The Pink Puffball: Kirby!
Kirby is the titular protagonist of Nintendo and HAL Labratory's Kirby video game series. Kirby's first appearance was Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy in 1992. Since then, Kirby's series has expanded to over thirty video game titles, an animated series, and several comics. The core of the Kirby video game series are traditional platformers, but he's also featured in several action, racing, pinball, and fighting games.
Kirby lives in the country of Dream Land on the Planet Popstar. Cheerful and kindhearted, he often goes out of his way to help others on his adventures. He is even shown to cheerfully greet enemies who cause him trouble, making friends of almost every antagonist from recent games. His adventures take him all across Dream Land and occasionally to nearby planets, where he continually steps up to protect his friends, his home, and sometimes the entire universe.
Some Fun Facts!
- Kirby's design wasn't actually meant to have been a character. The developers wanted to create a cute mascot, and used a simple blob with eyes as a placeholder until they decided on a final design. Until they grew so attached to the little blob that they didn't want to replace it! That's how Kirby's simple design was born.
- Kirby was named in honor of lawyer John Kirby, who defended Nintendo against a lawsuit from Universal over the similarities between Nintendo's Donkey Kong and Universal's King Kong.
- Kirby is only eight inches tall!
- Kirby's signature ability is swallowing enemies to gain their powers. The enemies Kirby swallows aren't digested, instead they are teleported somewhere else on the planet he's on!
- Kirby travels by inhaling air and puffing himself up like a balloon. This cute method of movement also helped the developers avoid creating complex animations for jumping or flying.