Kirby

Kirby “A young traveler who came to Dream Land with the Spring Breeze. That's me, Kirby. A glutton who'll inhale anything. I copy my enemies abilities and transform!” ― Kirby • Manpuku Kirby Gender: Male Type: Pink Ball of the Stars Age: Kid (implied) Species: Unknown Portrayed by: Mayumi Tanaka (1993) Taeko Kawata (1994) Makiko Ohmoto (1999–present) Status: Alive Media of origin: Kirby's Dream Land (1992; first appearance) Kirby (franchise)

“It's time to draw Kirby!

Get some paper and a pen ready!

Now, let's go!

🎵 First you draw a circle, 🎵

🎵 Then you dot the eyes, 🎵

🎵 Add a great big smile, 🎵

(Then add the arms and feet!)

🎵 And presto, it's Kirby! 🎵

Did you draw me well?”

― Kirby • Kirby Drama CD

Kirby is the titular character and main protagonist of the Kirby franchise. He's a young alien lifeform who lives on Planet Popstar, and spends most his days eating, napping, or playing with his friends in his incredibly peaceful home of Dream Land. His background is unknown, other than the fact that he was a traveler who arrived in Dream Land one day on the Spring Breeze, and has been living there ever since.

Although his adorable appearance and youthful demeanor makes him easy to underestimate, Kirby is an incredibly powerful fighter with many unique abilities, and a hero who has saved his planet, galaxy, and universe countless times from evil forces like Nightmare, Dark Matter, Marx, Queen Sectonia, and the Haltmann Works Company just to name a few.

Kirby is a kind-hearted hero who is always willing to help a person in need, even if it's a complete stranger from a distant planet or another world entirely, and has made many of his former enemies into his friends, most notably his friendly rivals, King Dedede and Meta Knight.

Why He's a Star

1. His design is adorable and simple, yet can also be expressive and animated when it needs to be, one famous example would be his shocked face that appears frequently throughout the games. In fact, Kirby's design was originally simply intended to be a placeholder for the original protagonist of Kirby's Dream Land. However, the team behind the game grew attached to the cute design and considered how its simplicity made it easy for kids to draw, so they decided to stick with that placeholder design.
2. As much as people joke and meme on about his character being some "eldritch horror-slaying god", that is not the core of Kirby's character. Despite his powers, Kirby is a young, innocent, heroic, friendly, and jolly fellow, who's heroism drives him to help out anyone in need. Although he's lazy, gluttonous, and prone to being tricked or jumping to conclusions, such as times when he got fooled by Marx and Magolor (Kirby Super Star, Kirby's Return to Dream Land) or the times when he misjudged King Dedede (Kirby's Adventure, Kirby: Squeak Squad), Kirby is still a reliable hero who can overcome any odds to save the day.
3. Kirby's adorable childlike nature makes him fun to watch or read whenever he's getting into some wholesome shenanigans, such as in the cutscenes of his games, in episodes of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, in the It's Kirby Time series of picture books, and in his various manga series like Morestsu Pupupu Hour! and Sparkling★Pupupu World (both of which, and more, are available scanned and fan-translated here).
   • Another notable, yet extremely obscure, source of Kirby wholesomeness would be the drama CD, Kirby and the Story of the Dream Spring.
4. Although Kirby is certainly young, he still has agency of his own, and doesn't need to be told when to take action (a facet of his character that unfortunately was not adapted for his animated adaptation). Kirby has a series of light novels, and as the current director of the Kirby series, Shinya Kumazaki himself, has said that it has the most accurate characterization of the main cast in his official commentary of Return to Dream Land's novelization, it shows best how Kirby tackles situations.
5. One of the central themes in the Kirby series, if not, the central theme, would be friendship, and Kirby embodies that theme perfectly. Kirby has formed bonds with so many characters, such as King Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandana Waddle Dee, Rick, Kine, Coo, Ribbon, Adeleine, Prince Fluff, Elline, Elfilin, and so much more. Kirby will risk life and limb for the people he holds dear, like in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, where for the majority of the game, Kirby's entire motivation was to save King Dedede from Taranza, even before he had any knowledge of the People of the Sky's plight, or even their and Queen Sectionia's existence. There's no true main villain in the Kirby series, as almost every antagonist finds themselves redeemed by the end of the same game they debut through Kirby's influence.
6. As a playable video game protagonist, Kirby is incredibly unique. He has many innovative and creative abilities, like the ability to puff himself up and float like a balloon and his trademark ability to inhale and spit out enemies with great force, or swallow them to copy their abilities (in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Kirby is also able to combine two abilities together). He would also gain new powers as the series went by, like the Super Abilities from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, the Hypernova inhale from Kirby: Triple Deluxe and the brand-new Mouthful Mode from Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Kirby's abilities make his games very accessible to beginners, so anyone can be introduced to the series.
7. Another often praised aspect of Kirby's character, is the sheer power he wields. It has been stated in in-game flavor text from Kirby: Planet Robobot that Kirby wields nearly infinite power, and most of the final bosses he faces and overcomes in his games are all-powerful deities whose power eclipses that of entire planets, stars, or even entire universes. In Sub-Games meant to test his strength, Kirby has shown to be capable of nearly cracking his own planet in half in Kirby Super Star's Megaton Punch, and sending an oncoming meteor flying 9999 light years away simply with a baseball bat in Kirby Star Allies' Star Slam Heroes. Kirby has notable earned titles such as "The Pink Terror" or "The Pink Demon". This cool badass side of the character is perfectly balanced with his cute kiddy wholesome side.
8. His voice actor, Makiko Ohmoto, does a perfect voice for the character. Her performance may go unappreciated since you don't hear much from him outside of "Hi!" and grunts in the games, but even if they aren't saying much, that doesn't make a character's voice any less important. In the Super Smash Bros. series, Kirby will impersonate certain character's whose abilities he's copied, for example: if Kirby has copied Ryu, Kirby will shout "Hadoken!" when using his ability, which is an extremely nice touch. In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Kirby mostly says "Poyo", but in the original Japanese version of the show, Kirby will shout out the names of his attacks.

