Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Japanese promotional poster
星のカービィ (Hoshi no Kābī)
Genre	Comedy, fantasy
Created by	Masahiro Sakurai
Anime television series
Directed by	Sōji Yoshikawa Mitsuo Kusakabe Yōichi Kotabe (supervisor)
Produced by	Satoru Iwata Taihei Yamanashi Seiichi Hirano Takeyuki Okazaki
Written by	Sōji Yoshikawa
Music by	Akira Miyagawa
Studio	Studio Sign Studio Comet (cooperation)
Licensed by	NA: 4Kids Entertainment (2002–2006)
Original network	CBC, TBS
English network	AU: Network 10 UK: Pop US: Fox (Fox Box/4Kids TV) (2002–2006)
Original run	October 6, 2001 – September 27, 2003
Episodes	100

Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, known in Japan as Kirby of the Stars (星のカービィ, Hoshi no Kābī, Japanese pronunciation: [hoɕi no kaːbʲiː]), is a Japanese anime series based on Nintendo's Kirby franchise. Produced by Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting, Dentsu, A-UN Entertainment and Studio Sign, it was directed by Sōji Yoshikawa and Mitsuo Kusakabe, with Yoshikawa handling series composition, Miyuki Shimabukuro designing the characters, Kazuo Iimura serving as chief animation director, and Akira Miyagawa composing the music. The series ran for one hundred episodes on CBC and TBS, from October 2001 to September 2003 in Japan. In the United States, the show aired on Fox Box, beginning in September 2002. Episodes have also been released on the Kirby TV Channel for the Wii game console (only in Europe), and on the game compilation Kirby's Dream Collection (also for the Wii).

The anime follows Kirby, a pink, spherical, childlike creature who does not speak coherent words but possesses the ability to take on new magical powers temporarily by sucking up their owners. Kirby crash-lands on a planet called Popstar and quickly befriends two yellow-skinned siblings named Tiff and Tuff. Over the course of the series, Kirby and his friends fight to bring down evil emperor Nightmare, all the while evading King Dedede and his assistant Escargoon, who try to get rid of Kirby using numerous monsters provided by NightMare Enterprises.

Plot

Tens of thousands of years ago, an evil emperor of darkness known as Nightmare created a biological weapon in the form of armies of monsters, and sent it all over the universe to conquer it. However, as he kept creating them, some of them began to rebel against Nightmare. Then, Sir Meta Knight and other freedom- and peace-loving, righteous Star Warriors formed the Galaxy Soldier Army in order to bring down Nightmare and stood to combat his evil. However, the soldier army caved under the inexhaustible supply of the monsters. While the few surviving Star Warriors were relegated to the fringes of the universe, they were looking for new ways to defeat Nightmare. Meanwhile, Nightmare established a corporate empire, NightMare Enterprises, which systematically and efficiently created monsters and expanded its own power by selling them to large and small villains and money-hungry rich people throughout the universe.

Eventually, somewhere in the galaxy, the next generation of Star Warriors, Kirby, is born. Kirby was to gain strength against Nightmare as he slept in a spaceship he had acquired from parts unknown. However, the Star Warrior's spacecraft has the ability to automatically go to the planet where the monsters are located, and when the spacecraft catches the presence of Planet Popstar's monsters, it wakes Kirby up two hundred years ahead of schedule, and the inexperienced, clueless and baby-like Kirby, is unable to control the spacecraft as it crash-lands in Pupu Village (Cappy Town in the English dub). After crash-landing, Kirby makes friends with siblings Tiff and Tuff in the English dub and others in Cappy Town, and with their help, he was assigned to fight the monsters to overthrow Nightmare.

The ruler of Dream Land, King Dedede, is jealous and suspicious of Kirby from the start. He and his right-hand man Escargoon constantly try to get rid of Kirby with monsters provided by the company for a high fee, and ultimately, their plans always backfire when Kirby interferes. Just as in the games, Kirby can inhale enemies and temporarily gain their powers, transforming into forms such as Fire Kirby and Sword Kirby.

