowser, and even armcuffs like Bowser! The only thing that looked a bit different obviously was his head and face. This character definitely looked pretty serious and mean with his scoped paintball gun and his... train conductor hat? Haha, I thought the parallels that could be drawn to Bowser were pretty remarkable, and this character must serve as the enforcer of the rules, and discourage non-compliance! Anyways, I thought this was really cool.

If you thought that was cool, check out what my good friend GimpyFish62 did for Halloween this year. Using a stencil, Gimpyfish was able to carve a pumpkin in the shape of Bowser's face, and light it from the inside with a candle so it could be clearly seen! Is this cool or what!? It is so accurate and finely detailed, it's almost a perfect replica of the Koopa King's mug! Bowser's lit face almost looks life-like; it's almost scary! I don't even know where the reference must have come from, as I cannot recall any sort of render where his face looked like this from this angle. Anyways, I thought he did an amazing job, and I'm sure everyone else who saw it on display loved it as well.

Next, at long last I have finally found a larger resolution image of the crouching Bowser render! After months and months of searching everywhere, I finally found it on the Mario Party DS Official European site, which was done in flash. It was a few months ago while I was at work that I found the image, and it was through following the external links at the bottom of the Mario Party DS entry at the Super Mario Wiki. After clicking on the official European Mario Party DS site, I finally found the crouching Bowser render sliding in after I clicked the "Minigame Madness" header. As you could imagine, I was extremely excited to see this, but knew looking at the background that I had my work cut out for me

I knew that it would take a lot of very precise work and time to extract this Bowser render from it's background, and leave a clean edge. I unfortunately had my very accurate mouse (Intellimouse Explorer 3.0) that I normally use for graphics and gaming wear out, and I had to take the time to find a suitable replacement (eventually picked up the Microsoft Habu Gaming Mouse by Razer). During this time, it turns out that somebody else must have also come across this render on the flash site, and already moved forward in cutting out the image, and posting it on the Super Mario Wiki. It was then that I had about 3 dedicated Bowser searching fans e-mail me almost at the same time stating that they had finally found the mysterious crouching Bowser render. Although I had found it quite a while earlier, (but just hadn't edited it myself yet and posted it), I still wanted to shout out to the eager ones that also found it and e-mailed me. They were (in order of e-mail reception time): nintendweeb64, Brittany Webb, and Jake Meadows.

The artist who cut out the Bowser render and posted it on the Super Mario Wiki did a great job, although upon closer look, I was able to tell that it was cut out from somewhere (the edges were jagged, and Bowser's claws may have been shaved down a bit). I was also able to see small evidence of the blue background as a thin 1 px border around the image. This is being very picky, as the image still looks very good, and looks almost official. I saw this as a challenge though, and thought that I could get the image even cleaner and smooth looking. I knew to do this, however, I would have to cut out the render pixel by pixel, in very time-consuming work. I decided to give it a shot.

Good grief, the process was like a paleontologist excavating a dinosaur! And since Bowser kind of looks like a dinosaur, I kind of did feel like a paleontologist in a way! Anyways, it took a very long time, but I cut out the Bowser render pixel by pixel, and believe I have an even more refined render to display and share. So now, I bring to you, my version of the ferocious-looking crouching Bowser render. Comparing it to the current Super Mario Wiki crouching Bowser render, I hope you will agree with me that I got it a little bit sharper looking and more accurate, although the differences are very slight (especially against a white background). Hopefully in the future, an even higher resolution version of this render could be found. Nintendo still must have the original stored somewhere, or else they wouldn't be able to use it on all of their promotional material. This Bowser render has got to be one of my absolute favourites, and it was totally worth the time extracting it as accurately as possible. The way how he's crouched down in a near pouncing position, with that mischievous cheek-to-cheek grin across his face, is just priceless. He looks almost like a linebacker in Football! Perhaps they'll reuse this render if they ever plan in making a Mario Football spinoff game!

I would have to say that the "Bowser renders" section is my favourite section of The Bowser Shrine so far. I love seeing so many different character artwork drawings of Bowser, or the even more detailed and realistic computer generated renders of him. It's great seeing how often Bowser's depiction will go through certain phases or versions, yet still remain accurate and true to the original character. I had found another character artwork drawing of Bowser that I never saw anywhere on the internet before in my instruction manual to Mario Golf 64. It displayed a confident fist-pumping Bowser holding a golf driver in his other claw. I decided to scan it in high resolution, and then carefully edit and clean up the image, ready to post it as an unofficial render. Since the image was fairly small and was in an instruction manual, and I did the scan in high resolution, a lot of the grains and material the paper was made of are visible, albeit slightly. I have also found several higher-resolution Bowser render versions than ones I already had on The Bowser Shrine, and have updated them accordingly. I also even did a few updates of some renders that were the same resolution and size, but didn't have a watermark that a specific website put on them. Look for the blue-bordered thumbnails in the Bowser Renders section to find new/updated Bowser renders now available on The Bowser Shrine!

Some great fan screenshots from Super Smash Brothers Brawl have also been posted for this update, and are available for viewing in the Bowser Fan Screenshots section. Jeff Sikkema offered a few interesting shots, one of Giga Bowser staring into the abyss, and another of a smaller Bowser getting his head stuck in the mouth of a larger Bowser! Must have been some lucky timing with some of these. Holy Aura Dragon also submitted five funny screenshots that are bound to amuse. For example, one had Bowser offering to shake a paw, which looks pretty hilarious seeing Bowser acting nice and all. He has a look on his face like "put 'er there pal!", as he coughs up some smoke. You really have to wonder what his intentions are! Do you trust him? I also loved the one which has Bowser looking tough and gruff, with an intimidating glare that's as if he's saying "What are YOU looking at!?". Doesn't Bowser just do the best poses and impressions?

Alex Hobbs also submitted a second wallpaper of retro touch, which included Mario versing Bowser in World 8-4 of Super Mario Brothers. The wallpaper is sort of like a screenshot, with the Super Mario Bros. title screen pasted above. It is a small wallpaper, only 800 x 600 pixels, so it would probably work best as a centered wallpaper, instead of titled or stretched. That way, it won't get in the way of your icons.

As for other media updates, I have also added a few screenshots I have come across that I didn't have posted on The Bowser Shrine yet. I have included 3 small screenshots to the upcoming Mario & Luigi RPG 3 (tentative title), which will have Bowser as a fully playable character from the beginning! All 3 images are pretty small and rough, and eventually I'm sure there will be higher quality and larger images available closer to release date. Other games with added official screenshots include: Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Mario Tennis, Mario Kart Arcade GP, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I have also added a larger resolution, and clearer image of the Mario Kart 64 box in the Bowser Box Art section.

Lastly, I have added a link to Mario Resource, formerly known as Nintendo DS Resource. I remember stating that the webmaster had planned to expand the coverage to include all Nintendo consoles and handhelds on my Links page when it was still Nintendo DS Resource. It looks like this would be the result. Mario Resource is a fan site devoted to bringing news and information about Mario, Mario games, and Mario media. Like a lot of fansites *hint* *hint*, it is still under ongoing construction, but is updated quite frequently (ok, they've got me on that one!).

Whew, we've finally reached the end of another enormous update. Actually looking back, I really don't have a huge quantity of new content, and the update probably felt bigger and longer than it actually is. The extraction of the crouching Bowser render and searching for new screenshots is what probably took up most of the update time. I'm beginning to wonder if it's actually taking me as long to write the update notification post than it is to actually do the update! My goodness, my updates just keep getting longer and longer it seems! Many apologies to your eyes for having to read so long and hard.

Summary:

1 link added to the Links section
7 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section
1 wallpaper added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
1 box art updated in the Bowser Box Art section
9 renders added/updated to the Bowser Renders section
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Mario 64
2 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Kart 64
2 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Tennis
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Kart Arcade GP
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Mario Galaxy
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Brothers Brawl
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario & Luigi 3

As stated earlier, be on the lookout for another update coming soon to catch up on several fan fiction and mailbag submissions. When is "soon" from me? Time will tell. Next weekend I will be at a big Super Smash Brothers Melee tournament, which has quite a few big names coming, including my good buddy CAOTIC from Australia (one of the top Melee Bowser players in the world like myself). It should be fun, I cannot wait.

*Scrolls up* Just look at this update! All those words... it's not even a short story anymore, it's a novel! What did I write here my life story!? When am I going to get it that I need to make shorter and more frequent updates? Once again, sometimes I just need to learn to  

(Image of MagnuM's "Bowser Powered" SmashBoards signature)

I'm back with probably the largest update I've ever done on this site this time! I'll try to keep future updates smaller and more frequent instead of posting a short novel like I have with my last few. Just reading and getting through this update notification alone may take you a good 10-15 minutes alone. Alright, here we go!

The Bowser Shrine has currently hit another significant milestone! My hit counter now reads over 100,000+ strong! After having such bad luck when The Bowser Shrine originally launched with trying to be indexed on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo, I never thought I would ever see the day of seeing my counter so high. Now as it stands, I'm currently ranked #3 on Google, and #7 on Yahoo for the keywords "bowser koopa". With frequent updates and more external links and popularity, I still think I can get even higher!

I realize that my counter just counts "hits" to the page, and that many of the hits may have come from automated bots or repeat visitors. It still has some sophistication to it however. I believe it will not count duplicate refreshes or revisits to the page in a user's same session. To test this, try hitting the "Refresh" button on your browser a few times and see if the counter goes up each time you do it. Or even try navigating to a few pages and then going back to the home page and see if it goes up. If it is working as expected, it should only be counting unique visits. This makes me confident that I am indeed getting quite a large amount of traffic here and the pressure's on me to keep content coming (this is a good thing!)

