Peach Bowser has become the latest (and thoroughly unexpected) internet icon, with Mario fans taking to social media and online image boards in order to share fan art of the character. A genderswapped variation of Princess Peach, Peach Bowser (or ‘Bowsette,’ as she is also known) depicts the Mushroom Kingdom monarch with the Mario antagonist’s spiked shell, horns, and pointed teeth. But where did Peach Bowser come from, and why is the internet so enamored with her?
Peach Bowser’s origin story began during the September 13th Nintendo Direct, when New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe was announced during the presentation. Toadette will be a playable character in the upcoming platformer, with her also boasting a power-up in the form of the Super Crown. The Super Crown allows Toadette to transform into Peachette, granting her new abilities such as being able to float in mid-air.
Peachette’s debut inspired artist @ayyk92, who took to Twitter in order to share a comic strip in which Bowser uses the Super Crown in order to transform into Bowsette. In the final panel, Mario is shown rejecting Peach in favor of Bowsette:
The Super Crown’s some spicy new Mario lore pic.twitter.com/7DQe6UXvLQ
— haniwa (@ayyk92) September 19, 2018
This comic then resulted in more artists drawing their own take on Peach Bowser:
@ayyk92 ‘s bowser peach pic.twitter.com/xNRSD9etUn
— ecoli (@eritiacoli) September 20, 2018
The character has also been introduced in the virtual reality game VRChat, with players able to use her model as their avatar:
some WIP shots of the Peach Bowser I’ve been working on because of the mass influx of art, very inspiring, plan to maybe make a public avatar on VRChat of it. pic.twitter.com/16roN6GDJw
— Anubis (@_AnubisX) September 23, 2018
More “realistic” variations of the Peach Bowser character have also been introduced, intended to depict what an actual crossover between Peach and Bowser would look like:
i decided everyone was being a coward by not making bowser peach bowser-like enough so heres a big buff turtle princess ready to punch ur house down pic.twitter.com/0XLG4tXlQl
— shulock holmes (@aowataa) September 23, 2018
It looks like the Super Crown will remain exclusive to Toadette in New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, though plenty of players hope that it will eventually become available to other characters in the Mushroom Kingdom. Artists have already started imagining what it would look like if other fan favorites for their hands on the power-up:
Can I interest you to yoshimom ? pic.twitter.com/pqA5TrPD7u
— R I C K Y Y (@BasedRickayy) September 23, 2018
It remains to be seen whether or not Nintendo will cave to fan pressure and make the Super Crown a staple of the Mario series, but there’s plenty of fanart going around right now depicting pretty much every character utilizing the new ability. Did someone say Peach Waluigi..?
