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What's the best disguise in a ship full of Koopas?

A Day With Bowser Jr is a Super Mario-based webtoon that focuses on the adventures of Bowser Jr, Bowser's son and heir to the Koopa Throne.

His adventures include battling against Nerdy, his Mario-obsessed and Koopa-hating classmate, and Ludwig Von Koopa, his jealous older brother.

The series was created by YouTube user Dannywaving. The YouTube channel on which A Day With Bowser Jr runs can be found here.

In 2020, the series was Quietly Cancelled, with Dannywaving focusing on original content.


Tropes featured include:

  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Bowser does still kidnap Peach, but he does it as a way to hide his secret relationship with her, contrasting how in canon, Peach makes it clear she does not reciprocate Bowser's feelings for her.
  • Art Evolution: The animation in the first video was mediocre, to say the least. Let's say... that it has since slightly improved.
  • Baby Morph Episode: Fawful hits Bowser with a laser beam that turns him into an infant.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: Mibdus is the big guy to Fawful's little guy.
  • Breath Weapon: In part 3 of Two Koopas For a Throne, Junior tries and fails to light a bomb with his fire breath. He ends up just using a lighter.
  • Butt-Monkey: There isn't an episode in the series where Junior doesn't get beaten up by someone at some point.
  • The Cameo: Nerdy makes a brief appearance at the beginning of Two Koopas for a Throne (Part 1), covered in bandages after what happened to him previously.
  • Cain and Abel: Ludwig has made it very clear that he wants Junior dead for taking his throne away from him. It later turns out to be a cousin variant when Bowser reveals himself to be the Koopalings' uncle.
  • Celeb Crush: Junior has a massive crush on reporter Kylie Koopa, a character who first appeared in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. He's so smitten with her that he has posters of her all over his room. This later gets used against him when Fawful disguises himself as Kylie to get the entrance codes to Bowser's airship.
  • Cute Little Fang: Even though he's now a teenager, Junior still has one fang that sticks out of his mouth more than the others.
  • David vs. Goliath: Bowser Jr.'s relationship with Ludwig. While Ludwig is seen as a powerful magician, fantastic fighter, and genius schemer, he's also heartless and cruel. Junior, meanwhile, is a kid who gets poor grades, is socially awkward, and makes tons of mistakes, but has a good heart and in the end he's able to defeat Ludwig.
  • Darker and Edgier: In the episode Two koopas for a throne, It immediately plays sinister music and starts with a battle between Bowser Jr. and Ludwig, who later starts to monologue about his hatred to Bowser Jr.
  • Determinator: Ludwig. He is so hell-bent on murdering Bowser Jr and claiming back the Koopa throne, that literally all of his dialogue revolves around his desire for the throne. He's even thinking about killing Bowser Jr while bedridden and severely injured!
  • Did You Actually Believe...?: Fawful is quick to mock Junior for falling for his trick.
  • A Dog Named "Dog": The classroom nerd is called Nerdy. Dannywaving himself has commented on the unoriginality of the name.
  • Evil Gloating:
    • Ludwig. He has an evil monologue in every episode in which he's appeared so far, even to the point of being interrupted by Bowser who literally shuts him up in the middle of his monologue. Also Nerdy, to some extent.
    • Fawful also partakes in this quite heavily.
  • The Evil Prince: Ludwig. He is determined to kill Junior in order to become king, and all of his dialogue revolves around his desire for the throne.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Ludwig and Bowser.
  • Happily Adopted: ALL of the koopalings are actually the children of Morton Koopa Sr., Bowser's younger brother. When he dies trying to protect Bowser from Mario, his last request is that Bowser take care of his kids, which he does.
  • Fantastic Racism: Nerdy hates Koopas.
  • Fun Personified: Lemmy is just as boisterous and carefree as he is in the games.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Iggy, who has a room filled with his inventions.
  • Hairstyle Malfunction: Ludwig disobeys Kamek and drinks the entirety of his healing potion in one sitting. The side effect is that it turns his hair white.
  • Iconic Item: Inverted— Junior has stopped wearing his famous bandanna by the time of the series. He still has it, apparently, and uses it to decorate the door to his bedroom.
  • Ignorance Is Bliss: Larry overhears a snippet of conversation that hints at the koopalings true origins, but he decides to just forget he heard it because he feels he'd be happier not knowing.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Ludwig is about to do this to Junior after he pulls him up from the lava pit, but Bowser sees what Ludwig's up to and stops it from happening.
  • Kick the Dog: Ludwig. He literally punches a defenseless kid who happened to stand between him and Bowser Jr's death.
  • Love Makes You Dumb: Junior's crush on Kylie renders him oblivious to Fawful's obvious ploy to get the airship codes out of him.
  • The Mentor: Kamek, who gives sagely advise to both Junior and Ludwig.
  • The Napoleon: Fawful is under four feet tall, yet he's considered so dangerous that the Koopa Kingdom celebrates the anniversary of his second defeat fifteen years later.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Junior gives Fawful the codes to Bowser's airship by mistake, which leads to Bowser being turned into an infant, Ludwig being kidnapped, and Junior getting beaten to a pulp.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In-universe. Fawful's Kylie Koopa disguise doesn't hide his weird accent, which he explains away as Kylie being 'overworked' when Junior points it out.
  • Pet Monstrosity: Iggy has the same pet Chain-Chomp that he uses in his battles in New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
  • The Reveal: Bowser Jr. didn't inherit the throne despite being Bowser's youngest son— he inherited it because he's Bowser's only son. The koopalings are actually the children of Bowser's deceased brother, Morton Koopa. This information was hid from them to prevent them from feeling excluded, but this ends up making Ludwig feel Junior stole his title from him.
  • Sibling Rivalry: Ludwig and Bowser Jr, even though it is mostly one-sided on Ludwig's part.
  • Sickeningly Sweet: Hammer Bro gets irritated by all the hugging and family moments at the end of Two Koopas for a Throne.
  • The Sociopath: Ludwig sees absolutely nothing wrong with trying to murder his little brother and father, even calling his punishment for it 'unjust'. In the climax of the fourth episode, he gets better.
  • So Proud of You: Bowser says this to Junior after he uncovers the mystery behind his status as koopa heir and saves Ludwig from certain death.
  • Thicker Than Water: Junior doesn't hesitate to save Ludwig from falling into lava after he tried multiple times to kill him, and still loves his adopted brother enough to try to fend away an intruder when Bowser's ship is attacked.
  • Time Skip: The series takes place several years after the normal Mario continuity, where Bowser Jr. is 13 years old. To be precise, Word of God said that Junior is 11 in First Episode, 13 in Living With Nerdy, 15 in Two Koopas for a Throne, 16 in Rise of Fawful and will be 18 in the episode following.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: In the climax of the fourth episode, Ludwig finally comes to friendly terms with Bowser Jr.
  • Unexplained Accent: Fawful has a Jamaican accent, of all things.
  • Verbal Tic: Fawful, who has the same Engrish speaking pattern as he does in the games.
  • Vocal Evolution: Bowser Jr's voice begins as high pitched and screeching, then evolves over the course of the series to become more mature and less raspy (in part because of Dannywaving himself growing up).
  • The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: Bowser Jr. is the heir to the Koopa throne, even though he's the youngest among his brothers. The actual heir should be Ludwig. Or so we think: it's revealed that Ludwig and the other Koopalings are Bowser's biological nephews, not his kids, making Junior Bowser's only true son.

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