ABOUT KIRBY

Kirby is the titular character and protagonist of the Kirby series of video games developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. He first appeared in Kirby's Dream Land (1992), a platform game for the Game Boy. Since then, Kirby has appeared in over 50 games, ranging from action platformers to puzzle, racing, and pinball, and has been featured as a playable character in every installment of the Super Smash Bros. series (1999–present). He has also starred in his own anime and manga series. Since 1999, he has been voiced by Makiko Ohmoto. Kirby's signature skill is his ability to inhale objects or creatures and spit them out as projectiles, as well as the ability to suck in air to float over obstacles. His Copy Ability grants him the power to adopt the abilities of the creatures he inhales, while also wearing various costumes or transforming his shape. He uses these abilities to rescue various lands, such as his homeworld Planet Popstar, from evil forces and antagonists, such as Dark Matter or Nightmare. On these adventures, he often crosses paths with his rivals, King Dedede and Meta Knight. In virtually all of his appearances, Kirby is depicted as a cheerful, innocent, and food-loving character. Kirby has been regarded as one of the most iconic video game characters, as well as one of its cutest and most lovable. He has achieved high popularity with gamers in Japan. He has also been praised for being one of the most versatile characters, due to starring in a large catalogue of games that cuts across a variety of video game genres. Concept and creation Kirby was created by Masahiro Sakurai as the player character of the 1992 video game Kirby's Dream Land. Sakurai conceived the idea around May 1990 at the age of 19 while he was working at HAL Laboratory. The character's design was intended to serve as a placeholder graphic for the game's original protagonist in early development and thus was given a simplistic ball-like appearance. Sakurai switched to the placeholder design after deciding that it served the character better. The character was known as Popopo (ポポポ) during development, as the first game was planned to be titled Harukaze Popopo (lit. "Spring Breeze Popopo", or "Popopo of the Spring Breeze"). The game was later renamed to Twinkle Popo; however, after Nintendo became involved in its release, Nintendo and HAL chose to change the name of the game and its protagonist so that it would appeal to Western audiences. The name "Kirby" was chosen from a list of potential names provided by Nintendo of America. Shigeru Miyamoto stated that "Kirby" was chosen partly in honor of American lawyer John Kirby, who defended Nintendo in the Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. case, and partly because the harsh-sounding name contrasted amusingly with the character's cute appearance. Reflecting on Kirby's design, Sakurai said that he wanted to create "a cute main character who everyone will love". Satoru Iwata added that Kirby was given a simple, circular design so that anyone would be able to draw him. The BBC quoted Negative World: "Kirby has a great design. He's expressive, iconic, instantly-recognisable, and easy for kids to draw." Kirby appears white in Kirby's Dream Land due to the grayscale palette of the Game Boy system. Sakurai always intended the character to be pink, though this was unknown to the development team at first; in particular, Miyamoto thought that Kirby would have been yellow based upon similar characters, but thought that pink was a more distinctive choice. Kirby appears white in the game's North American promotional materials and artwork to reflect the character's in-game appearance. Miyamoto's color choice was repurposed in some games for secondary players. In a miniseries on YouTube where he discussed the development of Kirby's Dream Land, Sakurai said that he wanted Kirby to fly because he thought it would be unfair for the player to lose a life by missing a jump. He also had the idea of Kirby using his tongue to grab enemies similarly to Yoshi, but then decided to have him inhale and spit them out instead. For the development of the second game titled Kirby's Adventure, Iwata said that the team had started with over 40 abilities before reducing them to the number in the final game. These originally included the ability to shrink, create blocks, ride a rocket, and also an animal ability that involved scratching and biting enemies. HAL Laboratory executive director, Shinya Kumazaki said that Kirby is a neutral character, designed to reflect the player's emotions in the game, and for this reason, he does not express strong emotions that could conflict with the player. For a period of time beginning with 2002's Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby consistently appeared in North American promotional material with a more serious expression than in Japan, where his expression was cheerful. Kumazaki said that the more battle-ready appearance was intended to appeal to a wider audience in North America, based on feedback and market research from Nintendo of America. Discussing Kirby's portrayal in Nightmare in Dream Land, Sakurai said that Kirby's voice acting had been purposefully restricted because clear speech would have seemed unnatural for a pixelated sprite character, and could typecast him as a particular type of character. Kirby's spherical shape presented certain challenges when transitioning him to a 3D character. Tatsuya Kamiyama at HAL Laboratory explained that it was difficult to determine which direction he was facing when viewed from behind, which meant that facing enemies correctly in order to inhale and spit them out could create frustration. This was particularly problematic for ranged attacks, so for Kirby and the Forgotten Land a subtle, automatic homing system was developed to help the player target nearby enemies. Kumazaki said that the Mouthful Mode concept began by asking what Kirby is and exploring his shape-shifting nature, as the team wanted him to have inhuman abilities. He also said that although Kirby's Mouthful Mode appears to give him the ability to hold anything in his mouth, there are rules governing what he can swallow. During development, the team focused on defining the different shapes he could make and what he could do with the shapes, rather than giving him new powers. He also explained that the core concept of each game in the series is to make Kirby the hero, although the character has no aspirations or sense of morality due to being a pure, blank slate character.