There has been one render of Bowser I have been trying to hunt down for months. I originally first layed eyes on it when I was sent a promotional ad via e-mail by Nintendo for Mario Party DS. It was a render of Bowser in the crouching position with a totally mean frown looking like he is ready to pounce! I was able to snag the animation used in the e-mail, and I've actually hosted this Bowser crouching render on The Bowser Shrine. Although I loved this little animation, I really wanted to see it blown up even bigger so I can see even more of Bowser's awesomeness in greater clarity. I've been searching far and low, near and far, up and down, here and there, EVERYWHERE for an official posting of this render on the internet, and have had no such luck in finding it. I was beginning to wonder if this image was even originally used in Mario Party DS, and if it had an individual Bowser render made for it. But oh how I would be tempted and teased later. In future e-mails from Nintendo, I would again see the eyes of the crouching Bowser in little menu bars like this one:     This menu bar for "Mario Party DS" comes up every time in Nintendo's monthly newsletter: "Nintendo DS News" under the section "Our Hottest Titles!". I know Nintendo has this render in all its high-res glory and is hiding it from me! How could they torture me like this!?

Then OczBowser comes along and e-mails me some photos of Mario Kart Arcade GP being played. Scrolling through, I find this same render in one of the photo shots, except mirrored the other way! OczBowser told me that he took this screenshot from a YouTube video of a Preview of Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. Could it be that this image was made for Mario Kart Arcade GP or Mario Kart Arcade GP 2, which was a Japan-only release in the arcades? I must have been searching using the wrong keywords for this render! However, upon adjusting my search keywords, I was still not able to find this render. The search continues, but if anyone knows where I can find a high-resolution image of this render, or perhaps has it in their possession, please e-mail it to me! I have aptly titled the filename of OczBowser's picture "Crouching Bowser Hidden Koopa", because that render of him is doing a really good job staying hidden!

Next, hide the children, because you are about to witness the most scariest rendition of Bowser you've ever seen! A few months ago, an artist created a realistic life-like Bowser using digital painting in Photoshop. Bowser has been redesigned by the artist to look like a real animal. Bowser looks more like a large, shelled, bipedal dinosaur, and his colours have been reworked to look more like a natural creature. This new Bowser looks faster, more threatening, and even more hungry than ever. If you're not careful, you may just be eaten by him! This picture is so great that I decided to even include it in the Links section. This is a totally awesome digital work; many kudos to the artist who gave Bowser his life-like makeover!

Last update I spoke about not being able to find any videos of the episodes of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. (Amada series) cartoon. It wasn't long before I received a reply from OczBowser that the episodes were posted at veoh.com. Here are the direct links to all three episodes:

Rare Super Mario Bros 3 Anime OVA Episode 01
Rare Super Mario Bros 3 Anime OVA Episode 02
Rare Super Mario Bros 3 Anime OVA Episode 03

Super Mario Amada-Peach Boy Taro (1/2)
Super Mario Amada-Peach Boy Taro (2/2)
Super Mario Amada-Snow White (1/2)
Super Mario Amada-Snow White (2/2)
Super Mario Amada-Issunboshi (1/2)
Super Mario Amada-Issunboshi (2/2)

Unfortunately the episodes are in Japanese, since this cartoon was only seen in Japan, and there are no subtitles. So you better brush up on your Japanese, or just watch the video and fill in the gaps like I did. I really enjoyed this series because I thought the Koopalings and Bowser looked the most accurate from their original character drawings from Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. The episodes were entertaining and had great action too. I was surprised to see Bowser tied up at held at gunpoint in the first episode. This is proof that it is actually Mario that is the villain in this whole series! He's is the evil one in this whole franchise, you've all been tricked! For the second episode, I definitely thought a Bowser-in-drag was pretty weird, but still pretty funny! In the third episode, after getting the insides poked by Mini-Mario causing a massive tummy-ache, poor Bowser gets his horns cut off by Mini-Mario's rapier! Everyone is so mean to Bowser all the time! It's too bad they didn't make more then 3 episodes, because this funny series was great!

Once again, for anyone that has read this far already... I'm impressed! We're halfway through the short novel now! Here are the details for the individual submissions for this massive update:

I received two affiliation requests over the past little while. One is from Nintendo Addict, which is a pretty active Nintendo forum for Nintendo addicts alike to share their ideas and interests. The other is from NintendoLand, which holds a special place in my heart! Launched in 1997, the original NintendoLand was a Nintendo enthusiast website offering fans a nostalgic journey down memory lane. From its great action filled deathmatches, great fanart, and a way too addictive forums, NintendoLand was easily the single most addictive website for me during my teenage years. Through the larger, parent forums VGF (Video Gamers First), I amassed over 3,000 posts (most of them about raving about Bowser of course). Sadly over time, NintendoLand began dying off, and then one day died completely. After years of inactivity, it has been remade by Angry_sun! Check out one of the oldest Nintendo fansites that has existed on the web! Both of these new affiliates are posted in the Links section.

Next is the coolest submission I've ever received! Puma Cub first e-mailed me asking if I had any 3D models of Bowser, and the files to go with it. Aside from the Garry's Mod Mario Pack for Half Life 2, I didn't have any 3D files of the Koopa King's form. However, through many countless searches for Bowser images, I would sometimes see some pictures of Bowser's in-game models from Wii or GameCube games. People must have been reverse-engineering some Mario games somehow to get the actual files used to create the in-game models! Then, through a topic on EmuTalk.net, Puma Cub took the liberty of extracting Bowser's Super Mario Galaxy model! Puma Cub is currently doing a project to get Bowser textured and rigged for Character Studio so that he can be animated. He submitted a screenshot of a textureless Galaxy Bowser model that sort of looks like a clay statue of some sort. The detail and definition of this skinless model is staggering! Bowser's textured Galaxy model is equally impressive, and there is also a very interesting shot of Bowser's wireframe model! It is so fascinating to see the intricate display of thousands of polygons all meshed together to create a detailed, realistic, and fluid character model. Puma Cub, this is an amazing project that you are pursuing. Please keep me updated on your progress!

In the Bowser Box Art section, I have uploaded two larger-resolution box art images for Game & Watch Gallery and Mario Super Sluggers that I found. I also found the Japanese and European box arts for the original Super Mario Bros. The smaller Japanese box art was because cartridges for the Famicom were quite a bit smaller than the large NES cartidges. I had come across these box arts before in the past, but didn't originally post them because of how different Bowser looked. He looked more like a bluish-gray rhino (without the horn) more than anything, and quite different than from even his vague 8-bit sprite in the game. In the end, this was originally made to depict Bowser, so I felt it should be included. It definitely is interesting to say the least. I wonder if this was perhaps how he was originally intended to look? Who knows...

OczBowser also reminded me that I had missed the box arts for Gameboy Gallery 2 (called Game & Watch Gallery 2 in North America), which had Bowser on the cover on both the Japanese and European versions of it. The European version has Bowser climbing over Luigi in order to get a better shot of himself in front of the camera. The Japanese version has Bowser tickling Toad silly. It's strange seeing Bowser nice and playful like this, but seeing that Yoshi is holding that wooden mallet above him, I guess he best be on good behavior! I found a larger version of this box art than the one OczBowser suggested, but the European one he found is nice and large! I added OczBowser to the Fan Contributions section for this excellent find. I'm pretty sure OczBowser is leading the pack when it comes to submissions and contributions to The Bowser Shrine so far. It is very much appreciated, thank you OczBowser!

Next in this collosal update notification post are some absolutely great screenshots from Jessika Stone! She submitted some screenshots from the weird Japanese Super Mario Bros. cartoon "Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!", as well as captured some awesome shots of Bowser in Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Power Tennis (mostly of both games' opening FMVs). I am absolutely addicted to Strikers Bowser. He was made with such an aggressive, mean style, and plus he looks so amazingly awesome! There is no celebration more satisfying than when he scores a hat trick and stomps forward giving that evil gruff laugh and then taps his claw extenders with that sinister grin. Jessika got a great shot of this, much to my delight. She also got a lot of cute shots from Bowser in the opening FMV of Mario Strikers Charged! Check them all out for sure in the Bowser Fan Screenshots section!

Rolling right along, Michael Scholze loved the design of Giga Bowser so much he decided to make an extremely cool wallpaper of Giga Bowser from Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and give it to the Bowser community! This wallpaper contains quite a few re-edited screens from Brawl Snapshots. It is really good that all the images were aligned to the right of the wallpaper so that they don't cover up desktop icons and look messy. This beautifully badass Giga Bowser wallpaper is another valuable addition to The Bowser Shrine. Adorn your desktop with it today by downloading it from the Bowser Wallpapers section!

Alex Hobbs submitted two older wallpapers of Bowser from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and the New Super Mario Bros. He wasn't sure if both of them were official, but they certainly look official, so I added them to the "Official Wallpapers" section of Bowser Wallpapers. He also made one of Bowser from Super Mario Sunshine. I also added six others courtesy NintendoLife in three common desktop resolutions.

As for what I contributed in all of this madness, I added two official Brawl screenshots that I hadn't posted before, and caught up on the latest Mario Super Sluggers screenshots that were posted on GameSpot. The game will already be available in a little over a week! See I told you it would be just around the corner, and it's almost here now! I also updated two renders for Mario Super Sluggers in the Bowser Renders section, and was delighted finding such a large Bowser render from Mario Super Sluggers on GameSpot!

I'm certain you're dying from eyestrain by now, but we're now reaching the end of this ginormous update.

Summary:

3 links added to the Links section
16 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section
10 wallpapers added/updated to the Bowser Wallpapers section
6 box arts added/updated to the Bowser Box Art section
2 renders added to the Bowser Renders section
2 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Brothers Brawl
6 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Super Sluggers

And I thought the last update was long! Now I REALLY need to shut up!  

(Image of MagnuM's "Bowser Powered" SmashBoards signature)

Greetings all, hope you are all enjoying Mario Kart Wii, as well as the warmer weather if you are ever into going outside sometime. I must say I am thoroughly enjoying Mario Kart Wii, and it is fiercely competiting with Brawl for my attention time. One thing Mario Kart Wii definitely has up on Brawl is a more buffed-out online. As fun as the racing wheel is to use, I find myself switching to the GameCube controller when I'm ready to play serious on the harder modes. It just offers much tighter and quicker controls I find. I also like how mini-turbos don't require you to rock the control stick from side to side as you are navigating your turn. Everyone I've talked to has always enjoyed the Mario Kart franchise, and Mario Kart Wii delivers that same fun and addictive gameplay we've loved all these years.