Kirby grows and becomes stronger before his final battle with Nightmare. In the end when Kirby and Tiff face Nightmare, which is in a dream, Tiff throws the Warp Star at Kirby, who swallows it and becomes Star Rod Kirby. Star Rod Kirby has the Star Rod which is Nightmare's sole weakness, allowing Kirby to defeat him.

Characters

Kirby (カービィ, Kābī)

Voiced by: Makiko Ohmoto (Japanese); Amy Birnbaum (certain lines) (English)

Kirby is a young Star Warrior. He is spoken of in legend as Kirby of the Stars, because a Star Warrior's ship is designed to go wherever monsters are. Kirby's ship detected the creatures Dedede was ordering and he was awakened 200 years before schedule. Due to this early awakening he is still only a child. He does not speak a word, mainly only saying "poyo." This is to avoid giving him a fixed impression, as Kirby is a game character whose image differs from one player to another. However, he can speak simple words, such as the names of people and food, in baby talk. In the original games (mainly in the instruction manual of the earlier games), he is merely established as "young", but in the anime, he is established as something close to a baby. He may shout the name of a special move in combat, but this is set up as his internal voice getting through to him, not him actually speaking (although this is not shown in the English dub). Most of his combat techniques in the show are copy abilities only. There are a total of 29 types of abilities: 24 from the games, 4 exclusive to the show (Baton, Water, Iron, and Top), and 1 from the special episode (Kabuki).

Tiff (フーム, Fūmu)

Voiced by: Sayuri Yoshida (Japanese); Kerry Williams (English)

Tiff is the daughter of the Cabinet Minister. She has lived in Dedede's castle her entire life due to the wealth of her parents. She's very intelligent for her age, with much of her interest being in the environment, with her favorite subject being marine biology. She can also be short-tempered and definitely speaks her mind on things, especially when she thinks King Dedede is up to no good, though sometimes her intelligence is scoffed by the fellow Cappies. Tiff is the only one who can summon Kirby's Warp Star when he is in danger, for Meta Knight said that Kirby cannot keep it safe himself, so she can control it because she truly cares for him.

Tuff (ブン, Bun)

Voiced by: Rika Komatsu (Japanese); Kayzie Rogers (English)

Tuff is the younger brother of Tiff, who sports shaggy hair with hidden arcane eyes (oddly never mentioned by his friends). He is in many ways her complete opposite, preferring to play outside rather than read books. He can be quite a troublemaker, even when he's really trying to help, usually tending to fall short to Dedede's schemes. He is typically impetuous and always getting into mischief, such as pulling pranks and cracking jokes but is now friends with Kirby, even though he gets jealous of him sometimes.

Tokkori (トッコリ)

Voiced by: Fujiko Takimoto (Japanese); Kevin Kolack (English)

Tokkori is a selfish bird that uses Kirby for protection purposes. His first appearance in the anime is the very beginning of the first episode as a cameo, sleeping. In A Blockbuster Battle, when a storm comes and Kirby needs to find shelter, he accidentally takes Tokkori's nest. When Kirby needs a job, King Dedede tells Tokkori to sabotage Kirby's attempts to find work. At the end, Tiff and Tuff build a little house for Kirby. In the third episode, Tuff finds that Tokkori took Kirby's house. Now, he rarely lets Kirby sleep in the house or just lets him in for some rest while he watches Channel DDD. However, he has shown kindness towards Kirby, even if it's in a superficial way. In "Buccaneer Birdy", Tokkori is believed to be a descendant of a royal bird called Lord James Coleet that belonged to an old pirate named Captain Kick. However, this is revealed to not be the case, but Tiff alters the picture upon discovering the truth so that the Cappies still think it is true. Nevertheless, Tokkori refuses to be seen as royalty anymore, once again preferring to have things to complain about.