Bad Qualities

1. Kirby has been out-of-character at least twice in his games:
   • He was very badly portrayed in Kirby's Avalanche/Kirby's Ghost Trap, becoming a rude, overly sassy and wise-cracking jerk, and in the first game where Kirby is portrayed in a negative light. Although that was a reskin of Puyo Puyo, so chances that it isn't canon are really high.
   • His portrayal in Kirby Squeak Squad is bad too, where he was totally clueless about the threat and only cared about his strawberry shortcake. Thankfully, it was only temporary and he reverted back to his normal personality in the later games.
2. Ironically enough, he isn't the star of the show in Kirby Right Back at Ya!, being made into a cute marketable baby side character in his own anime, with zero agency and having to be told what to do like a Pokémon, in fact, Ash's Pikachu in the anime actually has more personality than Kirby does in Right Back at Ya!.

Trivia

• Kirby was originally named Popopo during the early stages of the development of Kirby's Dream Land, but eventually Nintendo decided to change the name and polled Nintendo of America for suggestions as they wanted the name to appeal to kids outside of Japan. The name 'Kirby' was partially chosen to honor the late John Kirby, an attorney who defended Nintendo in a certain case against Universal, but it was also chosen because of the trend that cute characters normally have soft-sounding names in Japan, but the name 'Kirby' happened to have ''harsh sounds'' to it. Needless to say, the juxtaposition of a cute character with a harsh-sounding name felt amusing to some people.
  • In Japan, Dream Land is called Pupupu Land, which is similar to Kirby's original name. Additionally, the Popopo Islands, the main setting of Kirby Mass Attack, were named in reference to Kirby's original name.
• It's commonly thought among fans that Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario, The Legend Of Zelda and many other iconic Nintendo franchises wanted Kirby to be yellow whilst Masahiro Sakurai insisted on him being pink, and that it's due to this confusion that serves as the reason why Kirby is depicted as white on the American box art for Kirby's Dream Land. This is actually incorrect, as Kirby was pink in various bits of concept art for the game, including some that were made back when he was known as Popopo! As for Miyamoto, he was pleasantly surprised to see Kirby as pink and thought it felt fresh considering how characters like Kirby would normally end up being yellow, citing Pac-Man as an example. In a nod to this misinterpretation, games from Kirby's Dream Course onwards would typically feature a yellow Kirby as a second player. The yellow Kirby seen in Kirby's Dream Course is named Keeby by the developers, though it is unknown if any other yellow Kirbys that have appeared since are also Keeby.
• It is often presumed that only gender-neutral pronouns are used for Kirby in Japanese media and that the idea of him being referred to with he/him pronouns was something invented by the English localization team. However, there are some instances in Japanese media where Kirby is referred to with he/him pronouns, and his overall speaking style often tends to use masculine conventions. That being said, this doesn't necessarily contradict Kirby being a gender-neutral character. More info about this bit of trivia can be found here.
• In some sources, Kirby is stated to have a fear of caterpillars. However, he is much more fond of butterflies and will try to chase them from time to time, making the former point of information a tiny bit ironic.
• Due to Kirby not being able to read the letter given to him by King Dedede and Meta Knight at the beginning of Kirby Fighters 2's story mode, fans jumped to the conclusion that Kirby may be illiterate. While it is a fun headcanon, it is worth noting that the description for Revenge of the King on the Japanese website for Kirby Super Star Ultra suggests that Kirby can read, as he was able to read the letter from Dedede challenging him. With that in mind, it's likely that Kirby couldn't read the letter in Kirby Fighters 2 because of fancy handwriting.
• Of course, Kirby has made various cameos outside of his series just like any other popular video game character; he appeared in the intro of the Super NES game Arcana, showed up as the cursor of EarthBound's debug menu, appeared as an enemy named Anti-Kirby in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and appeared on a movie poster in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, among several other cameo appearances.
• As stated in an obscure interview with Masahiro Sakurai, Kirby doesn't have any bones or teeth. Additionally, he also clarifies that Kirby's feet are (thankfully) not shoes.
• In Japanese media, Kirby actually has a motto! The motto in question is ''tomorrow's wind blows tomorrow'', which as a figure of speech is roughly equivalent to the English phrase ''tomorrow is a new day''. How fitting for someone as optimistic as Kirby.
• Kirby temporarily became square-shaped for an April Fools prank in 2019. When the Kirby JP Twitter announced Kirby's return to normal, it was noted that Kirby may have inhaled something strange, and that something could very well have been Qbby, the protagonist of the BOXBOY! series, who makes a tiny cameo in the image accompanying that very tweet and, in a case of the ol' switcheroo, had become round as opposed to square around the same time. Kirby has also been depicted as being cube-shaped elsewhere, most notably upon copying Steve in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

See Also

• King Dedede, His Royal Nemesis
• Meta Knight, The Lone Swordsman
• Kirby on WiKirby

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