When I first got the game, my first priority (aside from trying out Bowser) was to unlock the new Bowser's Castle. All I can say is Bowser did one heck of a job decking his latest castle out. I would have to say this version of Bowser's Castle has to be one of the coolest-looking and most challenging of the Mario Kart series. The course starts off with the racers driving through a stone statue of Bowser's face with glowing yellow eyes, and his mouth gaping open. This serves as the entrance or mouth to the castle (literally!). Shortly after, the carpeted hallway you enter warps and twists in an attempt to disorient you... it's quite trippy. After your expected thwomps, lava, and other scary things you'd expect to find in Bowser's Castle, an animated stone statue of Bowser belches huge fireballs at you while you try to cross the bridge in the middle of the circuit. The music is also really cool, and even has a hint of the 8-bit retro tunes you would hear while in Bowser's Castle in the original Super Mario Bros.

I would recommend this game as a "must have" for all Wii owners, but then again, any game with Bowser in it is a "must have" for me. If anyone wants to exchange friend codes and race sometime, just send me an e-mail

After just having two solid Mario title releases in a row over the past two months (Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii), we will have to wait a bit before the next one rolls around. But fear not, the wait will not be long, as Mario Super Sluggers is just around the corner! The game is the sequel to Mario Superstar Baseball for the GameCube, but will feature Wii-mote controls instead, which will certainly be a very favourable addition. The game is nearly ready for launch in Japan, with the release date for North America tentatively scheduled for about late summer or early fall. You can be sure that any Sluggers media, even remotely related to Bowser, will be swiped and posted here at The Bowser Shrine as soon as it has cooled off from coming hot-off-the-press.

When it comes to Mario character renders that are made for nearly each Mario game due for release, I am always left wondering where a lot of the major gaming sites get them from. Are they directly through Nintendo through some sort of deal perhaps? Too often, a great high-res render will be shrunk down to fit a certain area of a website, watermarked, or cut off through some sort of editing or Flash interface or something. I must know where these images come from, and where they are stored! Does Nintendo have a vault of ultra high-resolution Bowser renders unedited and uncompressed from their original source somewhere? If so, I just may have to plan some sort of espionage mission...

For each new Mario game recently released or upcoming, I always browse either IGN or GameSpot for any new renders of Bowser that may have been generated for the game. Often times I will find one, and high-res to boot, but a lot of the time, no render is posted at either site at all. This is not because the render was never made, as I would sometimes see the render inside the game's instruction booklet or in some promotional art, but not officially posted anywhere. If IGN and GameSpot turn up blank for renders, my next stop is usually at Jeux France, a French video game site that always turns up some rarities and gems sometimes. I'm not sure why it always seems like I have to search some of the most unlikely places sometimes for some of these rarer renders. If THAT place doesn't have it, I've found out my next stop would be to check out any Wikipedia article on the game, and see if there is any concept art posted, or references/external links. Sometimes there will be a link to the game's official website where some interesting stuff can be found. If I'm STILL outta luck, the last place I would think of would be to search at the Super Mario Wiki. I have often found some users post character renders here that I have never seen anywhere in my dedicated scouring of the web looking for the same image. Unfortunately many don't post their source of where they retrieved them from, and I am left dying to find out where they found it. Is there some website out there that I don't know about? I must know where people are finding these rare renders! Don't make me beg now... ... ... *hands together* PLEEEEASE TELL ME!! ... ... ... whoops... I guess I'm begging... my bad...

I commend anybody that has been crazy enough to read this far. Today's update is actually pretty decently sized, at least compared to most of my latest ones:

OczBowser sent in a flurry of screenshots, some from the one of the rarer Super Mario Bros. Japanese Cartoons, and the rest from Mario's Time Machine. These screenshots are from the same mini-series that Brittany Webb took her screenshots from and submitted them, and thanks to OczBowser, I now know the name of this mini-series, as well as some further information. The series is called "Super Mario Bros. (Amada series)", and it was a three-part mini-series released in 1989. I favour this series the most as the animation seems like the best from any other Super Mario Bros. cartoon, and the characters are also based on their official design. You can read more about this mini-series at The Mushroom Kingdom's Mania Section. I would really like to watch this series sometime, but it is very rare and almost impossible to find. Doing a quick YouTube search, I was unable to find anything relevant.

The rest of OczBowser's screenshots are captures from the NES version of Mario's Time Machine. Not too long ago, I answered a question in the Mailbag asking about Bowser's ability to take off his shell, or if it was even possible. OczBowser found a YouTube video of Mario is Missing for the PC in which Luigi pulls off Bowser's Shell in the end. OczBowser warned me that the game was widely regarded as "pretty horrible", and looking at it, I would tend to agree. The game kinda looks like a bunch of high school students whipped it up for a computer project or something. Also, if you watch the video, Bowser's tail (which is green, and was probably referenced from this render by the developers) and shell seem to be connected, and Luigi pulls them both off. I'm not even sure if this game can ever be called official, as it looks like Nintendo didn't even develop it or publish it, but the video is worth it alone just for seeing the hilarity of an embarrassed near-naked Bowser in boxers.

Benjamin Dickens does it again with another great Bowser wallpaper! This one is from Mario Kart Wii, with Bowser's blue-shell tossing render positioned in front of my favourite level in the game, Bowser's Castle. Benjamin even gave Bowser and the kart a nice bluish-neon outline. This is one wallpaper that would look totally bad on your desktop (and by bad I mean good!). It is available in widescreen ratio as well as standard. Check it out in the Bowser Wallpapers section!

djesterdog submitted a mailbag question asking about Bowser's hair. No, he wasn't just asking why a mutated turtle like Bowser has hair in the first place, but rather the difference between his hairdo when he was a youngster, and his hairdo as it exists today. He noticed that Baby Bowser always had his hair tied in a ponytail, rather than grown out into a full mane like adult Bowser. What was the reasoning for this? Did Kamek force young Bowser to wear his hair this way? Or perhaps there is no reason at all for this style decision. Check my answer out in the Mailbag

Next, I was able to hunt down and gather some of the latest Bowser renders from Mario Super Sluggers from Japan, and some other less common ones I came across from Mario Kart Wii. In the two I found from Mario Kart Wii on Super Mario Wiki, one has Bowser standing beside his green Bowser kart with the recycled render of Bowser from Super Mario Galaxy (I hate when they do this, so lazy!), and the other is a render of *WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD* Dry Bowser. Having not unlocked Dry Bowser yet in Mario Kart Wii, I was very surprised when I saw this render, as I did not expect or think he would be in the game. This undead and reanimated boney Bowser is quite scary looking, but cool none-the-less. Interestingly enough, his hair is tied back in a ponytail at the base just like Baby Bowser's. The new render from Mario Super Sluggers I also found at the Mario Wiki has an angry-looking Bowser holding his spiked bat over his head with the look of "I'm gunna knock this ball outta the park!" (he can, and will too!) It is kind of low res at the moment, and I'm not sure where the person who posted this got it from, but I'm sure a much bigger and more detailed render will be released when the game hits North America. Going to the game's official Japanese website, I also took a screencapture of the splash screen, which shows Bowser at the plate who has just hit a line-drive at Mario. This image also looks to be the game's official box art for Japan's release, I posted my screencapture as a non-official render.

Lasty I was able to grab all the latest screenshots from Mario Super Sluggers from Jeux France. I snatched 13 in all, and I'm sure there are many more well on the way. I have dumped them at the bottom of the Bowser Screenshots section (a section I have talked about organizing for about a year now. I'll do it someday...)

Summary:

23 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section
2 wallpapers added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
1 mailbag entry added to the Mailbag section
1 box art added to the Bowser Box Art section
4 renders added to the Bowser Renders section
13 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Super Sluggers

Ok! I'll shut up now finally!  

(Image of MagnuM's "Bowser Powered" SmashBoards signature)

Mario Kart Wii launched this past week, which adds another must-have title for every Nintendo die-hard's collection. It was only a month and a half ago that Wii's flagship title Super Smash Brothers Brawl launched, and here we are with another smash hit that will continue to keep us addicted. I've actually just brought the game home myself, so it may be quite possible you won't see me until next month or something, hehe.

After nearly a year, The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website has finally ended its weekdaily updates as of April 14th. This site served as a great breaking-news-like resource for all the little tidbits of new information about the game that would be released on each weekday prior to its launch. Whether it was the unbearable anticipation for new playable characters or stages, or just laughing at the great snapshots taken and the captions that went with them, the Smash Bros. Dojo was always entertaining. Now it serves as a great database of the features of this great game which can be referred to at any time. This site sure had a lot of great Bowser screenshots that would rack up over the months, swiped by yours truly and posted here at The Bowser Shrine for your viewing pleasure! Now it's up to us to capture Bowser in those screen captures, and thankfully that has been made a lot easier by integrating Melee's "Camera Mode" features into the pause menu. So take some great snapshots guys, or else you'll leave me no choice but to go snap-happy (actually it probably wouldn't make a difference because I'd still do it anyway!)

Today's update consists of more Bowser screenshots, which we can never get enough of:

KoopeEX submitted some wicked screencaptures of Bowser's Badass Brawl Trophy from 3 different angles. I don't think that is the trophy's official name, despite my capitalization of each word to imply it so. However, I think that would be quite the fitting name, wouldn't you agree? I love them KoopeEX, thank you for your submission!

Over this past week I've swept every Mario Kart Wii gallery I know about gathering all screenshots that have a clear picture of Bowser in them. There were a few that I did not include where Bowser was much too small in the background to really be seen clearly or that didn't involve enough of him in the overall shot. Regardless, I've gathered nearly 20 new official Mario Kart Wii screenshots involving Bowser for my ever-growing gallery. I must say, the entrance to Bowser's Castle in this game is AWESOME! It is a stone statue of Bowser's face, and you actually drive into his open mouth, lol.

The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website had another posting this month of user-submitted fan screenshots from both America and Japan this time. I only found a few involving Bowser from both galleries, and I've included them under the official Bowser screenies again, just like I did with the last ones.

Look for another update to hopefully come quite soon, if I can manage to tear my Bowser-like grip from that Wii steering wheel!