King Dedede (デデデ大王, Dedede Daiō)

Voiced by: Kenichi Ogata (Japanese); Ted Lewis (English)

King Dedede is the self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land. Despite the fact Dedede is greedy, scheming, jealous of Kirby, and even outright sadistic, even going as far as to say that people's suffering amuses him, no one has ever tried to dethrone him, despite the fact that he also commonly threatens the children and environment. He's actually harmless for the most part, but his intense dislike of Kirby compels him to purchase monsters from Holy Nightmare Inc. and cause mayhem for the people of Dream Land. He loves buying new "toys" and acts like a spoiled child, despite his age. He is often jealous of the attention Kirby gets, and while at first he even wanted to defeat Kirby, later he focuses more on trying to kick him out or just make him look bad. He is portrayed as someone who is essentially good in the original games, merely childish and selfish, but in the anime he is portrayed as someone who can do some pretty bad deeds without hesitation. He is also depicted as a dictator who mostly abuses the absolute monarchy, but just like in the games, he comes off as gentle at heart. In addition, while the game version of Meta Knight has become more of an ally since the anime, King Dedede's personality has not changed in the games.

Escargoon (エスカルゴン, Esukarugon)

Voiced by: Naoki Tatsuta (Japanese); Ted Lewis (English)

Escargoon, an anthropomorphic snail, lived with his mother on a farm before leaving to make it big. But despite the fact Escargoon is well-educated, knowing a great deal about chemistry and electronics (even writing a book on botany), he's been working for Dedede for many years as an assistant and punching bag. But it seems that he truly cares for the king and is always concerned for his welfare, despite the abuse he receives from him on a daily basis. While Escargoon usually goes along with what Dedede wants and helps him with his schemes, he may actually be a nice guy at heart who only acts mean because he wants Dedede's approval.

Customer Service (カスタマーサービス, Kasutamā Sābisu)

Voiced by: Banjō Ginga (Japanese); Dan Green (English)

As the public face of NightMare Enterprises, he handles much of the company's sales (and advertising) from the center of Nightmare's Fortress. In both the Japanese and English versions he can be quite sarcastic, and enjoys finding ways to make things difficult for King Dedede, although he is much more subtle about it in the original. In the English dub, he went through a drastic personality change; his persona is more that of the stereotypical "slimy used-car salesman", using a large amount of slang. In the original, his image is that of a polite Japanese salesperson, using a large amount of honorific language (even when he insults customers like Dedede). The English dub makes it seem like he wants nothing more but to defraud or swindle Dedede for every nickel he has, rather than actually helping him.

Meta Knight (メタナイト, Meta Naito)

Voiced by: Atsushi Kisaichi (Japanese); Eric Stuart (English)

Meta Knight works for Dedede as well, along with his followers Sword Knight and Blade Knight. However, it is revealed that Meta Knight is a Star Warrior like Kirby, and one of the only ones to survive the war with Nightmare. He carries the sacred sword Galaxia, which only a select few can wield, and is the second strongest Star Warrior in the galaxy, after Kirby. He is portrayed as one of the coolest characters in the anime, which is dominated by characters with comical appearances. Though he has appeared as an enemy in all of the earlier game titles, in the anime, he is an ally of Kirby and his friends (until the third episode, he is portrayed as neither friend nor foe). The bat-like wings shown in the original games and the true face under his mask are not shown in the series. In most of the scenes in which he appears, he wraps his lower body in his own cloak, and he is rarely shown with his cloak hanging down as in the games, and does not show his lower body, hands, or sword unless it is necessary for combat or other purposes. Also, while his personality in the games is cool and single-minded, in addition to those traits in the anime, he is occasionally portrayed as mischievous, airheaded, mysterious, and narcissistic. As mentioned above, the character has become more of an ally since the anime.

