Video games aren’t real life, sure. I get that. But it’s still odd to realize that certain game characters who have been around for what seems like forever, aren’t actually that old. For example, according to a new video from Nintendo, Mario’s archnemesis—Bowser—is only in his thirties. Some of you are probably not taking that news well.
The Super Mario Bros. franchise started back in 1985 with the release of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game—which was a successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.—was a massive hit and spawned a series that is still around today. In fact, just a few months ago an animated film based on the series hit theaters and broke box office records in the process. You’ve probably heard about it. And while Mario and Luigi are the main stars of the series, the main villain throughout most of the games is King Koopa himself: Bowser.
Oddly, Bowser—this iconic, larger-than-life villain—isn’t some 200-year-old ancient lizard monster-god or whatever. Instead, he’s just 34 years old.
As first spotted by fan blog Super Mario Broth, a newly released, unlisted video from Nintendo of America briefly shows Bowser’s year of birth. The video is a walkthrough of how to create a Nintendo account and it uses Bowser as an example, showing him entering information about himself including his date of birth: February 5, 1989. So Bowser is 34. Also in the same video, we see Bowser Jr.’s birthday is March 3, 2010, making him 13.
As pointed out by Super Mario Broth, this is the first time either character—Bowser or Bowser Jr.—has had their birthdays revealed. Now you all know when to buy Bowser Jr. a birthday gift of, I don’t know, some Roblox points or whatever the kids are into these days.
Of course, there is the caveat that this is not a canon Super Mario Bros. video game, just an instructional video from Nintendo. So perhaps the age was picked randomly or coincides with some other event in the company’s history.
That would explain how Bowser, according to the date in this video, was born four years after he appeared in the first Super Mario Bros. game on NES. Or maybe that was a different Bowser who died and was replaced by other Bowsers. This is getting dark, so let’s stop here before many of you realize you are somehow older than Bowser. Oops. Sorry.