Kirby, the cutest pink ball in the world, is a fictional character designed by Masahiro Sakurai, a development director of HAL Laboratory. Kirby is a protagonist of the Kirby video game series, which has released over thirty titles ranging from action platformers to puzzles, racing, and pinball. The series mainly centers around the adventure of Kirby as he fights to protect Dream Land. However, most of the time, saving Dream Land is not the main purpose of Kirby's journey. In Kirby: Squeak Squad, he sets out to get his stolen cake back, and he is only thinking about the cake even when fighting the final boss. In Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, he breaks the curse to eat apples.
Kirby has a pink and round body that can stretch, flatten, inflate like a balloon, and even bounce like a ball. His height is around 20cm. In the original setting, Kirby's gender is said to be unknown. However, Kirby is generally considered a boy due to the use of 'he' as a personal pronoun. Meanwhile, he participated in Hina matsuri (Girl's Festival) as an empress doll and dressed as a princess in “Kirby Hunters Z,” leaving his gender a mystery.
Kirby was initially a young traveler from a distant planet. However, since he rescued Dream Land from a food crisis caused by King Dedede, he has been living there. Kirby's tiny white house was built by the citizens as a show of appreciation.
Kirby is cheerful, innocent, and free-spirited. He acts spontaneously and lives by his motto, tomorrow is another day. Kirby enjoys eating, sleeping, and singing; however, his singing skill is deadly. In the game, Kirby kills all the enemies shown on the screen by singing. Kirby's favorite foods are tomatoes and apples. He can eat almost anything: houses, trains, rotten food, health bars, humans, and even his friends. However, a caterpillar is one of the few things he can't eat. Kirby despises caterpillars, due to his old trauma of finding a caterpillar crawling inside an apple he was eating.
Kirby has a strong sense of justice and loves to help others in need. He is so pure that he doesn't doubt others, and there were times when his pureness got taken advantage of. Despite his kindness, Kirby can be stubborn and violent at times. He shows absolutely no mercy towards his enemies, even if they are his friends who are brainwashed. In “Revenge of Meta Knight,” he charged into Battleship Halberd just to beat Meta Knight up, even after completely wrecking the battleship until it was about to crash. Moreover, Kirby tends to blame all troubles in Dream Land on King Dedede and instantly beats him. In “Kirby's Adventure,'' he undid the seal that King Dedede had done, from believing King Dedede to be the cause of the trouble, and freed Nightmare, the actual cause.
Kirby can't kill enemies by stepping on them like Mario. Even touching enemies can cause Kirby damage. However, he can copy his enemies' skills by swallowing them. He can also inhale enemies or objects and spit them out as star-shaped bullets. His ability to copy the enemy's traits allows him a variety of ways to fight. He even mixed multiple skills to make a new one in “Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.” Kirby can also inhale air to hover above the ground. In “Kirby's Dream Land,” he inflated into the size of a hot air balloon by inhaling air and lifted King Dedede's castle. Under the water, Kirby fights by spitting out water like a water gun. Since Kirby's Return to Dream Land, he wears swimming goggles or puts on a swim ring when in water. Because Kirby couldn't copy others' abilities in “Kirby's Dream Land,” he mainly fought using items; he ate curry rice to breathe fire and sweet potato to fire air bullets repeatedly.
Kirby, the cutest pink hero of Dream Land, is very innocent and cheerful yet violent. However, it is the violence that makes him even more charming. Kirby is no doubt the best character existent and should be respected like a god.
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(Image: https://www.kirby.jp/)
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