Nightmare (ナイトメア, Naitomea)

Voiced by: Banjō Ginga (Japanese); Andrew Rannells (English)

Nightmare (known as eNeMeE in the English dub) is the main antagonist of the series and the president of NightMare Enterprises. Nightmare only appears in the shadows for most of the series. His full form is only seen at the very end of the penultimate episode and in the series finale. Very little is known about him or his origins, but as his name suggests, he is a living nightmare. He thrives on suffering, creating monsters to sell in his company and use in his armies to continue his conquest of the universe in order to bring himself more power. He also gives off the illusion of being invincible, since he can open his cloak and suck all attacks into the area where his stomach and chest should be.

Episodes

Production

The original creator of the franchise Masahiro Sakurai was in charge of supervising the series, and the planning and production of the project began around 2000, coinciding with the development of Super Smash Bros. Melee. In an interview with Famitsu, Sakurai said, "I've had a lot of involvement in the production of the animation. We aim to create an anime that both parents and children can enjoy just as much as the games. In the beginning, Kirby started out as a game that even beginners could enjoy. I think that spirit has been carried over to the anime as well."^[1] He became friends with the cast and staff, and they held a birthday party for him when the day of voice recording for the final episodes happened to coincide with it.

Director Sōji Yoshikawa spoke at length about the challenges faced by the creators of the show. He expressed concern as most video game to anime adaptations do not go well, but as time went on, he says he began to see a character with strength, and felt it could be successful. He adds how difficult it was to have a main character who does not speak, as well as coming up with entirely unique settings and characters. Kirby is unusual in that it has no humans in the cast, and he likens it to the Finnish series Moomins, which was quite popular in Japan.^[2]

In the beginning, the background music was all original anime music composed by Akira Miyagawa, but from episode 34 onwards, BGM from previous games was also used. The songs that appeared most often came mainly from Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby Super Star, arranged to fit the anime's style. Furthermore, around the time of the release of Kirby Air Ride, the background music for it was heavily used as well. Kirby Air Ride also included some songs imported directly from the anime, with one of these songs, “Checker Knights” later being featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (with Miyagawa credited). Some of the arranged songs are included in the Kirby & the Amazing Mirror Sound+ music CD. After the anime ended, some of its character and copy ability-related traits were later used in the games.

The series occasionally makes use of 3DCG rendering for characters such as Kirby, King Dedede and Escargoon. Those segments were created in Softimage 3D and handled by A-UN Entertainment, with employees from Overlord Inc. also moving to A-UN to help with production. By applying the advanced synthesis technology that Nintendo and HAL Laboratory have created in the development of video game software to the production of the anime, they were able to eliminate the uncanny valley effect caused by combining hand-drawn and 3DCG animation. For some of the episodes that Studio Comet participated in the production of as animation production support, the Studio Comet CG department produced some of the 3DCG segments on its own. While many anime works use digital technology primarily to save money and shorten production time, this series makes the most of the new methods of expression afforded by digital tools. In the ending credits of the final episode, the names of most of the people involved in A-UN's 3DCG production up to that point appeared in the 3DCG-related staff section.

Before the main series aired on TV, a single short episode was produced as a pilot, and a DVD including it was distributed as a supplement in the game magazine Famitsu Cube+Advance (a now defunct sister magazine to Famitsu) to celebrate the release of Kirby Air Ride in Japan. It was made entirely in 3DCG, except for the backgrounds and some effects. Compared to the main series, the content of the pilot was much more closely aligned with the original action games, with boss characters from the games that did not appear in the main anime, and Meta Knight being an enemy. In addition, Kirby's design is from the Kirby's Adventure era, and the world itself has a different look as well. The pilot has no dialogue.

4Kids adaptation

The English dub often removed any visible text.

The anime was licensed by 4Kids Productions and dubbed into English for North America under the title Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. On the official English website, there was also a manga based on the actual anime, reminiscent of American comics at the time. In the adaptation process, the show was heavily edited: content that was deemed inappropriate for American and Canadian audiences, such as the scenes in episode 2 where King Dedede fires the cannon on an armored vehicle and Kirby works in the village pub and prison, ended up cut out completely. There are also several other deleted or shortened scenes, such as the scene where Tuff and his friends throw fireworks at Escargoon's parade in episode 13, the scene where the facility catches fire in episode 29 and 46, the scene where King Dedede burns a book in episode 38, the scene where Kirby and King Dedede are squeezed in episode 61, and the scene where Customer Service screams in the final episode. The Galaxy Soldier Army subplot was removed entirely, and all soldiers are referred to as Star Warriors. The final episodes (episodes 96 to 100 in Japan) were not aired on TV, but were released on DVD only in the form of Kirby: Fright to the Finish!!.