Summary:

7 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
19 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Kart Wii
1 render added to the Bowser Renders section
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section

(Image of MagnuM's "Bowser Powered" SmashBoards signature)

As predicted, Super Smash Brothers Brawl has been dominating nearly all of my free time since it's release on March 9th, 2008. The game is so much fun and so addicting making it impossibly hard to put down! I play Bowser and Pokemon Trainer as my main characters, mostly because Bowser and Charizard are my two most favourite Nintendo characters (actually just favourite characters period!). I'm really having a lot of enjoyment with this game, and might even go so far to say that it's even funner than Melee! I'm just gunna haveta blame Brawl for me hardly getting anything done this month!

As I stated in my last update, Super Smash Bros. Melee was my undisputed favourite game of all time. This masterpiece was so enjoyable and competitive and never got boring even years later. Speaking of competitive, another one of the reasons I enjoyed Melee so much was competing as a semi-professional "Smasher", competiting in Smash Brothers tournaments near and far (I would say semi-professional because I wasn't paid to do it). Those familiar with the professional smash community such as SmashBoards may have been curious about my alias and the way it is spelled, at least when it comes to professional Bowser players. I am indeed the pro Bowser Smasher "MagnuM", dedicatedly representing the coolest character of all time. I have had the privalege of playing the best Bowser players in the world such as Gimpyfish, CAOTIC, Arash, Captain Jack, Gojira, and Ken. If anyone is interested in checking out a few videos from a bit farther back in my Melee Bowser Career, just do a YouTube search for magnum bowser. I'll also post my signature banner I use at SmashBoards at the bottom of this page.

Unfortunately, Bowser was severely disadvantaged in Melee, something I disappointingly found out quite early. He was plagued with a lot of lag, awfully short range, weak moves compared to how powerful he is, was not as hard to KO as he should have been... and the list goes on. However, the ones faithful to Bowser were not deterred by these shortcomings, and strived to take Bowser to his limit, perhaps even becoming a tournament capable character. Techniques like Fortresshogging were introduced to try to give Bowser a competitive edge. Despite the efforts, the best Bowser has been considered on the Melee "Tier List" by general consensus of the best and most experienced Smashers was about the middle of the Low Tier. This was extremely frustrating to me because I had hoped that Smash Brothers would be a game in which you could win a tournament with your favourite character, and there wouldn't be advantaged characters and disadvantaged characters (i.e. tiers). I was practically praying Bowser would be better in Brawl

After a long 6 years of struggling with an under-privaleged Bowser in Melee, the Wii's most highly anticipated flagship title finally launches, along with an updated Bowser. After almost a month of hard play with the game, and especially with Bowser, it still seems too early to tell anything for certain. It is hard to say whether Bowser has gotten better, worse, or has remained about the same. One thing I noticed quite early is that his ground game seemed a lot better than his aerial game, which was pretty much a complete reverse in Melee. Bowser is definitely harder to KO on the sides, but he still seems to be easily KO'd off the top of the stage. Bowser's B-moves seem pretty beefed up, and his side-B snatching body slam is great for catching your opponent off guard (and even pulling a suicide KO if you can pull it off). Still though, to me the big turtle still seems pretty slow and laggy, is way too easy to juggle because of his size, and should deliver more power to his punch. It is hard to say how he'll land up on the stack, although most of the characters, amazingly enough, all seem to be pretty equal in skill and balance.

Wow I spent nearly an entire update just blabbing about Brawl! I'm sure I'll be addicted for quite a while, however my lack of progress and updates on The Bowser Shrine was definitely weighing on my conscience, as it should and constantly is. If anyone wants to play me online in Brawl using Nintendo WiFi, just e-mail me so we can coordinate friend codes.

Today's small update is just uploading the most recent Bowser screenshots that have been posted recently for Smash Brawl and Mario Kart Wii:

On the Friday before Brawl launched in North America, the The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website posted a large collection of user-submitted fan screenshots. Most of them are quite funny and some of them are pretty cool. It definitely shows off Brawl's robust screenshot feature, which was quite inconvenient to do in Melee with the whole "Camera Mode". Since I'm not sure whether these screenshots would be considered "Fan Screenshots" or not since they were posted on an official site, I'll post them under the official Bowser screenies, at least for the time being.

The latest screenshots of Bowser in Mario Kart Wii have him showing off his in-game motorcycle. It is pretty hard not to laugh seeing Bowser burning it on a bike and going off jumps... just wait until he pulls a wheelie!

Summary:

9 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Kart Wii

(Image of MagnuM's "Bowser Powered" SmashBoards signature)

Happy Leap Day everybody! I'm sure anybody that was born on a leap day is very lucky, as they would probably age 4 times slower than the rest of us!

It appears that I will soon be reaching 50,000 page views at The Bowser Shrine very shortly. This is quite a milestone and I want to thank each and every one of you for checking out my website, and especially to the repeat visitors who frequently return checking for updates that Mr. Procrastinator here doesn't provide often enough.

It's hard to believe, and it has felt like so long, but Wii's flagship title Super Smash Bros. Brawl is just a little over a week away from release in North America. Super Smash Bros. Melee to date is my undisputed most favourite game of all-time. No game could ever capture my interest and keep me addicted for so long as that game did. 6 years later, the game is still not boring, and challenging friends for top smasher just never gets old. Hopefully Brawl can at least meet, and perhaps surpass the high expectations everybody has for it. Just taking the addition of online play alone, I don't think it will have much difficulty doing this.

Today's update was another quick one of catching up with some Bowser media:

Mario Kart Wii will be the next Mario game after Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and launches on April 27, 2008 in North America. Nintendo has had a pretty impressive collection of first-party Wii titles so far, especially for their Mario franchise. I have posted several screenshots of Bowser racing in-game in the Bowser Screenshots section. Bowser's Mario Kart Wii render has him driving a green "Hot-Rod"-like car with flames on it. He is preparing to chuck a blue shell while he has a squinting glare in his eyes. It looks really cool, and it's high resolution so all Bowser's delightful details can be seen.

Summary:

2 renders added to the Bowser Renders section
1 wallpaper added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
2 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Mario All-Stars
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Party 2
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Party 5
8 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Party DS
10 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
7 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Kart Wii

Whoa, it has been far too long since I posted an update here at The Bowser Shrine! I apologize for the delay, this has been another very busy month for me. I'll try to remember to do more smaller updates rather than fewer large updates, since it makes the site look more active.

I got Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and Super Mario Galaxy over the holidays, and am enjoying both games thoroughly. I still haven't beat Super Mario Galaxy yet so I'm still trying to avoid all of the spoilers!

And speaking of spoilers...

Super Smash Brothers Brawl launched in Japan today, much to the envy of all other Nintendo gamers still waiting for the release in other regions. With the official release of the game, the rumours and speculation comes to an end. All of the unlockable characters, stages and secrets finally revealed to the many internets! Actually, this M3G4T0N update occured a few days ago, when some lucky Japanese gamers were able to get their hands on some early copies of the game somehow, and upload screenshots and videos of their progress through the game as they unlocked everything. By now, the final roster of Smash Brothers Brawl as well as all of the stages are now known. When it comes to the playable characters, I have a few gripes about some that made the cut in the final roster, and some well-deserving characters, and specifically villains, that didn't, but it is still a pretty strong cast in my opinion. When it comes to the stages, I can't help but express my extreme disappointment and frustration with the exclusion of a stage I, and I'm sure many others, deemed a necessity. I guess even talking about something that does not happen still classifies as a spoiler, so if you still want to remain unpleasantly surprised, you are going to have to somehow scan over my outburst in the paragraph below.

HOW COULD THE DEVELOPERS, FOR A SECOND STRAIGHT TIME, REFUSE TO GIVE BOWSER A STAGE!? It is simply unfathomable! Bowser's Castle has been a stage or a level in pretty much every Mario platformer, spinoff, and sports game there has ever been made! I cannot understand why they would not make such a universally recognizable stage as Bowser's Castle! Everybody remembers their first encounter with Bowser in Super Mario Bros. on the lava bridge. Or what about Bowser's doomship in Super Mario Brothers 3? There have been so many interesting versions of Bowser's Castle presented in so many Mario games, the developers could have chose any one of them. For a game which prides itself on representing all the nostalgia from Nintendo's past, this was a colossal oversight in my view. I thought for sure there would be a very dynamic Bowser's Castle stage very similar to a lot of the Metriod stages that were made in the past for Smash Brothers. Now the only next best thing we can hope for is a well-made fan creation in the level editor. Tell me why it is necessary to have 3 Kirby stages, 3 Donkey Kong Stages, 3 Metriod stages, etc, and not have a single stage for Mario's prime nemesis. I will never understand why this must-have stage was forgotten about again, it is absolutely unbelievable.

As for judging how competitive the new Brawl Bowser is, it still seems too early to tell. There are several videos that have been posted of Bowser in action, mostly on YouTube. My good friend Gimpyfish62 was actually lucky enough to play Brawl early, and he posted The Best Brawl Match Ever Recorded in which he spammed the "Bowsercide". This is certainly a welcoming addition to Bowser's arsenal, a good way to lay the smack down on your opponent, and plus it looks so hilarious!

I can really get carried away when talking about Smash Brothers, but there is an update to present too:

I answered two fantastic thought-provoking questions in the Mailbag, both of which generating quite lengthy responses! The first asked about the origin of Bowser's kids, and where they may have come from, as well as if Peach had anything to do with their existance. I'm sure this has been a question you all have asked at some point or another, and we still don't know for sure. That uncertainty leads to all of the rumours and ideas that have been brought forth. The second question I'm sure you all have also asked yourself. Can Bowser take his spikey backshell off? We have never seen Bowser in a Mario game without his shell, but we have seen a few Koopas lose their home in the past (such as in Super Mario World). What would Bowser look like without his shell? Read my takes on these two questions and see if you agree with my predictions, and keep those great questions coming!

I also caught up on all of the Bowser screenshots that have been released for Brawl up to this point, but I should forewarn that I have posted some unofficial screenshots of Bowser seen in the Subspace Emissary. To me, the screenshots don't seem to spoil too much, but if you'd rather not see them just yet, stick with the official media on The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website.

Lastly, Benjamin Dickens made some neat wallpapers which have been posted under the "Unofficial Wallpapers" section of Bowser Wallpaper. They are designed for widescreen monitors and they look pretty sharp! Thank you for your submissions Benjamin!

Summary:

14 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2 wallpapers added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
2 mailbag entries added to the Mailbag section

It is exactly one year to the day that The Bowser Shrine was first launched to the world wide web! Although its initial release was quite preliminary, with only the main website design up as well as some contact information, I wanted to unveil my project early so that all the Bowser-obsessed fans could have something to look forward to. I've always known that Bowser deserved a large, dedicated fansite honouring his greatness, and after seeing such few Bowser websites over the years, I felt it was time someone payed Bowser the respect he deserves. It is my hope that my website, The Bowser Shrine, can live up to these hefty expectations, and give the Koopa King his full honours. I want it to be overwhelming with Bowser content and media and truly be every fan's number one stop for anything relating to Bowser and/or the Koopa species!

I have been collecting Bowser media ever since I was old enough to figure out how to, and I felt I just had to share all of this passion by providing all of my content and information that I possessed. I had greatly underestimated the amount of time it would take to properly share all this information and create everything. I had originally planned to launch The Bowser Shrine when it was 100% complete, but to do so would have meant even more and more waiting by the Bowser faithful. I decided last year that I would launch what I had at the time and build everything up slowly to completion. Over the past year, I have created most of the informational Bowser content and uploaded much of the official artwork and screenshots that I have collected, but I'm still not even close to finished this project. By my rough estimation, I would say I'm not even half done what I had originally planned to do. It has been frustrating to see such slow progress, and I thought I would certainly at least have all the grey links completed by now. I still have thousands of Bowser fanart pictures to share as well as sprites, music, merchandize, and I definitely need to get a forum going too. You haven't seen anything yet!

The amount of dedication and time that is needed to build and maintain such large fan-sites is probably one of the reasons such few exist. Even when a site is complete, having frequent updates with new media and information is usually rare. I want to try to avoid that, so perhaps slowly building and building on my website may turn out to be a good thing. I find it incredible that I have racked up over 33,000 hits on my fansite just in the first year alone! I bet a lot of it is from eager Bowser fans who have already added The Bowser Shrine to their bookmarks, and are checking frequently for updates; in which I seemingly can only manage to provide about twice or thrice a month. I really want to thank everybody for being patient with me. I guess patience is a requirement when you're a Bowser fan. *Walks over to NOA headquarters banging on the doors* "Where's Bowser's game!? Are you working on it right now!?"

Today's update is mostly a catch-up on media again:

Joey Anderson sent in a screenshot of Talon's Bowser brooch from Ocarina of Time, as well as the Bowser portrait painting that could be seen looking out of the window of the castle room in which you meet Zelda. This was an interesting cameo Bowser made in Ocarina of Time, and I'm glad Joey took these screenshots and sent them in to serve as a good flashback.

DarkCream sent in a painting of Bowser with King Boo that I have never seen before. I'm guessing it may have been from Luigi's Mansion, which I have not played. DarkCream also found a great screenshot of Bowser spinning the heavy hammer from the Hammer Throw competition in the opening FMV for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games. I was quite impressed with this find and added DarkCream to the Fan Contributions section. Thanks for the submissions DarkCream!

I still have two mailbag submissions and three fanfics to get to. I will most likely look at these on the next update, which realistically will probably happen in the new year with all the fun things that the month of December brings. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Summary:

6 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
8 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section
1 contributor added to the Fan Contributions section
1 link added to the Links section

Today I updated a bunch of Bowser media I had been collecting over the past couple weeks:

Just when you thought you've seen the biggest and highest resolution Bowser render here yet, I have found the largest by far! This one is of Bowser's character render art for Super Mario Galaxy, and it's a whopping 3500 X 3500! Looking at the "Actual Size" in your image viewer, Bowser pretty much looks life-size! I bet if you were to print it out on a very large piece of poster paper, you could have a life-sized poster of Bowser for your room! I love Bowser's pose in this render as well; such style and attitude! I don't know why it is always at the blogging sites or some other random site that some people always find these huge-resolution Nintendo character artworks. The author at Almost Monumental said that Nintendo released it, but I'm not sure where! Check out this monster-sized Bowser Galaxy render

Also, I got a promotional e-mail from Nintendo announcing the release of Mario Party DS, and in the e-mail was an awesome animated GIF of a spinning Bowser assuming a crouching pose at the end. I thought it definitely looked wicked, and I'm hunting for a high resolution picture of this Mario Party DS render. If anyone knows where it can be found, please let me know, because this render can definitely be considered really high up on the Wanted list!

I also managed to come across an awesome Super Mario Galaxy wallpaper featuring a really tough crossarmed Bowser, isn't he great?

Any other media additions, just look for the blue borders.

Summary:

6 renders added to the Bowser Renders section
21 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
10 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Mario Galaxy
2 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Party DS
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2 wallpapers added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
2 links added to the Links section

I do occassionally, between posted updates, make small modifications to some sections of The Bowser Shrine, that most people probably won't notice. Most often it is just small design tweaks and what not that I don't really feel necessary to make a posted update to tell everybody about. Other times, I work for a few hours one day on an update on my local webserver, and then finish the rest up another day and then upload it. So while there may be large gaps sometimes between posted updates, usually there are small changes made or work done inbetween.

With today's submission of the following fan submissions, I have only 2 or 3 fairly lengthy fan fictions to review and upload. After that, I should be up to date with all the e-mails that have been sent to me for a while. Lengthy fanfics are by no means a disadvantage, it just simply means I will need a larger portion of time to spend reviewing it for uploading. So please don't be discouraged if your fan fiction is long, it doesn't mean it is any less great!

And now, the update:

Each section now has a "Last Updated" notification explaining when that section was last updated or modified. This is both a good reminder for myself, as well as everyone else, how recent the information or media on that page is. It will also be a very good way for anyone to remind me when I need to be on my toes for some sections in which there is new content to be added. A small change yes, but it serves as a great reminder.

I have recoded my Links page so that it is much more readible and everything is much more aligned. I've also added one link to a promising new Mario universe fan site named "The Castle of the Hybrid Goomba". The content on the site is coming for most of the sections, but web development takes a lot of time.

Two great questions for the Mailbag have been answered. I am loving your guy's unique and varied questions, keep them coming! One question concerned Bowser's minions or accomplices (like Kammy Koopa), and where they might be when they are no longer seen. The other question was a multi-question, the first asking about the name similarities between King Koopa (cartoon) and King Bowser Koopa (videogames). The other asked about who Morton Koopa Jr. is named after. These latest entries brings my grand total to 6, but I'm sure there will be tons more.

Brittany Webb did some great screen captures of Bowser appearing in some Japanese Super Mario Bros. cartoons as well as the American commercial for Super Mario All-Stars that can be seen at Retro Junk. These captures are fantastic Brittany, thank you very much!

Now I'm REALLY going to have to restructure some sections of The Bowser Shrine due to how large they have gotten, most notibly, the screenshots sections, and the fan fiction section, and others. When I first created them, I didn't really give enough foresight to how everything was going to be organized when it got too large to all fit on one page. I need a much better directory structure in a lot of sections to 1. reduce the amount of scrolling that is needed to see just certain parts in that section, and 2. to reduce unnecessary bandwidth sucked up by just throwing everything onto one page. My next upcoming update will focus on the reconstruction of these sections, before moving on to completing other sections I plan to do on TBS (see greyed out links). I also have a few more fan fictions to review and upload, as well as tons of new Bowser media to update; a lot of which coming from the Brawl Dojo!! and other sources.

Summary:

1 link added to the Links section
22 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section
2 mailbag entries added to the Mailbag section

I've finally found a good portion of free time in one day to dedicate to focusing on reviewing and uploading all of the older fan submissions I have received over the past few months. Having so many extracurricular demands and interests to pay attention to can become quite distracting, and makes updates harder to keep up with due to less free time. This is agonizing to me because I know that people want to see progress on the site, as I also want to see it completed as soon as possible. The grayed out links on the left (which have been gray for far too long) are just a small number of the sections I plan to do in the near future. I still have so many aspirations for The Bowser Shrine, you haven't seen anything yet. As for an idea, I have 1,500 fan art pictures I've collected over the years of Bowser Koopa alone, most found on the fantastic art site DeviantArt. I guess I've now answered my own question as to why there isn't very many large fansites anymore...

Everything you see on The Bowser Shrine is completely hand-coded by myself, which is the way I prefer to do it. However, this means it takes longer to process submissions, since they must be customized to meet the site template. Over time I will be able to become more efficient at this. I know I'm getting many visitors each day, most of which being repeat visitors looking for updates. I'm sorry I have taken so long lately to act on some of your guy's submissions, I just wanted to really take the time to properly go through it all. Thank you for being patient, and thank you for your continued interest in The Bowser Shrine! I will certainly try to keep updates much more consistent and frequent, rather than going long stretches with infrequent large updates.

Whew, glad I have gotten that out of the way! Now without ANY further delay (for once), may I present... THE UPDATE *gasp!*

The "TBS Fan Contributions" section has now been created. This will be the place where I provide credit to the fans who have submitted new/updated information or media to the site (not including specific fan works like fan fics or fan art). It's my way of saying "Thanks!" to the people that have discovered these things, and offered to share it, (and also my humble admission to these people of their impressive rare Bowser searching skills!)

Liam M. sent in the Japanese Box Art of Super Mario Bros. 2, which interestingly enough shows Bowser with Super Saiyan like attributes (a Dragon Ball Z reference if anyone's been hiding under a rock for the past decade). These attributes were also given to Bowser as his second costume in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Thanks very much for this rare gem Liam!

Charkonian Ard sent in an absolutely ginormous resolution render of Bowser Breakdancing from Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix. This submission is the higest resolution render of Bowser on The Bowser Shrine to date. The funny thing too is that I remember seeing this image come up months back while doing my typical weekly Bowser Google Image searches (the obsession!!). Even seeing the image as the second Google Image hit on the first page, I never paid attention to just how big it actually was! In my experience, most Google Image searches just retrieve these tiny little images altered by other evil webmasters to fit their website; and not providing a link to the full res. glory! No excuses though, a deal's a deal. I will provide credit to Charkonian's find, and post it in the Bowser Renders section. I'm not sure where this blogger from Press the Buttons was able to snatch this high res. image, it seems like it may have come right from the source (Nintendo)

Erin Thweatt submitted an AWESOME scan of a fist-clenching, blue-eyed Bowser render from the Super Mario Bros. 3 Strategy Guide. It replaces a very vague and dark low res. image with a grainy background from the "Unofficial Renders" section of the Bowser Renders section. I don't believe I have ever seen this render of Bowser used anywhere else. This is perhaps the best (and certainly the most vividly colourful) Bowser render I have ever seen. It was great for Erin to scan this in so well, because while I do own a impressive number of Mario games Bowser is in, as well as magazines and media, I couldn't possibly own everything! This scanned render is a rare gem, and a valuable addition to The Bowser Shrine!

Stupid M M was clearly not stupid when they wrote "Bowser Meets a Girl Red Yoshi". This Fan Fiction is written in a play format, separated by parts. It is a story revealing Bowser's softer side, which he proudly hides reluctantly. It seems the author of the play has a promising talent in writing for their age. I like how the author made Bowser try to act all tough and reluctant to the love he was receiving from Rosa, it is so in-character for the Koopa King.

Sticking with the theme of: Sympathy for a Bowser with Heartache, BoomerB157, wrote "Bowser's Triumph", in which Bowser is successful in defeating Mario, and can finally focus on gathering the courage to tell Princess Peach his true feelings for her. The story may be short, but it sticks well to Bowser's character, and the choice of wording is quite good! I'm sure fans will enjoy this well-written short story

Last, but not least, Josh Gonzalez wrote the colour-coded story "Bowser Story!" about Bowser's uninvited drop-in to the Mushroom Ball. The colour-coding gives a unique personality to each character (Red for Bowser, Pink for Peach, etc). This is another example of a well-written, well detailed short story. I liked the humour added as well with Bowser blaming Peach for not leaving the window open for him so he didn't have to crash through it! The fight scene was full of action as well, it was neat envisioning the details the author provided.

Next update I will process the remaining back-dated fan submissions. Oh yeah, and eventually I have to finish more sections...

Summary:

The Fan Contributions section is available!
3 contributors added to the Fan Contributions section
1 box art added to the Bowser Box Art section
2 renders added to the Bowser Renders section
3 fan fictions added to the Bowser Fan Fiction section

A playable demo of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was available at the Entertainment for All Expo (E for All) held at the Los Angeles Convention Center between Oct. 18-21. There the general public was able to test drive games that had not yet been released to market yet. Gimpyfish, fellow Bowser diehard and Melee Bowser master, was able to attend this event over all 4 days, and has posted his impressions of the demo at SmashBoards.

In general, most of Bowser's moves have been kept very similar, but he has been buffed up. He has become larger and more powerful, and is now much more difficult to K.O. He also will not flinch to quick weak attacks. He is noticably faster, or at least has less laggier moves, and also gets an increase of range. A very interesting move he has been given as well is the ability to do a flipping body slam to an opponent after grabbing them with the Koopa Klaw (and it looks hilarious!). It is believed that Bowser can also use this as a suicide move by the edge. All in all, Bowser is shaping up pretty good, but it all comes down to how the other characters are fine-tuned. Brawl will be slower than Melee, but faster than Smash 64. Perhaps this slower gameplay will allow power characters to become more effective. It is still very early to determine any sort of tier lists thus far, but first impressions of Bowser are good.

There is an overwhelming addition of Super Smash Bros. Brawl videos that can be seen from this event, most of them posted on YouTube. Here's a little list of some of the good videos that Bowser is featured in:

Golden Bowser vs. Dark Link
SSB Golden Bowser
Brawl Free For All
Brawl Free For All 2
Brawl Free For All 3
Bowser in Subspace Emissary Cutscene

Also updated for today is:

4 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Super Smash Bros. Brawl
1 screenshot added to the Bowser Screenshots section for Mario Party DS
2 wallpapers added to the Bowser Wallpapers section
1 box art added to the Bowser Box Art section

As many had come to suspect recently, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been delayed. It was originally supposed to launch on December 3rd, 2007, exactly six years after Super Smash Bros. Melee. Just before Sonic was revealed as the second third party playable character in Brawl at the Nintendo Fall 2007 Press Conference, it was announced that the Japan release date of Brawl was delayed until January 24th, 2008. After that, The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website had TBD beside the official release date leading to the speculation that it would be delayed in North America as well. Today, a new launch date of February 10th, 2008 for the Americas was posted on the website.

As strange as this may sound, I was very pleased to hear this news. The release date was delayed because the developers need more time to complete the game. This shows that they truly care about delivering a fantastic title that will be enjoyed for years to come. Had the game been rushed, it would have shown in the quality and depth of the game. If you can remember, Super Smash Brothers Melee was originally supposed to be a GameCube launch title, but it was delayed for two weeks for extra tweaking. Who knows what the final result would have been if it was not pushed back. Also think about what could have been done with Melee had it been delayed further (the elimination of clones, better character balance with less tiers, etc). It was pretty much an insult having Bowser as useful as Pichu in Melee, and I'm sure with more time the developers may have been able to correct Bowser's fundamental flaws as a fighter. If the developers of Brawl do not release future online balance updates, then they only have one shot at trying to balance the game and keep an even playing field. Having a delay will also allow for more stages, more characters, and greater overall depth and polish. This delay could mean the difference between a 9.0 and a 9.8 in reviews. I know you are all just dying to finally get a chance to play the game, and to play as Bowser, just as much as I am. The developers asked for an extension because they absolutely needed it. Give them the time they need to make this the greatest Nintendo game of all time. I please ask everybody not to nag for the release of the game and to be patient. Your future self will thank you...

I've answered a question in the mailbag asking about Bowser's emotion. You can find out the answer in the Mailbag section. Also three new Brawl Bowser Screenshots have been recently posted on The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website.

1 mailbag entry added to the Mailbag section
3 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section

I've answered a good mailbag question that asked whether Bowser could be considered a large Fire Bro. Both Bowser and Fire Bros. can breathe fire, which seems like a pretty rare ability amongst the Koopas. Perhaps Bowser is just a big Fire Bros.! Find out the answer in the Mailbag! (Keep sending in your questions guys, they are great!)

1 mailbag entry added to the Mailbag section

I've added 24 screenshots to the Bowser Screenshots section for the games Super Mario Strikers, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Originally, since I wasn't sure exactly how I would organize all the of screenshots when I first made the screenshots sections, I decided to dump them all onto one page for the meantime. Now I am noticing that it's kinda klunky to go in there to look for a certain screenshot, as you have to wait for all the thumbnails to load, and scroll all the way down the page sometimes. This can be easy reorganized so that bandwidth and time can be saved. I will most likely organize the screenshots by game in alphabetical order very soon. New screenshots for upcoming games are coming out all the time, especially for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and you can bet I'm always there checking for new Bowser information and/or screenshots (even if he is far in the background in the screenshot). Yes, do not underestimate the obsession...

24 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section

The Bowser Shrine finally has its first fan fiction submission! "Unsent Letters" by Kevin Koopa tells the story of Bowser's struggle to tell Princess Peach the truth, and the reason for him constantly kidnapping her. It reveals Bowser's softer side, his feelings of love and care for the princess, and his desire to be with her to cure his loneliness. It is an interesting short story that is very well written. The style of writing is quite skillful, and has great imagery. It really seems like a untold story of Bowser's personal side. I have always imagined Bowser being embarrassed about his secret crush on the princess, being the supposedly tough, tyrannical ruler that he is. It is like he tries as hard as possible to hide his soft spot for Peach by continuing to act bad and obnoxious so that his secret doesn't get out. This story is a good example of just how deep and complex Bowser's character and personality really is. You can find it posted in the Bowser Fan Fiction section.

1 fan fiction added to the Bowser Fan Fiction section

I've added two Mailbag submissions asking about Bowser's native language, and whether Bowser could be considered a Spiny, since he has a spiky shell. I am currently processing some other fan submissions I have received recently, look for them to be posted soon!

2 mailbag entries added to the Mailbag section

I decided I would go through all of my old Nintendo instruction manuals and strategy guides and stuff to try and find as many Bowser artworks and renders as I could. Most times there are some rare ones that you can seemingly only find in a hard copy, and the image doesn't seem to exist online. I have found a bunch which I believe would probably be quite rare, and I have scanned them all into my computer. It was nearly a good half-day's work to scan everything in, but I sure have a large collection of some of the rarities when it comes to Bowser images. Over time, I will clean up these scans in photo editing programs, and post them on The Bowser Shrine (most likely in the unofficial part of the Bowser Renders section.

I described 3 more recent renders of Bowser in the Bowser Evolution section. It's really strange because all 3 renders are radically different from each other. Bowser now seems to have bunch of appearances he can be depicted as. Bowser's Brawl render is very good artwork and looks very realistic, but he's just gotta lose those freakish looking gums! Brawl development team, if you're listening...

3 entries added to the Bowser Evolution section

Well, just one day after Bowser was confirmed in the roster for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, his Final Smash has already been revealed. It is something I had predicted myself ever since learning about Final Smashes, and I'm sure a lot of other people did too. Bowser transforms into Giga Bowser for a short while, and can wreak havoc for all that stand in his way! It is also hinted that Giga Bowser may be invincible during this Final Smash.

When normal Bowser transforms into Giga Bowser, he becomes a colossal beast, at least 4 times his normal size, with even larger and thicker long horns, even sharper dagger-like teeth, longer and more tapered backspikes, and he looks even meaner and more sinister (plus his gum problems only get worse!). Giga Bowser looks slightly different than the Giga Bowser in Super Smash Bros. Melee. The differences in Brawl are that his scales are a darker shade of brown, his proportions look a bit different, and his face is even more psycho and evil. When Bowser summons the power within and begins his transformation... you better run!

4 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section

(Render image of Super Smash Bros. Brawl Giga Bowser)

You may all release your held breath now and relax, the Koopa King will be returning in Super Smash Brothers Brawl! Although this is perhaps the worst kept secret ever, that uncertainty was always unsettling. Now the only thing we have to worry about is hoping that the developers remember to make Bowser's Castle in Brawl so Bowser has his own stage.

Bowser has returned with an updated look, but the reaction seems to be mixed amongst most people. Bowser appears much more realistic and scary-like than even his Melee look, and Bowser also appears much older. It seems like he also got a haircut, his scales are a lighter shade of brownish-orange, his claws are much more detailed, and his face just looks plain... weird.

They have made Bowser an old dinosaur indeed, I mean, they pretty much gave him wrinkles on and around his snout. This sort of gives an even deeper realism and sophistication to him, but he looks well past retirement! The most strangest addition is puffy swollen looking gums, similar to Giga Bowser's strange-looking mouth. This gives Bowser a very menancing and psychotic look, but in my opinion, I think it was taking it way too far. I really didn't like the whole Giga Bowser idea, or the look in the first place, and this new Bowser appears to look similar to Giga Bowser in a few ways. One saving grace is from further away, you can't really tell that Bowser has seriously inflamed gums.

Now Bowser has always looked cool, but he didn't sacrifice his good looks in the process. I never thought I would say this, but Brawl Bowser appears to have more of the ugly cool monster look. I'm not too much in favour of Bowser looking anywhere close to ugly or deformed or gothic or psycho or anything, so I'd definitely have to prefer Bowser's Melee look over his Brawl look. My favourite Bowser to date would have to be his Super Mario 64 renders in the instruction manuals and on the cartridge. That had a perfect balance of looks and coolness if you ask me. Ok, this looks like something I should save for the Bowser Evolution section, which I'll need to update soon, so I'll just stop ranting now. Bowser's confirmed in Brawl, which is awesome, and it looks like they are hinting of making him a lot better too... which is even better!

1 render added to the Bowser Renders section
4 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section

(Render image of Super Smash Bros. Brawl Bowser)

I have noticed an inconsistency between browsers when loading up The Bowser Shrine. When I load the page in Internet Explorer, I've noticed that the menu link spacing looks much different than it does in FireFox; which I've been using to test the page on my local webserver. The code is exactly the same, but for some strange reason IE decided to add much more spacing between my links on the left hand side. Surprisingly it still looked okay with all that spacing, but for consistency's sake, I want it looking as identical as possible to the version I'm bringing up in FireFox. Seeing my webstats, over 75% of my viewers are using Internet Explorer, so it's best I have the page looking the way it should be! I've modified the code now to keep IE happy... get FireFox people, it's way better! Another issue I saw with the page was when viewing it in the Wii's Opera browser. The disclaimer at the bottom was not linebreaking properly, and looked really messy. I've modified it slightly so that it displays properly in the Wii browser, however, it looks a bit messy now and I'll need to add to it in the future to bulk it up a bit.

One month ago, I wrote in one of my May updates that The Bowser Shrine was having trouble getting indexed in search engines and nobody was finding the site. Although TBS was listed on Google and Yahoo, it would appear on like page 5 or 6; even for a descriptive search such as "Bowser Koopa". Since that time, I have seeked the advice of other webmasters, contacted other related websites to do link exchanges and affiliations, and cleaned up some of my code to meet the strictest standards. Wow what a difference that has made! I am now on the first page of both Google and Yahoo for the search keywords "bowser koopa". I'm actually not sure I could even get any higher! I'm really pleased of how much improvement I did in the rankings in such a short period of time. I believe getting more sites to link to TBS is what did the most good, as a huge part of Google's PageRanking algorithm is how many other related websites link to yours. I've also been including a link to The Bowser Shrine in a lot of message boards, and that has probably helped traffic as well.

I'm now getting quite a few hits to my counter everyday, and that's really encouraging. Also puts more pressure on me to keep pumping out updates. I have had the first e-mails come through for a mailbag submission as well as a short fanfic! Look for those to be posted soon! I'm so glad to be having regular traffic now, so expect a guestbook and a extensive forums to go up in the near future!

Unfortunately I'll be a bit busier from now on and updates to the site may be a little less frequent. I really wanted to get all the grayed-out sections done before things got busy again, but I guess I underestimated how much work it takes to create an extensive fansite! The Bowser Shrine will not be finished after the grayed out sections are complete, it will continue to build and grow over time and I will always be updating it. Perhaps the reason why there aren't that many fansites out there is the simple fact that it is time consuming and a lot of hard work to build and maintain one. It's also possible that everyone basically looks for somebody else to take the initiative. My major goal with the creation of The Bowser Shrine is to get Bowser the respect he deserves! I'm sure Bowser has a much larger fanbase than people think, or at least he's on the "Top 5 Favourite Mario Characters List" of most people, but all I know is that I will never be at ease until Bowser gets a game of his own!

Nintendo just released an awesome character art picture of Bowser in Mario Strikers Charged! They've got Bowser looking quite mean indeed! Check it out in the Bowser Renders section! All I can say is that I cannot wait for this game!

1 render added to the Bowser Renders section

Alright, so the speculated huge update on The Official Super Smash Brothers Brawl Website landed up being just a site redesign with the news that updates will occur on every weekday. There was also a list of composers that gives some hints on which new characters might be included. At the bottom of the page there is remixed SSBM Menu Music that will most likely be used on the Battlefield stage. So no news on a Brawl Bowser yet, but looking on the bright side, releasing a little bit of information each day just might make it seem like less of a wait until the game comes out. I'll be checking the website every weekday to see when we can finally get some information about Bowser in Brawl. You know he's going to be in it, so don't worry! I can't wait to see what he looks like!

I have now gathered all of the screenshots I have taken of the Koopa King in Mario games and posted them under the "Fan Stuff" heading in a link called Bowser Fan Screenshots. I've picked 226 of my best screenshot captures for you Koopaholics! Most of these screenshots I took over the years using a capture card that my Nintendo system was hooked up to. There I could take some decent screenshot captures, and I was sure to keep them safe over the years. The best gallery would be the screenshots for Super Smash Brothers Melee, because of the game's fanastic graphics and awesome camera mode. Garry's Mod is another excellent gallery, as there is actually a full legitimate Bowser model that can be downloaded for Half Life 2. In the future I will probably have separate sections for these two galleries. Anyways, all the snapshots are really good, and since all the control is in the hands of the user, Bowser is quite often the center of attention (as he should be!). If you have any Bowser screenshots you have taken, don't hesitate to share them here on The Bowser Shrine!

The Bowser Fan Screenshots section is available!
226 screenshots added to the Bowser Fan Screenshots section

If you go to http://www.smashbros.com, there is a teaser splash page presenting an official Super Smash Brothers Brawl website called "Smash Bros. Dojo!!". The official Smash Bros. website hadn't been updated since late last year, probably around November when the last Super Smash Brothers Brawl trailer was released. An image at the bottom of the splash page says "Site Launch in 4 days (Japan Time)". This is exciting news as there is a good chance we will be getting more information about Brawl, such as more characters revealed, stages, and maybe even an official release date. It's also quite possible we might see early screenshots of Bowser in Brawl for the first time. You can bet if any images are released, I will post them here at The Bowser Shrine. I have 226 personal screenshots of Bowser which I have completed processing on. They will be posted under the "Fan Stuff" heading as Bowser Fan Screenshots. I should have them uploaded by tomorrow.

I have created a really short Bowser Fan Fiction section basically explaining that there are no Bowser fan fictions to display yet. It took like 5 minutes to do and it fills out the greyed-out links a bit better. I also added two more links to the "Mario Universe" section on my links page. I am currently processing some more Bowser screenshots (as if 225 wasn't enough). I'm doing the Bowser Fan Screenshots section now, so I'm gathering all of my screenshots I've taken of Bowser in Mario games. I expect it to be at least as big, if not bigger than the Bowser Screenshots section.

The Bowser Fan Fiction section is available!

I have now gathered all of the screenshots of Bowser I have seen Nintendo release to support their Mario games and have posted them in the Bowser Screenshots section. I have found most of these images at major gaming publications such as IGN and Gamespot, or at the official website for the respective game or at Nintendo.com. I chose to include only the best screenshots of Bowser, where he can clearly be seen and that are unique. There are quite a few screenshots I have displayed, a whopping 225 to be exact! Good screenshots of already released or upcoming Mario games are important to generate interest in the game and to advertise. I'm also planning a Bowser Fan Screenshots section, where fans can send in their screenshots they have taken of Bowser through capturing software or other means. If you can find any other good official Bowser screenshots for some games, give me a shout!

The Bowser Screenshots section is available!
225 screenshots added to the Bowser Screenshots section

I have added a few more unofficial Bowser Renders in the respective section. Since I am always ordering the images by date of release of the game it was made for, I guess it can sometimes be hard to pick out what the new ones are. I am very close to completing the Bowser Screenshots section containing over 200 screenshots of Bowser! These are just the official screenshots of him too, I plan to also have a Bowser Fan Screenshots section as well!

Another odd thing has been happening with The Bowser Shrine and search engine indexes. The Bowser Shrine has been around since December 2006, but months later, I am still very low on the search engine rankings for even descriptive searches such as "Bowser Koopa". Also for some strange and frustrating reason, my website will intermittently disappear completely from any search for the title "The Bowser Shrine", and the homepage will disappear when doing a search for the URL "http://www.bowsershrine.com". When searching by URL, other sections of the page may come up, but not the homepage. I have no idea why this could be happening, and Google's Webmaster Tools says the site passes everything. I am very lost and confused as to why I can't get a good PageRanking and why I'm still so far down on the list. I want people to find this site as it has a lot of great things to offer and I've worked pretty hard on it already. If anyone has any ideas or tips at all, please contact me.

5 renders added to the Bowser Renders section

I have now posted my collection of box art images I have seen Bowser on in the Bowser Box Art section. These box art images are created to support the respective Mario game and to serve as advertising to generate interest in it. High quality, high resolution box art images are often to hardest to get, as most box shots you find on the net are just a small preview thumbnail that doesn't enlarge. Some of these box arts I have scanned myself, others I found on Gamespot or by doing search engine image searches. I have also included box art pictures from other countries or regions in which Bowser can be seen in. I have posted 27 box art images in total, and I'm sure I have covered most of the North American boxes at least. If you can manage to find a box shot with Bowser that I have not listed, or a higher quality image, please let me know!

The Bowser Box Art section is available!
27 box arts added to the Bowser Box Art section

Added 7 new unofficial Bowser renders and a link to the MarioWiki! The Bowser Box Art section is next and I have collected all of my images already, I just have to code the page now.

7 renders added to the Bowser Renders section

I have now posted my collection of Bowser Wallpapers I have found from the web and on official Mario game sites. These wallpapers are released around the same time its respective game is, for fans to adorn their desktops with! Often high resolution Bowser renders for the respective game is used in the wallpaper, making it look really sharp and detailed. I have posted 26 Bowser wallpapers, some of which having different resolutions for different desktop sizes. So, go ahead and download all the Bowser wallpapers you want. I would really appreciate credit or a link to The Bowser Shrine if you like the wallpapers here. I'm always searching for more wallpapers whenever new Mario games are released, and I will provide them all here if I find them!

The Bowser Wallpaper section is available!
26 wallpapers added to the Bowser Wallpaper section

I am always looking to expand my links section and affiliate with other Nintendo sites. If you are interested in doing a link exchange with The Bowser Shrine, Contact Me! I have added three webpages to the Links section.

3 webpages added to the Links section

I finally have some Bowser media available for The Bowser Shrine! I'm beginning to share all my Bowser wealth! I have posted all of the Bowser Renders I have collected over the years. The images I posted are character art and renders of Bowser released for a specific game. Nintendo has other Bowser generated images for advertising, box art, and merchandise, and those will be featured in upcoming sections under the "Bowser Media" heading very soon! I listed 64 images in total, and I'm sure there are even more out there somewhere.

I was pondering for quite a while about how I would display the images. Since some of these renders are so well done and detailed, I wanted a way to have comments and ratings and other stuff able to be posted under the image. I was thinking of also using Coppermine for the Bowser Renders section, but maybe it'll be best for just the fan art section. So I might just leave that as a future consideration. After all, I already pretty much commented and described most of the Bowser Renders in the Bowser Evolution section! So feel free to download all the renders you want, in case you've been missing any. I would really appreciate credit or a link to The Bowser Shrine if you like what you see. I've been keeping a lot of the rare ones safe for quite some time, now they can be more readily available again!

The Bowser Renders section is available!
64 renders added to the Bowser Renders section

I beefed up the Links section with some more webpages. I am also still currently researching the best way to do the galleries, and they will be up very soon! I am starting to affiliate with other sites to get The Bowser Shrine known and to increase traffic. The Bowser Shrine's link button is shown on the Links page as well.

2 webpages added to the Links section

I once again had to split up a section into two sections after it got too large! I came up with a quick Bowser Profile page listing a few of his characteristics and attributes. It's still a little brief right now and I might need a few more suggestions as to what I should have in his profile. Below the profile, I started doing a Bowser's Appearance 101 pretending that I was describing him to someone who has never heard of him or seen an image of him before. Once again I went insane with detail and after a while I had enough for a whole separate section. I named this section Bowser Description.

So basically two new sections for the update today, completing the "Bowser Info" group! I will most likely be adding sections to this group a bit later, these were just the basic ones I wanted to get up first. Ideas for further sections would be "Koopa Kids" and "Bowser Quotes" and the sort. So now comes the part where I deliver all of my thousands of Bowser media I have collected and kept safe and organized over the years! I will need to do a bit of research to find out the best image gallery system to use; I hear Coppermine is pretty good. I would say at this point I will be 50% done the Bowser Shrine. It feels like the hardest part is behind me now, so expect a 100% completed Bowser Shrine very soon!

The Bowser Profile section is available!
The Bowser Description section is available!

I have now completed Bowser's Evolution, another major section of the site. This section details Bowser's major concept art and computer renders and how they have evolved over the years while still keeping his basic design concept consistent. The Mario games that Bowser is depicted in try as hard as possible to make him match the concept artwork he was given, and with the power of Nintendo's latest systems, the gap is narrowing. Bowser's in game character models are starting to look more and more like his concept renders. There are lots of great Bowser renders and images to go along with my descriptions, so this should be a fun section. Full resolution versions of these images will be available soon.

The Bowser's Evolution section is available!

I added an image showing how Bowser's sprites and models have improved over the years at the very top of the Bowser Depictions section. I also added a little Bowser pointing image for any *NOTES* that come up in some of the pages under the Bowser Info group, just for a neat touch. It's like a Bowser tip or something.

I have now completed the Bowser Master Game List listing every game Bowser has appeared in or cameoed in over the last 20 years. I came up with 53 seperate game titles that contained Bowser in some way. There is no list this exhaustive detailing every single Bowser appearance anywhere! I had no references or anything to come up with this massive list, only memory and game by game research.

The Bowser Game List section is available!
53 renders added to the Bowser Game List section

I have now completed three major sections for The Bowser Shrine. These sections contain the bulk of Bowser's information as a video game character. There is quite a lot of information in these sections and I have also included pictures for visual aid and to accompany the text. I've been working on these three sections for a while now offline on my local Apache server. I wanted to upload all of them at once, all spruced up and everything. I originally had these three sections all combined into one section called "Bowser's History", but it was far too much to read for one section and a lot of the information could be divided into other sections. I'll try to avoid such a mass update at once in the future to keep updates more consistent. Next I will be completing the rest of the "Bowser Info" sections.

The Bowser Depictions section detailing Bowser's look in Mario games over the past 20+ years has now been completed! This is easily my biggest section yet, at least information wise. Many that know me notice that I am very detailed, and I really went all out in my detailed descriptions. Bowser has definitely come a long way in his look in Mario games from his first 8-bit sprite on the NES. Now Bowser's full 3D and high detailed in-game character models are becoming close to the renders used to illustrate him in the instruction books and concept art. I also have a brief section on cameos Bowser has made as well as depictions of him outside of Mario games. This section should take a good 15-20 minutes to get through, so have a good read!

The Bowser Depictions section is available!

I have now completed the section on Bowser's History, outlining his timeline from childhood to adulthood as well as his current plans and attempts of world domination. This would be the best known up to date information of Bowser's backstory gathered from all of the games that have come out in the last 20+ years. This is a fairly large section with quite a lot of information in it. It took quite a long time making sure my content stuck as close as possible to the facts. There was some degree of filling-in-the-gaps when it came to Bowser's early childhood, but I believe most of it can be accurate despite being an educated guess. The whole section could take a good 10-15 minutes to read thoroughly, so take your time and enjoy!

The Bowser History section is available!

Finally I have some information up about Bowser! In the Bowser Overview section, I have a brief overview on the greatest video game character ever, at least in my opinion. I describe who Bowser is, what he looks like, and what drives him. I also briefly touch about his appearances in Mario games. Take a look!

The Bowser Overview section is available!

I'm about 60% done the "Bowser History" section, and it is huge! I will most likely be splitting it up into 3 different sections: Bowser Overview, Bowser History, and Bowser Depictions. I may also have a featured section about how Bowser's look and renders have evolved over the years, but how his basic concept remains the same.

I have the About TBS section filled out now outlining my mission with the Bowser Shrine as well as reinforcing my Bowser fanaticism. It also describes what to expect and what you can find here at The Bowser Shrine. Check it out!

The About TBS section is available!

Today I added a funny Bowser-waiting-for-mail image in the Contact section, and added a Links section. I just have the Nintendo homepage on for now, but I'll definitely have a lot more as time goes on.

The Links section is available!

I added a favicon to The Bowser Shrine so the site can more easily be found when browsed through a bookmarks list. The original Bowser Face image was red in color and belonged to Gimpyfish62, a good friend of mine and long term Bowser fanatic. He has the image slapped onto his Wii and DS as a sticker.

I would estimate that I have about 3,000 files related to Bowser featuring renders, fanart, screenshots, music, etc. Did I ever mention that I was obsessed about Bowser? I plan to share it all on The Bowser Shrine, and I'm excited about doing so. I am currently of the process of organizing all of the media and gathering it all together so I can share it here on The Bowser Shrine!

I have registered a domain e-mail address so anyone can now Contact Me! I have also opened up a Mailbag! if anyone wants to e-mail anything that they would like posted with a reply. I hope to be hearing from a lot of you soon!

The Contact section is available!
The Mailbag section is available!

So I thought the original shell design with the cyan borders and everything looked a little too 1999, so I have no borders at all now and added gradient fills to the links and updates headers. I also added a small counter at the bottom of the affiliates section with a very proud Bowser standing on top. Doesn't he look tough?

Welcome to the Bowser Shrine! I am MagnuM, and I consider myself the biggest Bowser Koopa fan on the planet! I challenge anyone to contend against my absolute fanatical obsession for this character! It was disappointing not being able to find many Bowser fansites anywhere on the internet, so I felt compelled to create the largest and most dedicated Bowser Koopa fansite ever! The Koopa King deserves it!

I would have liked to have launched a complete fansite with every section 100% completed, but a site as large as I am planning will take some time to completely build. As for right now, I have only the main page layout and an overall feel for the site developed, but the sections will come and they will come quite quickly! I just wanted to get the site out there quickly so any Koopaholics (a little term I coined) can finally rest more easier knowing that there are others like them and there is a major fansite where they will be able to find anything related to Bowser and the Koopa species!

On the left is all the links and subsections I plan to create for The Bowser Shrine. None of the grey links will work just yet, as they will only redirect back to the main page. Any links in blue will symbolize a finished section. Highlighting any of the links will animate the Bowser in the link heading. On the right I plan to place affiliates, but as for now, I just have a fist pumping Bowser reminding you who's boss! So not much yet, but hang tight, because updates will be large and frequent! Check back often and stay tuned!

The Bowser Shrine is launched!