Kirby

Kirby is a fictional character in a series of video games published by Nintendo. He has been the star of a number of namesake games developed by HAL Laboratory. Kirby has also become a popular anime character in recent years. He is voiced by female seiyū Makiko Ohmoto in the Super Smash Bros. series, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and in the anime Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (Kirby of the Stars).

Overview
Kirby is a small spherical creature with large red shoes and stubby arms and trademark red cheek-blushes, typical of Japanese kawaii. He is a fantasy character that was originally named Popopo, and his model was created as a blob placeholder sprite during the development of what would be the first Kirby game. A widespread myth is that Kirby adopted his Western name from the Kirby Corporation, which is a vacuum cleaner company and would suit Kirby and his appetite; however, Kirby was actually named after Nintendo's legal counsel, John Kirby of Latham & Watkins LLP, after John Kirby saved Nintendo during a copyright infringement lawsuit over Donkey Kong filed by Universal Studios. After working with it for a while, creator Masahiro Sakurai started to prefer the placeholder's design over the one they originally had in mind.

Sakurai intended Kirby to be pink. However, Shigeru Miyamoto had envisioned him as yellow. Because of this ambiguity, Nintendo of America was left with a bit of confusion when the game was ported to the West. As a result, the American box art, cartridge label, and instruction booklet for Kirby's Dream Land features Kirby as white. The Japanese box art, however, correctly depicts Kirby as pink. In later games Kirby gained the ability to switch colors. While his appearance and lack of dialogue make his gender ambiguous, several manuals and games have referred to him as male.

Gameplay style
Kirby's signature ability is to inhale enemies with his mouth (which can expand to an incredible size) and swallow them, mimicking their powers. The Kirby games feature an enormous variety of powers to gain. Swallowing one enemy may grant him the power to shoot needles from his body; another may allow him to become a spinning wheel or a fireball. Kirby can also spit out objects that he has sucked up at high velocity or morph them into stars to knock out enemies. Alternatively, the sucking power can be used to suck up air and inflate his body, allowing Kirby to fly. Kirby did not have the power to steal his opponents' abilities in the original 1992 game.

In later games (starting with Kirby's Dream Land 2 on the Game Boy), Kirby was assisted in his quest by three animal friends, Coo the owl, Rick the hamster, and Kine the ocean sunfish. Later, three more animal friends were introduced in Kirby's Dream Land 3. These were Pitch, a small green bird, Chu-Chu, a pink octopus-like blob with a red ribbon on its head, and Nago, a cat.

In some later games, Kirby also gains the ability to summon computer-controlled allies to help him in battle, such as the friendly monsters from Kirby Super Star, Gooey from Kirby's Dream Land 3, or the Mirror Kirbys in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. The E3 trailer for an upcoming GameCube title also features multiple monster helpers, a la Super Star.

Also, Kirby's ball-like form has earned him a place as the ball in a number of sports or arcade type games, such as pinball and golf. (The golf game was actually a remake of a Japan-only golf game using the style of Kirby's games.) His ball-like form is taken advantage of in his latest game, Kirby: Canvas Curse for the Nintendo DS, in which a player uses a magic paintbrush (the stylus) to roll him around.

Kirby's powers
Kirby's main ability is to inhale enemies, items and food, wielding different effects. There are some enemies that Kirby can't take powers of, like Waddle Dee, and Shotzoes. In Kirby's Dream Land, this ability was only used for disposing of enemies or using them as projectiles to defeat other enemies. A new extension of this ability was added in Kirby's Adventure, giving Kirby the ability to steal an enemy's powers by swallowing them. For example, an enemy named Waddle Doo gives Kirby the Beam ability. Kirby generally takes on a hat or other appearance depending on his current power, for example gaining a fiery hat when he has a fire power.

The inhaling ability also allows Kirby to fly, which is one of his most common abilities in the series. Kirby achieves this by inhaling air in order to inflate himself like a balloon, allowing him to float through the air indefinitely. Kirby can also expel the air he uses to float as an attack. In Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Super Smash Bros, Kirby Air Ride, and Super Smash Bros Melee, Kirby's flying ability was limited. Instead of infinite flight, he was now only able to fly for a short period of time before dropping back to the ground, although his flight time is much longer in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. After his first fight with King Dedede, Dedede mastered the ability to inflate himself like a balloon to compete with Kirby.

Another skill, featured only in Kirby Super Star and the Super Smash Bros. series, was Kirby's ability to project a force field around himself to ward off attacks. The appearance of this shield changes when Kirby has certain abilities (for instance, the Ice power lets him shield himself in an ice block, and the Mirror power lets him create a multicolored barrier).

An ability featured in Kirby Super Star which also brought multiplayer to the Kirby series, was the ability to create a helper from Kirby's current power. This helper resembles whatever enemy it was that Kirby's power was stolen from. In Kirby's Dream Land 3 Kirby could also get help from another helper character called Gooey, which like Kirby, could steal enemies' powers by swallowing them. Both Gooey and the helper characters would be computer controlled by default, but if another controller was used, the helper characters could be controlled by another player.

While in Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby did not have the ability to copy powers, there was an item called a "mic" that allowed Kirby to scream into the device once and destroy all the enemies on screen. It only showed up twice during the game, but appeared in later titles as enemies that could grant the player the same power.

Magical Items
The Star Rod is a wand-like item and the ultimate weapon in several Kirby games. It is always used in final boss battles and allows Kirby to cast star-shaped projectiles at his foes. Nightmare once attempted to use it to gain access to Dream Land, but King Dedede thwarted his plans, removed the Star Rod, and broke it into seven pieces to ensure no one could release him. The item is most often used against Cloaked Nightmare and Dark Matter, the most common villains of the Kirby series The Star Rod also appears in Paper Mario as a granter of wishes, and in the Super Smash Bros. series as a randomly appearing weapon with the same abilities as in the Kirby games.
 * Star Rod

All Kirby games contain the Warpstar. Kirby has ridden it through Kirby's Dream Land 2 in order to get from world to world; in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, 'goals' that were required to reach were warpstars. The most prevalent use of the Warpstar was in Kirby Air Ride for the Gamecube. Here, you would begin on a downgraded warpstar, and be able to switch for better versions of the warpstar, such as the Shadow Star and Turbo Star.
 * Warpstar

Kirby in the Super Smash Bros. series
In 1999, Nintendo and HAL Laboratory released a 4-player fighting game called Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 video game system. The game featured eight of Nintendo's mascots (another four characters could be unlocked by various means) duking it out in stages based on each of the eight main characters' series, plus a ninth stage that could be unlocked. The game reached critical acclaim, and a sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee, was released shortly after the launch of Nintendo's next system, the Nintendo GameCube.

In Super Smash Bros., Kirby retained his float ability (in the form of a five-use multi-jump), can swallow other players, allowing him to perform one of their special moves, and had a number of strong combos. Kirby also had his "stone" and "final cutter" abilities from the previous Kirby games. Interestingly, Kirby's ability to create a force-field shield was given to all characters. For a character of his size, Kirby is quite agile and powerful, however his major drawback was his lack of weight, making him relatively easier to knock off the stage with more powerful techniques, such as Smash attacks and charge moves.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee. Kirby gained the new ability to swing a hammer in addition to his previous abilities. However, he was now much lighter and had less attack power. Kirby was voiced by Makiko Ohmoto in Super Smash Bros., and again in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

According to the trailer for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Kirby will be making a return appearance. His rival Meta Knight is also a playable character.

In Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Kirby can use his moves from Super Smash Bros. Melee by defeating and swallowing a scaled-down version of Master Hand, the final boss from both Super Smash Bros. games.

Anime, manga, and other cartoons
Kirby stars in his own anime titled Hoshi no Kābī (Kirby of the Stars). It is currently licensed in North America by 4Kids Entertainment and the Canadian company Nelvana under the title Kirby: Right Back at Ya! and it aired on 4Kids TV, formerly the Fox Box (since 2002, now back on the air), via Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting (since 2001 which has done 100 episodes). It is produced by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory, Inc.

Kirby also starred in his own manga series, which was never released outside Japan. The series, also titled Kirby of the Stars, was written by Hirokazu Hikawa (ひかわ 博一 Hikawa Hirokazu).