Some of the signs and writings, even those originally in English, were removed. The design of the armored car that King Dedede rode in episodes 1 to 34 had a military camouflage color scheme in Japan, but the American version has an orange and yellow color scheme. Art works resembling Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo etc. in episode 77 have been changed so that it is difficult to associate them with them. A lot of dialogue has been changed, for example in episode 29, Monsieur Goan now speaks normally, and the equivalents of intense spiciness have been changed to "volcano," "pepperoni," "Mexico," etc. The sounds of non-verbal animals, such as the sheep on the village mayor's ranch, as in Pokémon, have also been dubbed. The sheep in the Japanese version make a "meh" sound, while in the American version they make a "baa" sound. Makiko Ohmoto's performance of Kirby is the only voice that was preserved in almost the entirety of the English dub, much like Ikue Ōtani's voicework as Pikachu.

The Japanese score was completely replaced by music produced locally and independently at 4Kids. In some cases, some songs from the shows that have previously aired on 4Kids TV, were reused in this show. Some of the sound effects have been replaced as well, for example in episode 60, the sound of Sirica's weapons (machine guns, bazookas, etc.) firing has been changed, and conversely, during the Sirica vs. Meta Knight one-on-one fight scene, there is an additional metallic sound when their swords clash with each other.

Some episodes were aired out of their original order, sometimes to put a holiday-themed episode closer to that holiday or to coincide with an event that was happening at the time. For example, "A Novel Approach", which parodied the Harry Potter books, was moved to air in conjunction with one of the real books' release. Sometimes episodes were aired earlier to advertise new Kirby games, one example took episodes 96 and 97, "Crisis of the Warp Star" from the finale of the series and aired them near the middle as the television special "Air Ride in Style" to advertise the Kirby Air Ride game for the GameCube. Because these episodes were at a major climax in the show, certain scenes from the special were edited to make it look like Tiff and Kirby were having a "prophetic dream" rather than the events actually happening. The episodes were placed in the original order and sans these edits for the Kirby: Fright to the Finish!! DVD of the final episodes.

Michael Haigney originally stated in an interview that the Fox Network would not let it air the episode "A Dental Dilemma" because it shows dentists in a bad light and could scare children, although it was meant to encourage children to brush their teeth and go to a dentist if they thought they had a cavity.^[3] This applied to all other countries that used the 4Kids dub as well. The episode did eventually get dubbed, but it was aired under a third season, along with some other episodes in the line-up.

Home video releases

Reception

David Sanchez from GameZone found the show "awesome" and specifically praised Escargoon, whom he called "one of the best contributions to the Kirby franchise thanks to his dimwitted attitude and obvious stupidity" and suggested should be in the fourth Super Smash Bros. game.^[24] However, Common Sense Media described the English dub as "a stab at educational value, but really all about fighting monsters",^[25] Christina Carpenter from THEM Anime described the show as "more pandering kiddy fluff from the Fox Box".^[26] Bamboo Dong of Anime News Network cited Kirby: Right Back at Ya! as one of several examples of anime series that "exist only to be made fun of" and stated that "the series really isn't that good at all" and would only be enjoyed by loyal Kirby fans.^[27]

See also

• F-Zero: GP Legend
• Pokémon
• Sonic X

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Kirby: Right Back at Ya!.

• Hoshi no Kirby official website (CBC)
• Hoshi no Kirby official website (Nintendo)
• Hoshi no Kirby official website (Tokyo MX)
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya! at IMDb
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia