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Kirby, Kirby, Kirby!
That's the name you should know!
Kirby, Kirby, Kirby!
He’s the star of the show!
He's more than you think! He's got maximum pink!
Kirby, Kirby, Kirby's the one!
English theme song

Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (Hoshi no Kaabii in Japanese, meaning Kirby of the Stars) is an anime adaptation of Nintendo's Kirby series. Running from October 6, 2001 to September 27, 2003, it was notably a joint production by Nintendo and the original series developer HAL Laboratory (Warpstar, Inc.), with direct involvement from game series creator Masahiro Sakurai. 4Kids Entertainment handled the dub, which ran in the United States and Canada from September 14, 2002 to December 9, 2006. A bonus episode, "Kirby 3D", was additionally aired on Wii no Ma on August 9th, 2009; it was later released in two parts in the US and Canada via Nintendo Video in January 2012.

In the first episode, Kirby crashes into Pop Star and lands in the country of Dream Land. King Dedede does not like the newcomer and does everything he can to eliminate Kirby. His methods come in the form of ordering monsters from the mysterious NightMare Enterprises (Holy Nightmare Corporation in Japanese) to fit whatever crazy schemes he comes up with. Along the way, Kirby befriends Tiff (Fumu in Japanese), the Cabinet Minister's daughter, and her brother, Tuff (Bun in Japanese) who help him to get settled in their village.

Kirby and his friends spend the episodes foiling Dedede's plans, battling the monsters he orders, undoing whatever damage he caused to Cappy Town (Pupu Village in Japanese), and the series follows their day-to-day antics whenever they're not doing any of the above. The series is episodic in nature, although it has several sequential episodes.

In 2011, Nintendo released the Kirby TV Channel in Europe, a free downloadable Wii channel allowing Wii owners to watch a constantly rotating set of episodes from the entire anime. In 2012, a 3D version of a special episode was released on the Nintendo 3DS. And in 2022, during the Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Festival, it was announced the series was getting an official HD Blu-Ray release in Japan, which was released on March 14, 2023.

Show Within a Show Dedede: Comin' at Ya! now has a Just for Fun page.


This anime contains examples of:

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    Tropes # to C 
  • 0% Approval Rating:
    • "Dedede: Comin' At Ya!" explicitly manages an approval rating of less than 1%.
    • King Dedede is so hated, that at one point, he is cursed to not react to anything, and is practically comatose throughout the whole episode. Everybody starts lining up to beat the crap out of him (though this may be because no one knew why Dedede was so different and were trying to see if he really couldn't be made mad)
    • It is revealed in one episode that every civilian is granted an Appreciation Day...except King Dedede who expectedly doesn't do anything to be appreciative about. Even his minions draw the line at celebrating him outright. Granted twice over in the episode he is thrown a bone out of pity, though both backfire and lead to Dedede getting on everyone's bad side even more.
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
    • All over the place, especially during Kirby's transformation sequences. For half of the show, Dedede and Escargoon are CG, and Kirby is almost always CG (with a few exceptions). Dedede's cape/robe does manage to avert No Flow in CGI however.
    • Lampshaded subtly in an episode involving different ways of animating.
    • Dyna Blade's appearances had her in nothing but CGI, and with a more realistic style. Considering she's an almost-godlike being, the effect isn't jarring.
    • The show switched to an All-CGI Cartoon with the Nintendo 3DS short, though considering that 2D doesn't translate well to 3D, it works.
  • 24-Hour Armor: Meta Knight, Sword, and Blade sleep with their armor on. And they're never seen taking care of it, either. It just magically repairs itself or something.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Meta Knight's sword Galaxia. It completely slices through the regenerating claws of Kirisakin whereas a normal blade cannot.
  • Accent Adaptation: The dub gives a number of characters accents they didn't have equivalents for in the original.
    • Dedede is given a Foghorn Leghorn-like southern accent.
    • Meta Knight is a Dashing Hispanic, clearly taking inspiration from Zorro.
      • In Super Smash Bros. Brawl and subsequent installments, his Spanish accent returns, albeit greatly toned down and with a deeper, more ominous pitch.
    • Tokkori has the voice of a child in the original but has the voice of an old prospector in the dub.
    • Rick is given a strong Australian accent and uses stereotypical Australian slang, casually referring to other characters as "mates" and "blokes".
  • Actor Allusion:
    • In one episode, Escargoon reads Dedede his fortune, which says "If you go looking for trouble, your trouble will double". It is very similar to a line in Team Rocket's Motto, of which Ted Lewis, who played Escargoon also played the original James.
    • The Mayor already sounds like Dr. Eggman thanks to Mike Pollock, but the first school episode had him teaching chemistry under the effects of a hat that turns its wearers into a Sadist Teacher, effectively making him a Mad Scientist.
  • Adaptational Dumbass:
    • Kirby in the games was gullible and impulsive, sure, but there, he was still competent and self-reliant to take on danger. But here, he is considerably less intelligent, much more naive, and has to be told by his friends to inhale things. Justified, in the case that he's a baby.
    • King Dedede wasn't a super genius in the games, but he as still fairly intelligent - albeit a bit childish - and usually takes action whenever something threatens Popstar. But here, he's a complete moron who fails to see the chaos and destruction the monsters he summons from Nightmare Enterprises cause. For comparison, King Dedede from the games is quick to find out about Nightmare's plans to take control of the Fountain of Dreams, while it took this Dedede until "Combat Kirby", the penultimate episode of the show, to finally see how dangerous Nightmare truly is. Even more, he still tries to order monsters even after Nightmare and his empire are destroyed at the end of the series.
  • Adaptation Expansion: Many mid-boss characters and even normal enemies from the games are fleshed out and given backstories.
  • Adaptation Personality Change: King Dedede of the games is usually an Anti-Villain, committing petty acts of villainy at worst and often teaming up with Kirby. Here, Dedede is a more actively antagonistic and callous tyrant (if still ineffectual) and his redeeming moments are more few and in between. Meanwhile, Meta Knight, more a Hero Antagonist in the games, is Kirby's ally and mentor from the beginning of the anime.
  • Adaptational Badass: Most of the monsters that do appear in the games are simply Mooks that Kirby can easily dispatch even without a copy ability. Here, not so much. Some notable examples are:
    • The Waddle Dees when they enter Unstoppable Rage mode.
    • The only things that Whispy Woods can do in the games are blow wind and toss apples at you. Here, he can whip and wrap his enemies with his roots. He can also grow back from a single apple and replenish the whole forest in a single day with just the aforementioned apples.
    • Sasukes in the games are very similar to Waddle Dees, but the sole individual Sasuke in this series is an expert in firearms and explosives, with a new Hair-Trigger Temper to match.
    • Masher, already a tough enemy in the games, is heralded as the strongest of the monsters, and for good reason. It's also the only one to return after its defeat, and when it does, it's stronger than ever.
    • There's also Nightmare. In his debut game, he was merely a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere who simply contaminated the Fountain of Dreams to spread nightmares across Dream Land. Here, he's a feared Physical God who has his own business that sells monsters that even nearly succeeded in conquering the universe.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Several bosses and mini-bosses from the games such as Chef Kawasaki, Whispy Woods, and Fololo (Lololo) and Falala (Lalala) act as friends to Kirby, though the former two once attempted to cook Kirby for zebon and buried him in apples respectively after King Dedede deceived them both.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: The Cappies. They were recurring enemies in the game, in the anime they are generally nice (although one is a jailbird, arrested for petty thefts).
  • Adaptational Villainy: King Dedede, to some extent. While his original self in the video games is also a petty but Laughably Evil antagonist to Kirby, he has more nicer moments and more times when he genuinely tries to help Kirby fight a more serious enemy than Dedede in the anime does.
  • Adaptational Skill: Inverted. In the games, King Dedede trained himself to be capable of mimicking Kirby's inhale and flight skill. In the anime, he has neither skill and relies exclusively on his hammer.
  • Adaptational Wimp:
    • The plot of "A fish called Kine" only works because Kine had the ability to survive out of water removed.
    • In the games King Dedede is a powerhouse whose strength rivals that of Kirby, whereas in the anime he is a complete pushover who needs outside help to take anyone on. He doesn't even bother fighting Kirby himself when the Monster of the Week is defeated.
    • There's also Meta Knight. He isn't as strong as in the games, most notably lacking his game counterpart's Cape Wings, and doesn't do most of the fighting against the monsters Dedede sends to attack Kirby, usually letting the pink puffball do it himself, likely so he'll become stronger. Though this is likely justified, since he's been at war with Nightmare for years and is most likely reaching his limits.
    • Downplayed with Kirby. Even though the first game didn't have Copy Abilities, he was still competent enough to beat the snot out of Dedede and free all of Dream Land's food. Here, though, he's a punching bag until he gets a hold of a Copy Ability, and needs Tiff to tell him to inhale an enemy before he fights. Justified, since he's only a baby and can't fight without encouragement.
    • A less subtle example, Nightmare. In the games, he can take multiple hits from the Star Rod. But in the anime, he goes down in exactly one strike from it.
  • Adapted Out: Despite being based on the earlier games (mainly from Kirby's Dream Land), certain elements, characters, and locations are removed completely.
    • Bosses such as Kaboola and Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright are missing in this adaptation (although Mr. Shine and Bright's design make an appearance in episode 9 as the rods wielded by Slice n' Splice).
  • Adults Are Useless: Appears to be the norm with the Cappy residents. This is subverted every couple episodes though, most often with Mabel and Chef Kawasaki.
  • Alternate Continuity: Implied, given that many individual characters are based on what should be common species, and that many returning game characters have different roles.
  • Alternative Foreign Theme Song: See American Kirby Is Hardcore below.
  • Always a Live Transmission: In the episode "Cartoon Buffoon", Dedede gets a bunch of the residents of Cappy Town to work for him to make a cartoon. On the day the cartoon premieres, he and the crew have the animation broadcast and the voice work done and recorded live on television. This also applies to the cartoon that Dedede has his own soldiers make for him at the end of the episode after the first cartoon bombs, since his minions are actually drawing and inking in Real Time while feeding the projector.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Monsters are always evil, with a few exceptions. The Robotic Dog, until its programming kicked in, Lola who was deemed useless and split in two, Hardy, whose only job was to do dental work, and the unknown monster which may be Kirby.
  • Always Close: Averted. In the final episode, the Halberd attempts to retreat from Nightmare's fortress after realizing he is Nigh-Invulnerable; the gate starts to close and they miss it by half a second.
    • Though the same episode plays it straight when the gang's time bomb goes off and destroys Nightmare's base the second after they all transport out.
  • Amateur Film-Making Plot: The episode "Cartoon Buffoon" has King Dedede drafting the citizens of Cappy Town to make an anime (after he's inspired by Tiff's simple work). Aside from the show making references to real life's anime studio working process, it shows that the citizens are mostly bad at drawing and animating, especially Kirby himself (who's a toddler). The resulting anime — "Dedede, Coming At Ya!" — is chock-full of Stylistic Suck as a result.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Escargoon. Nothing official has been said, but he has plenty of Ho Yay with Dedede, and in the original, he even sings a song where he says "I love his Majesty".
    • His dub voice is obviously based on that of camp icon Paul Lynde, which doesn't help.
    • Gets even better in the Japanese episode where his shell breaks. Kirby even says "Poyay".
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: Compare the original Japanese theme songs with the English version. In Japanese, it's a cutesy little parade with a smiling Kirby being for the most part generally adorable (with a little bit of horror thrown in for good measure, just so you know that the show isn't all happiness and smiles), and the second one compresses the standard episode plot into about two minutes. The English version is a quick beat full of monsters, Stuff Blowing Up, Kirby showing off his toughest powers, and putting on an angry face for most of the song, despite him spending most of the actual show being happy, hungry, or curious.
    • In episode 5, Dedede uses a chainsaw to destroy Whispy Woods. In the dubbed version of it, he uses a laser chainsaw. Probably just Bowdlerization, but it's still awesome.
    • In the Japanese version, the music used when Kirby sucks something up is rather poppy and cheery. In the English version, it's an epic-sounding, heroic fanfare.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: Dedede opens one in episode 31.
  • The Anime of the Game: More specifically, it was made as a tie-in to Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, the Game Boy Advance remake of Kirby's Adventure, hence why Nightmare is the Big Bad here despite not being so powerful or reoccurring in the games. The game was in development at the time and came out in Japan roughly a year after the show's premiere.
  • Animation Bump: In the later episodes of the anime, around 65~ episodes in, with far less use of CG animation. By the final few episodes, Dedede and Escargoon are only animated in CG in Stock Footage, leaving Kirby to be the only character to consistently be CG. Larger objects, such as the Destrayers and the Halberd, are still done in CG, however.
    • The episodes produced by episode subcontractor Dogakobo also tend to have more cartoony and fluid animation in comparison to the others.
    • Parodied in "Cartoon Buffoon". King Dedede's anime, "Dedede: Comin' At Ya!", mostly looks hilariously sucky, being mostly drawn by random townsfolk—except for one scene, which is drawn in an ultra-detailed, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure-like style. Apparently there was only one competent artist on the team...
  • Antagonist in Mourning: Episode 93 has King Dedede and Escargoon cry for Kirby's funeral when they thought their earlier dynamite trick had killed him.
  • Arcadia: Dream Land.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In episode 40, Knuckle Joe releases monsters onto Cappy Town. They're seen throwing dishes and tear down the restaurant, shoving items off shelves at the Toy Store, and seen reading and not paying at the bookstore, which has no damage seen on the inside whatsoever.
  • Artifact Name: The Cappies inhabiting Cappy Town are still called "Cappies", despite not having mushroom caps like their game counterparts.
  • Artistic License – Biology: Meta Knight and Tiff give Kirby a torch to turn into Fire Kirby because his opponent, Heavy Anaconda is a cold-blooded reptile (with the logic that fire > ice). Being "cold-blooded" doesn't literally mean one has cold blood, it means they lack the ability to thermoregulate (of course, Fire Kirby defeating Heavy Anaconda by setting it on fire would still work because, obviously, a snake would get killed by being set on fire).
  • Artistic License – Film Production: In "Tooned Out", the three animators that are hired by Dedede appear to be in control of everything about his upcoming cartoon series. Animators usually just animate what they have been given to work with according to the script. If they were in charge of other things such as voice acting and writing, they would probably be known as producers instead.
  • Artistic License – Physics: In one episode, Kirby prevents a planet-sized, sun-like meteor from crashing into Pop Star...by shooting a few cannonballs at it. What.
  • Ascended to Carnivorism: The Sheepwolf.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: If there are bad dreams, then Nightmare will continue to exist. Averted in the dub, where he instead screams in fear as he dissolves.
  • Astral Checker Board Decor: In Nightmare's lair, where he makes the monsters.
  • Ate It All: In the first episode, Kirby inhales a full table of food intended for nearly ten people, setting the tone for his huge appetite.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: A common strategy used against monsters.
  • A Weighty Aesop: The anime has an episode entitled "Fitness Fiend", which involves Dedede trying to make super-fattening, addictive potato chips. Unfortunately, he ends up falling victim to their effect, along with Kirby!
  • The Bad Guy Wins: As stated in some flashbacks, it's implied that NightMare Enterprises invaded and took over other planets. Successfully.
  • Bait-and-Switch: The Cappies in "Junk Jam" think that the aliens responsible for dumping garbage on Dream Land thanks to Dedede neglecting to pay his bills are powerful and threatening who are willing to destroy them for rebelling. They're actually a small, timid species who apologize for the ordeal since they were given permission by NightMare Enterprises.
  • Beat the Curse Out of Him: In one episode, Escargoon gets possessed by a monster that makes everyone forget who he is, and Meta Knight was more than happy to suggest that Violence is the Only Option.
    • In episode 19, Meta Knight tells the story of how his best friend was kidnapped by monsters and possessed, forcing Meta Knight to kill him. Later, Kirby fights and subdues Knuckle Joe for the same reason.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: Waddle Doo hints that this is the reason why the Waddle Dees follow King Dedede—once they're shown a little bit of hospitality, they'll settle down. This is also the reason why Sword and Blade chose to follow Meta Knight.
  • Bedtime Brainwashing: In "The Pillow Case", King Dedede gives the town's citizens pillows that are meant to guarantee good dreams as an act of good will. In reality, they cause the sleeper to have such horrible nightmares about Kirby that they would feel that getting rid of Kirby is the only way to stop them.
    • Another episode has Dedede give the town dolls of himself. At night, the dolls convince the townspeople that they like Dedede and to put money inside the dolls which Dedede will use to pay off his monster debt.
  • Beg the Dog: King Dedede generally isn't a very kind ruler, frequently abusing the townsfolk. In one episode, he starts selling the Waddle Dees that act as servants in his castle to the people of Cappy Town to help pay his debts, and ends up selling all of them with everyone else in the castle leaving to avoid having to do all of their work. As Dedede doesn't know how to take care of himself, he goes to Cappy Town to beg for food, but he keeps mentioning that his predicament is a result of selling all of his Waddle Dees and the Cappies (who have greatly benefitted from the extra hands) think that he is trying to take them back and reject him.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Do not try and cut the Waddle Dees' meals to nearly nothing or make them eat really cheap food. Fortunately for Dedede, Cook Kirby can literally feed a whole army.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: The haunted mansion in "Scare Tactics" which has countless spirits, transforming statues and even what appears to be blood that spills from everywhere.
  • Big Eater: Kirby, as expected. Whenever there is something edible (or even non-edible), he will always try to taste it, and always in large quantities.
  • Big Little Man: At the end, it turns out that Nightmare Enterprises' salesman, seen only chest-upward on a screen up to that point, has little more than feet beyond that.
  • The Big Race: "The Kirby-Derby" has everyone pitching in for a race.
  • Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce:
    • "A Spice Odyssey" has Kawasaki invent "Atomic Curry", which is so spicy that it gives Kirby fire-breathing powers that doesn't turn him into Fire Kirby, but comparable to it.
    • At the end of "The Chill Factor", this is what Nightmare Enterprises sends Dedede due to his crippling debt after he hurriedly orders a fire monster to melt the ice brought on by the Pengy. Kirby tips this into the Booma Dooma Volcano, which is enough to make it erupt immediately.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: Non-4kids example: The subbing team butchered the names of Sir Arthur's companions into nonsensical gibberish (e.g. Lancelot was translated as "Nonsurat"). The subber responsible did not realize her mistake until nearly a decade later, and admitted that she should have known better that a group of knights led by someone named Arthur would be named after other Round Table members.
  • Bowdlerize: Zig-Zagged in the final episode; the dub removes Customer Service's dying scream and also removes Nightmare's As Long as There Is Evil speech, thereby also removing his Inferred Survival. Otherwise, Played Straight throughout most of the series with any references to alcohol either edited into Frothy Mugs of Water or removed entirely, as well anything involving firearms.
  • Brainwashed: In "Un-Reality TV", Dedede brainwashes the Cappies using television. In "Don't Bank On It", he brainwashes the Cappies into liking him and giving him money, using voodoo dolls.
  • Brown Note: Kirby's Mike ability is even more powerful than in the games. When he uses it, his own allies run for the hills, the Monster of the Week explodes, and massive property damage is caused.
  • The Caligula: King Dedede. His castle has his face displayed all over the place, the only thing he ever does as a king is find ways of taking advantage of the Cappies by heavily taxing them, and orders monsters from a nightmarish evil corporation to make everyone miserable, or just to beat Kirby.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Kirby combined it with Gratuitous English; this was removed in the dub.
    • Knuckle Joe does it too, even in the dub.
  • The Cameo: Escargoon, Max Flexer, Chef Shitake, Captain Doo, and Customer Service all appear briefly in Kirby Mass Attack. So far, they're the only anime-specific characters to ever appear in the games.
  • Canon Foreigner: Tiff, Tuff, Escargoon, Customer Service, WolfWrath, etc. The cappies are an interesting variant; they were minor enemies in the games, but here they lack their eponymous caps and fill the role of humans as townspeople.
    • Escargoon had a split second cameo in one of Kirby Mass Attack's mini-games, but aside from that, he has yet to make a true appearance in the games. The NME salesman also appears in one of the game over screens of another sub-game in said title.
  • Canon Immigrant:
    • Of all things: the spear-wielding Waddle Dees make appearances in Kirby: Canvas Curse, Kirby Super Star Ultra and Kirby's Epic Yarn. Bandana Dee even takes one up in his playable appearance in Kirby's Return to Dream Land along with a spear ability for Kirby.
      • Bandana Dee's signature move in Return to Dream Land, twirling his spear like a helicopter blade to fly, originates from the episode where Dedede sells off his Waddle Dees in attempt to pay his debts back to Nightmare.
    • Some of the ability moves that Kirby used on the monsters made their way in future titles. For example, Needle Kirby didn't function exactly as it did in the games during the original airing date of the anime. Needle Kirby shoots needles out of his hat rather than extending the needles. However in Kirby's Return to Dream Land the needle ability got an expanded move list, and one of those moves is shooting needles out of Kirby's body via mashing the D-Pad or shaking the Wii Remote.
    • If inanimate objects count, then the design for Dedede's castle. Squeak Squad even features the monster transporter.
    • Anime Halberd also makes it to Squeak Squad.
    • Dedede's tendency to add -zoi to the end of his lines in the Japanese version of the anime is also used in the Japanese narration of Kirby's Epic Yarn.
    • Escargoon, Customer Service, Chef Shiitake, Max Flexer and Captain Waddle Doo have cameos in Kirby Mass Attack.
    • Water Kirby is an official Copy Ability in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Kirby Fighters 2 and Kirby Star Allies, though with a different look (Kirby retains his pink skin and has a crown with a little geyser on it) and way of getting the ability (Kirby has to inhale an enemy or beaten mid-boss that gives the ability and can't just inhale regular water) and a vastly expanded moveset. Kabuki Kirby is also made official in Kirby Mass Attack.
    • Galaxia, Meta Knight's sword, has its pronged appearance (originating from the anime) in Amazing Mirror apparently and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. As well, art for Meta Knight has had him carrying a pronged, golden sword, even if his sprite doesn't; often or not now, his sword is just gold. Additionally, the sword was first referred to as Galaxia in the anime and the name has been used since Brawl.
    • Internationally, the official logo of the Kirby series was changed to match the anime's English logo.
    • Kirby Star Allies sees the long-awaited return of the Cleaning ability, which looks about the same as it did here, only with a cream-colored kerchief instead of a yellow one.
    • Speaking of Star Allies, Dedede's muscular form from "Frog Wild" appears as a part of his boss fight.note 
    • Even more so in Star Allies, Octacon appears as one of the things Adeleine can paint.
    • In yet another Star Allies example, the infamous Devil/Demon Kirby from the "Frog Wild" episode appears on the title screen for the Soul Melter difficulty in The Ultimate Choice, the equivalent to the series' usual Arena mode.
  • Carnivore Confusion: Dedede orders snails at Chef Kawasaki's restaurant, which annoys Escargoon. He also tried to cook Escargoon to impress Chef Shiitake.
  • Casual Interstellar Travel: Via the monster transporter.
  • Catchphrase: "Kirby, inhale it!" / "Kirby, suck it up!" and "Come, Warp Star!" / "Kabu, send the Warp Star!"
    • The original Japanese version has King Dedede's "Unforgivable!" as his catchphrase.
  • Channel Within A Show: Channel DDD.
    • "Dedede: Comin' At Ya!" ("Dedede of the Stars" in the original Japanese)
  • The Character Ice Cream Bar: In-Universe. One episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! has someone selling Kirby-shaped sorbet. This was part of the Evil Plan of the episode, where that someone then hypnotize everyone who ate the sorbet into thinking that Kirby himself is a sorbet.
  • Characterization Marches On: In the first few episodes of the original Japanese version, Escargoon was referred to as "Dr. Escargon", possibly implying that the producers were going to make him off to be a sophisticated guy rather than just Dedede's lackey. Shades of this characterization do come back when he develops robots, vehicles, and even an NME-equivalent injection that turns ordinary creatures into monsters.
    • Kirby himself, too. In the first episode when he fights the first monster, he turns blue when weakened and Meta Knight explains that simply by seeing his Warp Star, Kirby will be able to regain his energy back. The Warp Star makes a return in almost every episode after it, but Kirby turning blue does not.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The pendant that Knuckle Joe inherits from his father. It's actually the key component to a powerful bracer that allows him to inherit his father's power.
  • Chevalier vs. Rogue: Averted. In one episode, Meta Knight mentions that the ninjas were just as responsible as the knights for defending the world against the army of monsters.
  • The Chosen One: Kirby as being destined to defeat Nightmare.
    • Also extends to who can wield Galaxia. The sword tells Sirica that her mother Garlude knew Meta Knight was meant to wield Galaxia and be its chosen one and thus made the ultimate sacrifice to make sure he got it. Kirby, despite being an infant, is also able to wield it with ease. According to Meta Knight in the Japanese version, anyone unworthy who tries to claim Galaxia for their own will be overwhelmed by its energy, suffering excruciating pain or even death. The dub says that the unworthy would otherwise infuse evil on themselves.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The animal friends only appear in a few other episodes after their introduction and have little bearing on the plot. This mirrors their in-game appearances.
  • Cold Snap: An artificial one is created by Ice Dragon which comes as a surprise to Cappy Town since they have never seen snow before, living as they do in a hot climate.
  • Colony Drop: Mabel discovers that a massive meteor will destroy Dreamland...in 1000 years. However, Nightmare Enterprises decides to speed up the collision date to the following night.
  • Color Failure: Played with at the end of episode 49, with Kirbynote  becoming transparent and a paintbrush coming in to restore his colors.
  • Combat Commentator: Meta Knight always seems to be on hand to tell us about whatever new form Kirby's taken. To an extent, Tiff and Tuff as well, whenever Meta Knight isn't around.
  • Compilation Movie: What Fright To The Finish is, which 4Kids created by taking the last 5 episodes (in the Japanese order) of the anime and seamlessly editing them together.
  • Compressed Vice: Episode 38 makes a big deal out of the fact that King Dedede is illiterate, but he was shown reading just fine in episodes 5 and 11.
  • Conflict Ball:
    • The only reason that the war between the kids and the forest animals happens in “War Of The Woods”, is because Tuff assumed the worst out of the animals living in Acore (the tree Whispy fears might be in danger, and sent them to assist), despite Rick, an animal friend both Tuff and Kirby knew, being among the animals living there; and explaining to them that Acore lets them live inside him.
    • Rick also holds this ball when he is willing to fight the group of kids that he was trying to reason with earlier, despite the woodpecker that he told to knock off putting holes in Acore earlier being the one to start the fight. He even has no qualms about harming Kirby either, despite cheerfully greeting him earlier.
  • Cool Car: Dedede's tank, which makes him look like some kind of a Third-World dictator, later replaced by a limousine equipped with hammers. In a Wacky Racing two-parter, all the main characters get one. The limo that Dedede and Escargoon order from NightMare Enterprises replaces their original tank for the rest of the series.
  • Cool Chair: King Dedede owns one in the throne room.
  • Cool Plane: Kirby's Starship. It also converts into a Cool Car when modified by Meta Knight, which Kirby later uses in the Wacky Racing episode.
  • Cool Spaceship: Kirby’s Starship, and later in the series, Nightmare’s fleet of Destroyer UFOs, a class of gigantic spacecraft capable of destroying an area the size of Cappy Town with just one shot of their beam cannons. Then we get the Halberd, which Meta Knight and his Blades had been working on in secret for years.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Customer Service.
  • Crapsaccharine World: Despite the ridiculously cute characters and peaceful setting, the backstory and Meta Knight's origin is a lot darker than you'd expect. Bowdlerised in the dub, but it's still there. Plus the fact that there's an evil organization trying to terrorize Pop Star and the entire universe, and Meta Knight's almost the only one still alive who knows the truth. Everyone else is quite ignorant (including Kirby most of the time).
  • Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: A lot of the weekly monsters like sporting these as their way of looking creepy. Just ask Octacon, Blocky, Noseman / Honker Stomper, Tornadon, the Broom King, Kung Fu Lee, Power Stomach / Belly Buster (in its true form), Squishy (in its large form), Duston / Trash Basher, Rekketsu, Beat / Fang, Chuckie (when its face changes into its demonic one), and Phan Phan (while under Hitti / Whippy's control). Some guest characters can also have these, like Amon and Quixano / Sir Gallant.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Kirby will get the stuffing beaten out of him at the start of most fights, he's a baby and will do nearly anything to get food, even if it's clearly a trap, but once he inhales and copies something, you're flat out done for. In some cases he even one hit KO's his foes; this extends to Nightmare.
  • Cryptic Background Reference: The origin of Star Warriors - even though Kirby himself is supposed to be one, the exact details are never explained. Here's a rundown of what's given.
  • Cue the Sun: The series ends with a shot of all the characters looking towards the sunrise.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: In the Japanese version of episode 49, one of the sponsors of Dedede’s anime is Holy Nightmare Apparel, implying Nightmare is running a profitable clothing business alongside his monster sales.
  • Cute and Psycho: Just like in the games, the Scarfies in Episode 56. They start out cute, then turn aggressive and attack everybody. Thanks to Hammer Kirby, however, they revert back to their original cuteness again.
    • Squishy in Episode 73 as well. It starts out as a cute little immobile piece of sushi in the form of a tiny squid, but after Kirby hiccups on it, it grows into a huge, hulking Kraken-like monster with glaring yellow eyes and black irises.
    • Then there's Episode 95, where Kirby gets possessed by a Demon Frog and turns into Devil Kirby, a psychotic version of himself with red eyes and little demon wings. Then Dedede gets possessed and becomes a hulking, muscular psycho version of himself with the same features as Devil Kirby.

    Tropes D to L 
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Meta Knight. He was the leader of the Star Warriors fighting against Nightmare, but all but two of his comrades died, one of whom he had to personally kill due to being possessed.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Early on in the series Meta Knight seems to be just a very stoic bystander with ambiguous morality. Once his motivations are revealed in episode 4, you find out that he's really on Kirby's side.
  • Darker and Edgier:
    • Episode 65 (Masher 2.0), where Knuckle Joe makes his third appearance, is one of the darkest episodes of the entire series, with blood in the fight scene and use of the word 'die'. The fansubs even add some Obligatory Swearing. Surprisingly, the blood in said fight scene remains unedited in the 4Kids dub.
    • The series in general is this compared to the games it's based on, most prominently with Meta Knight's backstory, although several individual episodes are much bleaker than the games usually are (Prediction Predicament being a notable example.).
  • Darkest Hour: Happens a lot to Kirby in so many episodes, especially during several parts of the five-part Series Finale.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Being an episodic series, almost every character in the main cast (and even some inanimate objects, like Kirby's Warp Star) had at least one episode dedicated to them.
  • Deader than Dead: Heavily implied to have happened to Nightmare in the 4Kids dub of the Series Finale as instead of giving his As Long as There Is Evil speech, he's screaming in fear and agony as he dissolves into nothingness!
  • Death by Newbery Medal: Kirby's robot puppy in episode 15.
  • Delicious Daydream: Unsurprisingly, Kirby has a lot of these.
  • Delicious Distraction: Often used against Kirby to either lead him into a trap or incriminate him in some way. In one instance, this almost leads him to eating Dyna Blade's chick. Fortunately, Kirby can usually resist the temptation to eat if he absolutely has to.
  • Demonic Possession: A common tactic of the monsters.
    • In episode 88, the replacement shell that Escargoon orders from NME turns him temporarily into a monster.
    • In episode 95, a frog monster possesses Kirby and forces him to harass Cappy Town.
    • In episode 19, we learn that Knuckle Joe's father was possessed by Nightmare, forcing Meta Knight to kill him. Joe himself becomes possessed later in the episode, but manages to fight it off.
  • Depending on the Writer: The popularity and quality of Kawasaki's restaurant both vary throughout the series.
  • Didn't Think This Through: Happens often to King Dedede.
    • King Dedede fires his Waddle Dees for a robotic servant from Nightmare Enterprises. However, he forgets how greedy the salesman is, and it quickly becomes apparent that the robot is planning to send King Dedede's money to Nightmare Enterprises to pay off his debt.
    • In another episode, King Dedede sells his Waddle Dees to help pay off his debt. But since he no longer has servants, he ends up going hungry.
    • In a plan to clobber Kirby, King Dedede gets some potato chips from the salesman so that he'll be helpless once he summons a monster from Nightmare Enterprises. However, he ends up deciding to eat the potato chips himself, forgetting that they're designed to make the consumer fat.
    • Instead of buying one Scarfy from Nightmare Enterprises, King Dedede chooses to buy a whole bunch of them, meaning that he has to deal with each of their huge appetites and also face another huge debt from Nightmare Enterprises.
    • At the end of the first episode, he and Escargoon blow up Kirby's Starship from the sky, causing Kirby to crash-land again and stay permanently; if he had left Kirby alone, Kirby would have left Cappy Town leaving Dedede free from a hated rival. Of course, he may have been hoping that Kirby got blown up outright out of spite.
  • Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
    • Kirby sings the first Japanese ending song when he transforms into Mike Kirby, a parody of the series theme song also shows up in the episode where King Dedede makes his own cartoon series.
    • The second Japanese opening appears as a ringtone for Dedede's cellphone in the Japanese version of the Series Finale.
    • At one point in the Japanese original, Tuff and his friends paint graffiti on Dedede's castle walls while singing the first Ending Theme.
    • In Japanese, Max Flexer's workout regiment is set to King Dedede's iconic theme song from the video games.
  • Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Two instances where dinosaurs breath fire, both justified. One occurrence is in Dedede's dream, and the other when Dinosaur Kirby attacks everyone. He inhales a torch and gets the fire copy ability.
  • Diagonal Cut: Whenever Sword Kirby finishes an opponent by bisecting them with a Sword Beam, there is always a delay before their halves fall apart.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Kine, to Tiff. Justified when the former is an ocean sunfish, and the latter isn't interested in an Interspecies Romance.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: In episode 66, when the Pengy come to Cappy Town, Kirby, and co. make Pengy costumes in order to escape the jail cell they're held captive in.
    • Amazingly enough, not only did Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby did this (with badly made costumes), somehow, Meta Knight made a much better costume, and even had the same idea, but took it a level above; he posed as a guard for them.
  • Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Various times, the dub will mention children having homework, despite there being no school until the episodes where Dedede establishes schools. Then the schools blow up and are dismissed, yet homework still gets brought up. Though in episode 6 it's lampshaded with this exchange.
    Honey: Is that your homework, Tiff?
    Iro: Can I get a copy?
    Tuff: We have homework?
    Tiff: No, Tuff, I'm writing an essay.
  • Dub Name Change: First the title, Hoshi no Kaabii (often translated as Kirby of the Stars) to Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Then, every single episode name. And then:
    • The main areas. Pupu Village became Cappy Town and Pupupuland became Dream Land. The latter is done in the games as well, and so the change of Pupu Village to Cappy Town isn't too far-fetched either, considering the whole town is populated mostly by Cappies!
    • Fumu to Tiff.
    • Bun to Tuff.
    • Escargon to Escargoon. It's debatable if this even counts, since the spelling (at least) is so similar one could be taken as a typo of the other.
    • Holy Nightmare Corporation to Nightmare Enterprises.
    • Nightmare to eNeMeE (though occasionally the show still calls him Nightmare).
    • Lololo and Lalala to Fololo and Falala, losing a bit of the shout out to Adventures of Lolo.
    • Lola to Fofa.
    • Parm and Memu to Sir Ebrum and Lady Like.
    • Borun to Bookem.
    • Sato to Buttercup.
    • Oosaka to Shiitake.
    • Dakonyo to Kit Cosmos.
    • Silica to Sirica. More of a romanization than anything, making this similar to the Escargon/Escargoon example listed above.
    • A special mention to this trio of kids: Honey keeps her name, but Iroo and Hohhe are changed - Iroo becomes Spikehead and Hohhe is called Iro, without the last "o" in the name, making this similar to the Silica/Sirica and Escargon/Escargoon examples listed above.
    • Chilidog to WolfWrath.
    • Boukyakku to Erasem.
    • Noseman to Honker Stomper.
    • Meta Knight is originally Sir Meta Knight, but this is dropped in the dub.
      • In the Italian and German dubs, Cappytown is further changed into Zeetown, and also Sword and Blade Knight are renamed Edge and Sharpe Knight (the latter happens in games too)
  • Dub Species Change:
    • The English dub of the episode "A Fish Called Kine" refers to Kine as a blue surgeon fish rather than a sunfish. This was changed in a later episode.
    • The Italian dub referred to Kine as a European hake (or rather a fictional subspecies of it, complete with the fake Latin name of Nasellus Loquacis ("Nasello loquace", "Chatterbox hake").
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In the episode where the village kids collect figurines, some characters that appear as figurines are never mentioned again until they play a part in the Series Finale.
  • Easily Condemned: In the episode "Watermelon Felon" Dedede manages to convince Cappy Town that Kirby is a thug just by manipulating the footage he recorded, despite his 0% Approval Rating and the town's previous goodwill towards Kirby.
  • Easily Impressed: The Cappies seem to be impressed by just about any new gimmick the King presents them with, no matter how objectively unimpressive it is. Kirby also counts as this though it's justified since he's a baby.
  • Eating the Enemy:
    • Just as he does in his game series, Kirby will do this to beat his enemies at times. Not that often though.
    • Several of the monsters King Dedede ordered/used tried to do this to Kirby.
      • In The Big Taste Test Popon, disguised as Chef Shitake, was going to try to eat Kirby until Kawasaki intervened. He then turned into a giant Blob Monster and tried to dissolve everyone with his segments until Kirby cooked him as Chef Kirby.
      • In Flower Power, King Dedede got Kirby to eat a Noddy which put him a Deep Sleep that could only be broken by a sniff of the Pukey Flower. However, it's a Man-Eating Plant that nearly eats everyone. Fortunately, Tuff managed to get a petal to Kirby who woke up, became Needle Kirby, and allowed Meta Knight to roast the bloom with a torch.
      • In A Half Baked Battle, Belly Buster, a pie monster who becomes enraged after the taste of his pies is insulted, turns into a giant stomach and manages to get King Dedede, Escargoon, and Kirby inside of it. Dedede tries to get themselves out with a bomb but Kirby sucks it up, becomes Bomb Kirby, and blows the monster up from the inside.
      • In Power Ploy, Red Viper is sent to destroy Kirby after Kirby loses his energy from an energy-sapping drink. After beating him around, Red Viper then tries to swallow Kirby who has just enough energy to hold his mouth open. Fortunately, Kawasaki is able to through energy filled curry mix to Kirby who than proceeds to beat the monster down and Hurl It into the Sun.
      • In episode Shell Shocked, Escargoon has his snail shell broken by King Dedede. He eventually puts one on from Nightmare Enterprises which turns him into a monster called Maimaigoon. The beast zaps everyone and tries to eat Kirby with its massive tongue. But then Dedede charges at the beast. Kirby sucks up his hammer and is able to become Hammer Kirby and smash the beast's shell, turning Escargoon back to normal.
      • In Frog Wild, Dedede ordered the Heavy Anaconda to do this to Kirby after Kirby become possessed by the Demon Frog. Unfortunately, by the time the snake arrives, King Dedede took the frog for himself and ends up getting eaten himself. Fortunately, Kirby is able to burn the beast to a crisp with Fire Kirby.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The monsters. Kirby himself is implied to be one of them turned good.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Holy NightMare Corporation/NightMare Enterprises alters a meteor's path into a collision course with Dream Land just to eliminate Kirby.
  • Engineered Heroics: In "Hail To The Chief", Tuff leads a plan to commit a series of low-level crimes in order to prove that Chief Bookem is too important to be fired, not to mention that he admires Bookem for having been a commando in the Rough Rangers Squad, the fiercest fighting force on the planet. While Chief Bookem lied about having been a Rough Ranger because he wanted to show how tough he was, he uses it as inspirational bravery to get them both out of the Booma-Dooma Volcano.
  • Enigmatic Minion: Meta Knight, who works for Dedede, but even he doesn't trust him.
  • Episode Title Card: Although they weren't present in the dub, they were shown after the cold opening, after the title sequence in the Japanese version.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Escargoon's mother appeared in one episode. He was even willing to protect her from monsters! (Now if only we could've seen her more often.)
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Even if he's more of a villainous character than in the games, King Dedede still considers Nightmare to be an eviler force than he is. He also starts to feel bad for Kirby once he realizes what Knuckle Joe's monstrous ways have done to him in Episode 19, and later cries his heart out when he thinks his prank killed him in Episode 93, and he gives Kirby a hug once he realizes he's alright. This shows that, despite his Adaptational Villainy here, Dedede feels really bad about the thought of Kirby dying.
    • While Yamikage betrayed the Galaxy Soldier Army to side with Nightmare, and has a grudge with Meta Knight (and now Kirby), he hints that he still retains his honor, considering that he says that he's not a thief and won't steal anything save for a ninja scroll that Dedede had stolen from Curio and that Benikage had stolen back from him, Kirby and the gang which was really Benikage's failing report card.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • What messes up King Dedede and Escargoon's plans in Episode 7. In order to make Dyna Blade angry at Kirby, King Dedede and Escargoon persuade him to try eating her egg. As he enjoys eggs, he accepts...but he decides against eating an egg that's raw when he can have it cooked. As a result, instead of Kirby eating the egg, he rapidly incubates it instead and proceeds to look after the chick.
    • After recently learning that Chef Kawasaki is a complete failure, Chef Nagoya is ecstatic to have a chance to legally own Kawasaki's restaurant in a cook-off. He won't however, accept victory if Escargoon rigs it in his favour.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Dedede keeps buying monsters from Nightmare Enterprises even it's made clear from the first episode that they are dangerous to the person who buys them.
  • Evil Laugh: Done very often by both Dedede and Escargoon. Also Kirby in "Frog Wild".
  • Evil Makes You Monstrous: In “Here Comes The Son”, Knuckle Joe suddenly becomes a spiked-ball monster after he kept beating up Kirby, even after he is told what happened to his father and who killed him. Fortunately, after Kirby inhales his Needle power and defeating him again, he reverts back to normal, admitting defeat and rejecting his monster status.
  • Evil Teacher: In one episode, Dedede makes a school and forces all the villagers to either be taught or be teachers. However, as a trick, a special cap, when worn, turned you into this.
  • Excited Episode Title!: Many of the original Japanese episode titles, including "Turn! Revolving Sushi" (Dedede's Raw Deal), "Loyalty! Sword and Blade" (Hour of the WolfWrath), "Knuckle Joe Arrives!" (Here Comes the Son), and "Sacred Sword! Galaxia" (Crusade for the Blade).
  • Faceless Masses: The Cappies. They make up the majority of the townspeople, with a few having noticeable traits.
  • Famed In-Story: Meta Knight, which amuses him. He finds it even funnier when he is made into one of a series of rare collectable figurines.
  • Fan Disservice: Fumu-tan of the Stars, which was created by Otaking and portrays a grown-up, sexualized version of Tiff. To them, it's Fanservice, but to everyone else (including the audience), it comes off as sick and wrong. Naturally, this was toned down the 4Kids dub.
  • Flashback Nightmare: Noddy Pillows cause these in the episode "The Pillow Case", causing all of the residents of Cappy Town to have nightmares of previous episodes. Kirby himself gets nightmares too, of his previous encounters with the monsters.
  • Flaw Exploitation: Knowing that Kirby is a glutton, King Dedede and Escargoon take advantage of it by getting him to eat Dyna Blade's egg, knowing that Dyna Blade will hunt him down once he does. However, instead of simply eating the egg, he decides to cook it first, causing Dyna Blade's chick to hatch and for him to adopt the chick instead, saving him from a Feathered Fiend.
  • Food Porn: Episodes featuring Kawasaki or similar premises inevitably have some mouthwatering food that Kirby chows down on.
  • Forbidden Holiday: In "D'Preciation Day", King Dedede finds out Cappy Town holds individual Appreciation Days for every civilian...except him who they have nothing to be appreciative over. After some tantrum throwing, they begrudgingly go along with a Dedede Appreciation Day out of pity, though Kirby botches it, leading a furious Dedede to declare all Appreciation Days to be abolished and replaced with "Dis Days", where everyone can vent their hatred of the civilian in question, much to the dismay of Chef Kawasaki, whose Appreciation Day was scheduled next.
  • Forced Sleep: In "Flower Power", Kirby is tricked into inhaling a Noddy by King Dedede, causing him to fall asleep for 100 years. The only way to wake him up is the smell of the Pukey Flower.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • When Tiff and Tuff search for Kirby after he angers Dyna Blade, they discover him gathering fish. They were for Dyna Blade's chick.
    • In Kirby's Duel Role, the duel between Meta Knight and Kirby has the former merely batting the latter with his sword, rather than slashing. Combined with the advice Meta Knight gives Kirby as they battle, this foreshadows Meta Knight's true motives.
  • Forged by the Gods: Meta Knight's sword, Galaxia.
  • For the Evulz:
  • Fortuneteller: Mabel, though she admits that she's more of a counsellor. Samo makes her seem like one to the other Cappies due to him learning all the secrets from them in his bar, and then relaying it to Mabel. Even Dedede occasionally goes to her.
  • Foul Flower: In "The Flower Plot", Whispy Woods has the fortune of having a flower grow right in front of him, which he names Lovely. However, King Dedede transforms Lovely into a monster. Like in the video games, Lovely deceives others with her adorable face. Unlike the games, she goes One-Winged Angel and tries to suck the life out of Whispy.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: In episode 9, done by the monster Slice-'n'-Splice. Many hilarious antics ensue.
  • Friendly Enemy: Not all the monsters are evil to begin with.
  • Frothy Mugs of Water: References to alcohol in the original, such as Dedede ordering wine, are either replaced with non-alcoholic versions or edited out entirely in the 4Kids dub, except for a couple of instances in which they were overlooked.
  • Fun with Acronyms: NME (for NightMare Enterprises) sounds like "enemy".
    • The localized series name, Kirby: Right Back At Ya, abbreviated as "KRBaY", sounds a lot like the name of the series' protagonist.
  • Giant Medical Syringe: Dedede and Escargoon use one filled with monster-creating fluid in order to turn Dyna Blade's chick into a monster. The syringe is about twice the size of the bird.
  • Gilligan Cut: Subverted in "Hour of the WolfWrath". Sword and Blade mention that Kirby and Tuff could be in danger after Tiff tells them they are playing in the castle courtyard. Cut to them playing with a ball and things looking fine and dandy, only for WolfWrath to jump in and deflate the ball in front of them...
  • Give Me a Sword: In episode 3, Meta Knight throws Kirby a sword before challenging him to a duel, just like he does in the games.
  • G-Rated Drug: An energy drink featured in episode 80 that had the effect of instant steroids.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Surprisingly, this is how several monsters die. Bugzzy, Kirisakin and Nekketsu are a few examples. Unsurprisingly, the insides of the monster are not shown, being replaced by either a black, empty void or TV static.
  • Happy Ending: In the 100th and final episode, Nightmare is defeated by Kirby through the use of the Star Rod, Nightmare's fortress is blown up by everyone through the use of a time bomb planted on the company's monster transmitter, Cappy Town has been rebuilt, and everyone happily goes back to their normal lives. And in addition, Kit Cosmos appears to be staying with everyone in the village. As for King Dedede and Escargoon, of course, their castle is still a wreck and they don't even have any way of buying any more monsters, not even via cell phone. Can also alternate between this trope and a Bittersweet Ending both for said reason and as Nightmare said in the Japanese version that he would return As Long as There Is Evil, and if this show was meant to be a prequel to the games (like many people prefer to believe) he wasn't lying .
  • Harmless Freezing: Dedede froze himself in a giant block of ice (with the help of some Waddle Dees) in one episode in an attempt to get a cold. It doesn't work.
  • Hate Sink: It's obvious how hard it is to hate a Nebulous Evil Organization whose public face is a friendly and funny type of manipulative salesman and whose chairman happens to be a laid-back sort of tyrant despite being one of the darkest villains in an otherwise lighthearted and heartwarmingly cute franchise, and even the Bumbling Henchmen Duo are among some of the most entertaining characters on the show. So who could you possibly hate easily? Why, Tokkori, of course, who is defined as arrogant, selfish, cowardly, somewhat whiny, and one hell of a bastard of a bird who thinks he's better than everyone else and tends to make other people miserable just to satisfy his selfish gains. He does help out every once in a while (especially in the finale), and even takes a level in kindness later on, but that of course still hasn't strayed him from being despised by some fans.
  • Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: In episode 48, a bunch of these go sightseeing in Cappy Town.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Knuckle Joe. He even changes color when he does so, reflecting how "helper" characters have a different color scheme in the games.
    • Sirica in "Crusade for the Blade", after Galaxia telepathically informs her that her mother's death was a Heroic Sacrifice rather than Meta Knight ditching her like she initially believed. She even shows up in the final episode alongside Knuckle Joe as both of them aid Kirby in dispatching Nightmare Enterprises' Destroya ships, firmly placing her on the heroes' side.
  • Heroic BSoD: In the episode "Kirby Takes the Cake", Kirby wants to play with everyone only to discover that nobody wants to play with him. When he goes to Tokkori to tell him that nobody is willing to play with him, Tokkori shows what a dick he is by telling him that nobody likes him. That's where Kirby's Blue Screen of Death comes in, as he packs up some of his stuff and runs away to the Valley of Kabu. What Kirby doesn't know, however, is that the real reason why nobody wanted to play with him was because nobody wanted to see him mess up their preparations for his one-year anniversary of crash-landing in Cappy Town, and he doesn't boot back up until Meta Knight and Tokkori remind him that everyone is really worried about him and they're all wishing for him to come back home.
  • Hero of Another Story: Before Kirby came along, Meta Knight was a high-ranking member of a La Résistance movement, as well as the last survivor of a previous war.
  • Hiccup Hijinks: One episode has Kirby get the hiccups after he ate a sweet potato sushi sent by King Dedede on his town-spanning conveyer belt, which was part of his plan to stop Kirby from sucking up the attacks of the monster he was going to send him. Tiff manages to cure him by scaring Kirby. How does she do this? She tells him that if he doesn't get rid of his hiccups, he'll never eat again.
  • Hidden Depths: Everyone. Mainly this is because of the series' episodic nature, lending to everyone getting their own day in the limelight at some point.
    • For example, that old, meek and frail postman from the village? He's a retired Badass Biker.
    • Waddle Doo can speak at least three languages (the local tongue, Waddle Dee, and some foreign Cappy creatures).
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: King Dedede's plans to get rid of Kirby often comes back to bite him. In one episode, he orders pillows from Night Mare Enterprises to sell to citizens where they'll have nightmares that will make them attack Kirby; Dedede and Escargoon try the pillows out themselves. In another, Dedede eats some chips he ordered from the same company to use against Kirby and ends up getting so fat that the Waddle Dees have to knock his door off its hinges to get him out.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: Escargoon is heavily implied to have a man-crush on his boss in Japanese and English - the dub team picked up on this and gave him a Paul Lynde-esque voice that makes things even more blatant.
    Escargoon: (to Dedede) Did you forget that night when we promised to each other we would never become separated?
  • Honest John's Dealership: The NME Sales Guy... though really, the company is called NightMare Enterprises — which abbreviates (sort of) as N.M.E.. You'd have to be pretty stupid or determined to buy any monsters fr-- wait...
  • Human-Focused Adaptation: Seeing that Kirby can't talk, and the humanoid Tiff is pretty much Kirby's spokesperson, this was inevitable.
    • Though, it's worth noting he was simply a Heroic Mime in the games before this anime, he was still shown fully speaking in comic and manga adaptations before Kirby's ability to talk being muted from this adaptation onwards.
  • Humanoid Aliens: Discussed in the episode where Dedede learns to appreciate art. Tiff sees a painting of the Mona Lisa and is surprised by how it looks, meaning that humans are considered aliens to the people of Dream Land.
  • Inconsistent Dub:
    • The writers of the dub tend to forget that NME is supposed to be the name of the Big Bad's organization and not the Big Bad himself.
    • The Holy Nightmare Corporation logo is removed in the international version of Kirby Mass Attack, but remains in the Nintendo 3DS bonus episode.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Tiff. Kirby too. In the episode "Frog Wild", this trait is what prevents the Demon Frog from being able to take full-control of Kirby and what allows Tiff to reach Kirby's heart. Meta Knight himself says that it's virtually impossible for someone to have full-control over someone with as pure a heart as Kirby's.
  • Instant Expert: Kirby, after he copies an ability.
  • Interspecies Romance: And an in-universe Crack Pairing — in one episode, Whispy Woods falls in love with a flower.
    • And in another, Kine, an ocean sunfish, goes on a date with Tiff.
  • I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: We see what Sir Ebrum and Lady Like looked like when they were younger, complete with hippie-like clothes and hair. Lampshaded by their kids who find their parent's old fashion bizarre and funny-looking.
  • I Own This Town: King Dedede, but the real person in charge of the village below his castle is probably the Mayor.
  • Jerkass: Tokkori. He's generally cantankerous and rude, and he only cooperates with others through coercion.
    • King Dedede as well. In fact, compared to the games, he's worse. Although he does soften up as the series progresses.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Quite a few characters actually.
    • Tuff is immature and selfish, but really does have a good heart and is determined to fix his mistakes when he realizes he messed up.
    • Tokkori himself, he may be an annoying jerkass but he's good at heart and helps others, even Kirby.
    • Escargoon may seem like a straight up Jerkass a lot of the time, but it is implied he mainly does this to appeal to Dedede. When not around his king, Escargoon is still pretty overbearing and smug but also much more polite and clearly views Tiff and Kirby as friends.
    • Dedede himself develops into this by the end of the series, becoming more like his game counterpart.
  • Kabuki Theatre: The special short Kirby 3D introduces Kabuki Kirby, a new Copy Ability for Kirby. At first, Kirby transforms into a human kabuki performer who represents the famous warrior Benkei, but it turns out to be a disguise. Kabuki Kirby's real form is that of Kirby wearing a miniature monk robe and holding a staff.
  • Karmic Butt-Monkey: King Dedede tends to suffer the most punishment and humiliation out of any character in the show. A lot of it is justified since he's a greedy egotistical tyrant who's always plotting to get rid of Kirby using monsters who also terrorize Dream Land.
  • Kick the Dog: In the episode of Kirby’s one year anniversary, when Kirby goes to Tokkori about how everyone is avoiding him (they were preparing for his surprise party and didn’t want him finding out), the bird takes the opportunity to try to drive Kirby away by telling him that nobody likes him, how he only causes trouble to everyone, and how everyone would be happier without him, causing the poor Star Warrior to run away. Needless to say, this act of cruelty was NOT taken kindly by Tiff, who absolutely rips him a new one for being so cruel and petty.
  • Ki Manipulation:
    • In the Japanese version, Meta Knight explains the Sword Beam as "focusing the energy in your soul and letting it out in one attack."
    • Knuckle Joe and Fighter Kirby use the Force Blast attack in some episodes.
  • Knight of Cerebus:
    • WolfWrath is one of the few monsters that fits the trope really well. In a huge contrast with previous monsters, this thing has no funny traits, and it manages to badly injure Meta Knight and make its respective episode darker than the previous ones, and the entire episode is dedicated to defeating it.
    • While Masher was about as intimidating as most other monsters in its first appearance, it is well remembered as one of the few monsters that provided the possibility of Kirby dying, especially once it started teaming up with Knuckle Joe against him, an act that actually left Tiff in tears. Later on, Masher 2.0 is played to be a much more dire threat.
    • Kirisakin fits as well, seeing as it was shown to be the only monster to actually kill somebody on-screen; in its case, it slew Garlude. And when the N.M.E. Sales Guy suggests delivering it to King Dedede and they send it after Sirica, things get even more intense.
    • The Mumbies holds the dubious honor of being another of the few monsters to present the possibility of murdering poor Kirby alongside Masher. The sheer amount of surprises it has was more than enough to nearly kill him, and if it weren't for Dedede's stupidity, Kirby would've been done for because of this thing.
    • In the Series Finale, the Destroyas are much more powerful than any monster Kirby's faced before. Their projectiles are equivalent to and give Kirby the Crash ability.
    • Nightmare himself is even more so than them all, as he was the one who made them (with the exception of Amon). He loves making monsters and sending them to terrorize and conquer planets while pretending that they're just everyday objects, just because he likes doing it. Not to mention, he even annihilated an entire La Résistance group leaving a few survivors and isn't above killing children. Oh, and he sped up the asteroid Gerath's course to crash into Popstar just for his own twisted pleasures. Whenever he takes center stage, expect things to get even more serious.
  • Landfill Beyond the Stars: The NME Sales Guy makes Dedede's kingdom one, via a trio of misinformed aliens, when he forgets to pay his debts.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Dedede and Escargoon get hit with this every single time at the end of each episode.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: One episode features a book called Pappy Pottey and the Fool's Stone and a broom-themed monster disguised as the author of the book, named Rowlin in the original version.note 
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • In the Japanese version, the Kirby Quiz episode had this exchange after a particularly tricky question:
    Dedede: That question was too hard.
    N.M.E. Sales Guy: Now now, if you got up early every week to watch the show, you'd know these things!note 
    • This is brought up again during an episode which features King Dedede having another crack at getting his own TV Show. They resort to using the animation Biggy, Boney and Sleepy made due to the deadline being in 30 minutes.note 
  • Leitmotif: Dedede gets a bunch of synth horns, Meta Knight is always introduced by a Mexican fanfare, and Tokkori's is a bunch of violins.
    • Meta Knight had a leitmotif in the original, but it's not quite as foreign-sounding.
  • Lethal Chef: Chef Kawasaki gets a bad rap in Cappy Town because of this. Cook Kirby manages to avert this.
    • Inverted with Kawasaki in the finale story-arc: He becomes the only chef on the Halberd and easily learns how to cook space food due to it being a bag in boiling water, with the crew commenting that it tastes good. In reality, space food is usually horrible.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Kirby tends to spend most of the time acting like a toddler, but once he copies an ability, he seems to have an instinctive grasp of it.
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: In "Sheepwrecked", the Monster of the Week Amon was a normal sheep until he was struck by lightning, granting him powers, that make him transform into a demonic, wolf-like beast that can shoot horn needles no less.
  • Lord Error-Prone: One episode features an Expy of Don Quixote, complete with fighting windmill monsters, except the chivalric novels are replaced with comic books.
  • Lost Wedding Ring: "The Thing About the Ring" is about Sir Ebrum trying to give his spouse her engagement ring, which he always lost one way or another every time their wedding anniversary came around.
  • Lovecraft Lite: The anime expands on this point from the games, since at the bottom line it's still about a The Only One trying to overthrow the Evil Overlord and the MegaCorp by fighting their Eldritch Abominations.
  • Lower Half Reveal: All of the Monsters of the week are purchased by King Dedede through a company called NME. To do this he talks to an NME salesman through a video call. Said salesman appears to be an ordinary human businessman in a suit, which makes him a case of Non-Standard Character Design when compared to the rest of the cast, who are more cartoonish. At the end of the series, the salesman is seen in person for the very first time, where it's revealed that he has the same stubby legs that most of the characters have, making him extremely short and oddly proportioned.

    Tropes M to Z 
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Chilly in the episode "Dedede's Snow Job" attempts to kill Kirby in this manner first by deliberately dislodging sharp icicles to impale Kirby, then later pushes Kirby onto a frozen pond and breaks the ice underneath, with Kirby none the wiser to the attempts. Later still, Chilly just tries to stab Kirby with a knife-like icicle but changes his mind at the last second.
  • Malaproper: In the English dub, Dedede has a tendency to talk like this.
    Dedede: I'm off to get this dream interpolated!note 
  • Manchild: King Dedede tends to act quite churlishly, constantly whines and demands his way and orders monsters to sic on the Cappies and Kirby For the Evulz.
  • Manipulative Editing: One episode had Dedede and Escargoon follow Kirby around with a camera crew to try and find anything they could use to make him look bad. After a day of mundane footage with nothing they could use, the trope comes into play when they decide to edit the footage to change the scenario. For example, footage originally featuring Kirby happily eating a bag of chips he was given as a gift was played multiple times so it looks like he was shoplifting. Another edit was of Kirby eating a few watermelons at a field. At the area, the camera crew accidentally flattened a huge path across the field due to a large trailer they were wheeling around. They decided to blame it on Kirby by claiming he ate a huge amount which caused the path to show up.
  • Meat-O-Vision: In "A Recipe for Disaster", after Kirby accidentally swallows a whole carton of Gijira Extract, which causes hallucinations, he starts seeing everyone as delicious food.
  • Medal of Dishonor: Kawasaki's prized possession is his master's very own frying pan, which he got after getting smashed in the face with it.
  • MegaCorp: NightMare Enterprises. A large and mysterious corporation which sells monsters and other nasty machines to its customers.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: The Cappies get blank white eyes after being hypnotized in "Un-Reality TV".
  • Mini-Me:
    • In "Don't Bank on It", King Dedede sends "Dedede dolls", miniature banks in his likeness made by NightMare Enterprises, to every house in Cappy Town. They have a psychic bond with the real Dedede so he uses it to hypnotize the towns into putting money into the mouths of the dolls and change his opinion of him. It's also later revealed whatever happens to the dolls happens to the real thing.
    • In "Snack Attack", Gengu's unpopular mini-figures becomes a hit with the kids in Cappy Town when they were combined with Tuggles' poor selling chocolate capsules. All of the action figures were based on the Star Warriors, some of who were still alive such as Meta Knight (which he found amusing.). Subverted when a new stock become different-looking monsters, due to all of them being sent by NightMare Enterprises.
  • Mistaken for an Imposter: Chef Shiitake gets attacked by Chef Kawasaki who believes that there is another monster disguised as his old teacher since that's what happened last time. He proves he's the real deal this time through his knife skills.
  • Monochrome Past: Whenever a flashback is shown, the color is often, if not always, drained.
  • Monster of the Week: The monsters from NightMare Enterprises. At first, they're intentionally purchased by Dedede to attack Kirby, but later on, Dedede starts buying other items which are simply monsters in disguise.
  • Mook Lieutenant: Waddle Doo's main role is to command the Waddle Dee armies, and be their "voice".
  • Moth Menace: Mosugaba is a gigantic moth which attacks Cappy Town with strange pollen which causes strong hay fever to everybody in town. It turns out it came from the Southern Islands and was enraged after the Island Sisters, which sang its favorite song to it while it was a caterpillar, were abducted, and their rescue calmed it down. They then all returned to the Southern Islands together.
  • Mr. Alt Disney: One episode had Dedede teaming up with a famous cartoonist named Dis Walney who turns out to be a monster in disguise.
  • Mundane Utility: Most of the monsters, but their main motive is always to kill Kirby and cause destruction.
    • Sometimes enforced by Dedede; once he summoned a dentist monster, but backed out when he was told it didn't use painkillers.note  He eventually got it to attack Kirby... but it could only do something like rip out teeth, which Kirby had none of.
    • King Dedede considers hiring Cook Kirby to feed the Waddle Dees after he makes their previous and absurdly-expensive meal plan out of thin air.
    • Dedede orders the chef monster Monsieur Goan to cook for him since he's so fed up eating bad cooking from the Waddle Dees and Kawasaki.
    • The townspeople frequently use Kirby as a food disposal unit which the latter is perfectly happy with.
  • Myth Arc: Believe it or not it has one. It's surprisingly well done too, being built up slowly and subtly throughout the series.
  • Nebulous Evil Organisation: NightMare Enterprises.
  • Never Say "Die": In his own words, Dedede wants to "clobbah" or "get" Kirby, but not kill him, apparently. (Then again, that's not his intention in the Japanese version either.)
    • Then in one episode he does. So he thinks.
    • Subverted in the backstory, and in the present in a certain way; 95% of the monsters do indeed die, but it's mostly from explosions, clean deaths, or disappearing off screen. Also, it's stated that Nightmare destroyed plenty of Meta Knight's comrades in the Galaxy Soldier Army, but it was never shown on-screen.
    • Notably, the death of the robot dog in "Kirby's Pet Peeve" was not glossed over. Not even in a "it's a robot so we can easily repair it or make another" sense, with the final scene explicitly shooting down the latter option.
    • Inverted in the finale; in the Japanese version only, Nightmare gives an As Long as There Is Evil speech after he disintegrates.
  • New Media Are Evil: Tiff seems to think so with television, though her paranoia and dislike are justified by the fact that Dedede supplied it. Though most of her anti-television rants weren't as much "Dedede is controlling you" as they were "Television will rot your brains and it's stupid!" in the end, everyone agrees with her that television is a waste of time, at least as long as it's managed by Dedede. Even Tiff admits, that if the programs were catered to her level of intelligence, she would have given it a chance.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Kirby only came to Pop Star because his ship detected one of the monsters Dedede had ordered from NightMare Enterprises.
  • Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Kirby is one of the nicest characters in the main cast whereas Tokkori is the mean one due to him being a trademark hot-headed Jerkass. Meta Knight mediates in-between combining his sanity with his mysterious personality.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Dedede orders Monsters from NightMare Enterprises partly because he is fascinated by them.
  • Nightmarish Factory: In "Labor Daze", Dedede opens a factory and convinces the Cappies to work on the assembly line in order to gain lots of merchandise and commodities. However, it's a ploy to build an Ice Dragon robot and in the process, the Cappies become zombie-like, Cappy Town becomes heavily polluted and there is No OSHA Compliance, with Kirby getting stuck in the gears.
  • Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In "Escargoon Squad", Dedede thinks his castle is haunted, so when he has to use the bathroom at night, he forces Escargoon to walk there with him in case a ghost comes for him.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: In the English dub, Lady Like sounds just like Eva Gabor, and Ted Lewis uses a Paul Lynde impression for Escargoon and a Foghorn Leghorn voice with George W. Bush-style illiteracy for Dedede.
    • One episode has a J. K. Rowling counterpart, and another has a Shout-Out to the Japanese soldier who was holed up on an island long after WW2 was over.
    • The monster that gives Kirby and Dedede a forced workout (after they ate all those chips and actually leads to Kirby BARFING up the chips) was probably supposed to resemble Richard Simmons. If nothing else, it echoed his enthusiasm for exercise.
      • The English dub even gave him a similar voice.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Sort of. In the movie finale Fright to the Finish, King Dedede and Escargoon kidnap Tiff and try to make her tell them how to access the Warp Star, by trying to tempt her with lots of food.
  • No OSHA Compliance: The factory that King Dedede builds in episode 28.
  • Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: Said by a background character at the beginning of episode 10.
  • Not Me This Time: When the weather gets snowy in episode 66, Tiff blames King Dedede for it, thinking he bought another ice monster as he did before. Dedede insists he didn't and has a notice stating that he can't order more monsters until he pays his bill, this convinces Tiff.
  • Oh, Crap!: Even though he still wears the evil grinning expression on his face, Nightmare gets one once he sees Kirby take control of his one weakness, the Star Rod.
    • Mass "Oh, Crap!": In "Kirby Takes the Cake", every one of the villagers gets this when King Dedede comes to ruin their preparations for Kirby's first anniversary of crash-landing in the village (which he thought was their rebellion against him).
      Mayor: (seeing Dedede arrive to attack their preparations for Kirby's anniversary) Oh no, it's King Dedede!
  • The Only One: Kirby, one of the few remaining Star Warriors after the aforementioned La Résistance was wiped out.
  • Only Sane Man:
    • Amongst the servants in the castle is Meta Knight, he only became Dedede's servant to keep an eye on him.
    • Tiff as well, even before Dedede's dealings with NME were revealed she never trusted him and she works as the leader when Meta Knight is preoccupied or just being aloof.
    • Amongst the Cappies is Mabel, she still tends to fall for Dedede's schemes but is also shown to see through them fairly often.
  • Only Sane Woman: Downplayed with Lady Like. She is smarter than her husband and, like her daughter, never trusts Dedede. That said she often still ends up falling for his plans and there was a whole episode kickstarted by her obsessing over keeping her youthful looks.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "Sweet and Sour Puss", Dedede is turned into an All-Loving Hero due to being under the effects of a monster. This new behavior became quite a shock to everyone, especially Escargoon.
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: Slice n' Splice can split creatures into male and female halves, with the female halves always having things like bows, eyelashes and/or lipstick. Upon seeing this happen to Kirby, King Dedede and Escargoon try to picture what each other's "feminine sides" would look like and are repulsed. It later happens to Dedede for real.
    • Fololo and Falala are permanently set this way, since they're two opposite halves of the same which came from an idea by Nightmare to send Dedede a non-threatening monster called Fofa as part of a scam, then suggests splitting him to charge Dedede double the price.
  • Out of Focus: Kirby. Tiff has a tendency to upstage him, as she can speak coherently, and her personality is shown more than Kirby's.
    • Kirby is still the star for action scenes and comic relief.
    • It's amazingly subverted with Meta Knight; intentionally, Meta Knight usually takes two or three episodes of breaks, not appearing or even being mentioned, even if the plot would require Meta Knight just to give a direction to the heroes!
  • Ow, My Body Part!: Parodied in the Japanese version of episode 78, where after an overly rough massage from Dedede, Escargon says that his spine is broken, to which Dedede replies that molluscs don't have spines.
  • Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles: In the episode where Kine falls in love with Tiff, Kine blows a bubble to prevent her and Kirby from drowning.
  • Pain-Powered Leap: Near the end of the episode with the Dedede dolls in it, Tiff buries one of the said Dedede dolls in the ground to prevent it from menacing anyone since the doll's movements are actually based on King Dedede's own movements. This results in King Dedede nosediving into the ground as well, but then a mole shows up and bites the doll, causing King Dedede to leap back out screaming in pain.
  • Parents for a Day: Twice Kirby hatches an egg and looks after the hatchling by getting it food and protecting it from danger.
  • Pie in the Face: Pretty much everyone gets one of these from the monster Belly Buster in the episode "A Half-Baked Battle" even Meta Knight. It also marks pretty much the only time that Kirby actually refuses to eat something because the pies are just that terrible. The only person happy about this is Kawasaki since he knows there's a chef out there who's even worse than him.
  • Pilot Episode: Made available to celebrate the release of Kirby Air Ride in Japan. It can be viewed here.
  • Poor Judge of Character: Whispy Woods in his first appearance, took the word of King Dedede that someone is out to destroy him, and assumed that Kirby and co. were the ones to destroy him, because they happened to put a fire next to him. This poor judge of character almost causes the woods to be gone forever, if Kirby hadn't ate one of the apples while Whispy was dropping them on him.
  • Portal Network: The monster transporter. In the final episode, the characters who left Dream Land on the Halberd use it to come back home after the Halberd gets destroyed.
  • Possession Presumes Guilt: In "Watermelon Felon", King Dedede is so desperate to find something to accuse Kirby of that when he sees Kirby eating a watermelon during a watermelon shortage, he immediately blames Kirby for the shortage. Dedede is wrong.
  • Produce Pelting: In “Labor Daze”, a Cappy throws a tomato at Tiff, while she’s protesting outside Dedede’s factory, due to its poor working conditions.
  • Product Placement: The three-part finale, as well as the "Air Ride in Style" two-parter showcased various Air Ride machines from Kirby Air Ride.
  • "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: Almost shot-for-shot in episode 46 (53 in the dub), with a paranoid Dedede as the "murderer", Escargoon as the victim, and red paint in lieu of blood. It even has "Psycho" Strings!
  • Public Domain Soundtrack: Most episodes have some wacky remixes of classical pieces such as "Flight of the Bumblebee", "In the Hall of the Mountain King", "Barber of Seville Overture", "Spring Song", "Semiramide Overture", "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2", "William Tell Overture", "Night on Bald Mountain", and "Zigeunerweisen".
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Waddle Dees and Waddle Doo only follow Dedede out of obligation, and have no real malice against any of the heroes. After Dedede and Escargoon abandon a bunch of foreign tourists, Waddle Doo remains behind to help translate orders to them to help Kirby.
  • Punny Name: Sir Ebrum (cerebrum) and Lady Like (ladylike).
  • Race Against the Clock: In the final episode, Professor Curio has to repair Dedede's Monster Transporter due to the destruction of the Halberd, forcing the heroes to use NME's delivery system to escape before the base explodes. He manages to repair it in time after Waddle Doo finds the missing part. It is unknown how Curio came to the conclusion of building it in time for the heroes return, but Sir Ebrum probably suggested the idea, because he is one of the servants in the castle, other than Dedede to know about the delivery system's existance, of which had been a tightly wrapped secret in the castle throughout most of the series and they happened to find it damaged among the ruins after the Destroya attack.
  • Recap Episode: Episode 64 in both the dub and the original, which doubles as a quiz show.
  • Rejected Marriage Proposal: Princess Rona actually the real princess's lady-in-waiting turns down the besotted Dedede, as does Commander Vee who is actually Rona on behalf of the princess. Angered, Dedede throws down a glove and orders a duel to win the princess's hand.
  • Reset Button: Lasting damage to anything in the show (especially Castle Dedede, which collapsed completely due to Mike Kirby twice) is usually undone and everything's normal by the following episode. There are a few key exceptions to this, however, such as the Series Finale.
  • La Résistance: The Star Warriors and the Galaxy Soldier Army.
  • Rewatch Bonus: After The Reveal in the final episode where Customer Service is actually just as short as Kirby with stubby legs, rewatching "The Kirby Quiz" which had Customer Service in full view for the first time shows that he wasn't on his knees; he's exactly the same shape.
  • Rise from Your Grave: Kirby does this when Dedede puts a melon on his "Grave" in D-Preciation Day.
  • Robot Dog: Kirby gets one in one episode, only for it to explode near the very end of said episode.
  • Rope Bridge: In one of the Green Aesop episodes, King Dedede and Escargoon fall off one of these after Dedede stomps on it in frustration.
  • Scooby-Dooby Doors: The second half of Episode 9 has a few scenes in this style featuring Lololo, Lalala, and the split Kirbys being chased by Dedede, Escargoon, and the monster Slice n' Splice. Complete with duplicating shots!
  • "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The ghosts terrorising Dedede in the episode "Escargoon Squad" turn out to be Kirby, Fololo and Falala in bedsheets plus Tuff helping out which works since three of them can float. Escargoon engineered the whole thing as revenge for the scary pranks that Dedede kept pulling off. Although at the end, Dedede encounters a real ghost sent by Nightmare Enterprises to force to pay off his debt.
  • Security Cling: Dedede and Escargoon do this with each other a lot, especially in "Scare Tactics".
  • She's a Man in Japan: Galaxia's voice in episode 60 was male. For reasons unknown, the voice was female in the dub, though it may likely be due to the more feminine connotations of the name Galaxia ("-a" generally implying a female role) in English as opposed to the more masculine Japanese ones.
  • Shockingly Expensive Bill: By the time of the episode "Waddle While You Work", King Dedede's total balance to Nightmare Enterprises is one quintillion, one hundred seventy quadrillion, four hundred eleven trillion, two hundred forty-six billion, four hundred thirteen million, seven hundred eight thousand, six hundred eighty-six dollars ($1170411246413708686.00) and this was only an estimate. Dedede never intended to pay back that debt, anyhow, as mentioned in the episode "Something to Sneeze At". In that episode, his debt was far less than what we've seen in "Waddle While You Work", which was nine hundred ninety trillion ($990000000000000.00). Guess what? After Nightmare Enterprises' destruction, those words come true.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Lots. Some are whole episode references to movies like The Blair Witch Project, Mothra, Jurassic Park, The Birds, and Frankenstein. Furthermore, in episode 71, most of the main cast go on a boat trip and get swallowed by a whale. There's even an episode ("Mabel Turns The Tables") where Mabel gathers a cult following and parts the sea.
    • In the dentist episode, Tuff gets a cavity, and his mother tells him that if he goes to the dentist, she'll buy him a CubeGamenote .
    • In "The Meal Moocher", King Dedede slips into a Kansai accent after refusing to eat a crab Demon Beast that has been defeated and cooked up by Kirby, nodding to the Kani Doraku restaurant in Osaka, which famously features a giant animatronic crab on its façade.
    • A more complete list can be seen here.
    • Near the end of "Tooned Out", Escargoon panics since they at present don't have a cartoon to air for Nightmare Enterprises in 30 minutes while holding an alarm clock reading 6:30 AM. This means that the deadline is 7 AM, which was when cartoons started airing every day in Japan.
  • Sigil Spam: NightMare Enterprises puts its logo on every product it can.
  • Skip the Anesthetic: Hardy the dentist monster is noted to not use any kind of anesthetic when working on people's teeth despite using a massive drill in the process, since he's so good at his job that he can drill Tuff's bad tooth and put a filling in within less than 5 seconds, which amazes him since he didn't feel a thing.
  • Sleep Cute: Escargoon and Dedede, believe it or not, in the second part of "Scare Tactics". Also Kirby of course.
  • Slice of Life: This anime can be summed up as half Kirby kicking ass, half slice of the townspeople's life under an illegitimate monarchy, and a dose of subtle satire and social commentary.
  • Smart Bomb: The Crash ability, but unlike Mike, it kills only enemies, instead of destroying everything in sight.
  • So Bad, It's Good: In-Universe. In the dub, this is what Tiff calls Dedede's self-made cartoon (Dedede: Comin' at Ya or Dedede of the Stars in the original).
  • Spice Up the Subtitles: The fansubs done by Kirby' s Rainbow Resort. Case in point, they made the robot Escargoon drop a Precision F-Strike when it says "Back" in English.
  • Squashed Flat:
    • Kirby suffers this in "A Blockbuster Battle" after the giant Rock Monster Blocky body-slams him repeatedly, his paper-thin body floating out of the crater. Tiff and Tuff catch him and flap him out until he returns to his normal shape.
    • Both Kirby and Dedede endure this in "Fitness Fiend" after being run over by a steamroller.
    • In another episode, Escargoon is flattened against a wall.
    • Kirby suffers this in "Cowardly Creature" after being hit by giant spiked balls tossed by a Brainwashed and Crazy Phan Phan.
  • Stock Footage: The shot of Kirby's Warp Star summoned from Kabu, which appears in nearly every single episode.
  • Storming the Castle: The three-part series finale.
  • Strictly Formula: Most, if not all of the episodes that aren't either two-parters or the finale will go as follows:
    • Kirby and his friends live their happy lives. Dedede acts stupid and orders a monster. Monster attacks. Kirby inhales and copies its power. Monster beast is defeated. Kirby and his friends return to living their happy lives. Still, even the two-parters and the finale still have the same exact sequence from 'Monster attacks' to the end.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Escargoon looks almost exactly like his mom. This makes even Meta Knight laugh.
  • Supreme Chef: Monsieur Goan who easily takes all of Kawasaki's business. Unfortunately, Goan is a monster and Chef of Iron to boot. He later makes a hallucinogenic sorbet designed to make everyone go crazy for a now delicious-looking Kirby. Unusually for a monster, he can speak.
  • Surprise Party: The Cappies throw Kirby one in celebration of his one-year anniversary in Cappy Town and as per the trope, have difficulties keeping him out of the way and unaware of the preparations. Tokkori takes advantage of this by telling Kirby that no-one wants to play with him because they don't like him, causing Kirby to run away. Which Tokkori wants so he can pinch Kirby's house. When Tiff finds out what he did, she completely rips him a new one and orders him to find Kirby and bring him back, which he does.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • In "The Meal Moocher", King Dedede and Escargoon host a game show where they visit other people's houses so that Dedede can sample their home-made cooking, and the contestants win millions of dollars depending on how many stars the king gives as he rates the meal. But before long, Escargoon informs Dedede that he paid out so much prize money that he cannot afford to pay his salary (which Dedede dismisses) and worries that if the king gives a 5-star rating on the next meal they would end up in a financial crisis.
    • Episode 49 sees Dedede trying to make his own cartoon series. Very quickly this runs into a number of snags. The people of Cappy Town all prove to be terrible artists, not to mention they have no desire to make Dedede the star of the show like he wants and instead want to make their beloved hero Kirby the star. Dedede manages to get Night Mare Enterprises to sponsor the show but they put a very strict deadline that leaves everyone working themselves to the bone and produce an episode in less than a week. At the last minute Dedede has the animation of Kirby replaced with him, but since it was added at the last minute it proves even worse. The people Dedede hires have no experience as actors so they are also terrible, Tiff refusing to even follow the script. The animation manages to get even worse the more the episode goes on, being uncolored and at times just using shots of the story board. The last few shots turn to have been drawn by Kirby, who of course just drew himself. Naturally the ratings are terrible and to avoid having to pay his debt, Dedede promises more episodes. Since nobody besides Escargoon and the Waddle Dees are willing to work for him and the episodes are produced on even shorter notice, the animation is literally drawn right as it's being shown end looking ends looking even worse. Though the show winds up looking so bad the viewers found it hilarious.
    • Dedede frequently refuses to pay for his monsters due to his frustration with their failures. At one point this leads to him asking for a monster and not getting one since Nightmare Enterprises refuses to hand one over without payment. Other episodes show that Dedede's refusal to pay has led to him working up a massive debt that even he can't pay off. Being in debt to Evil, Inc. comes back to bite Dedede a few other ways, like a monster being sent to rob him and the NME Sales Guy tricking aliens into dumping their trash all over Dream Land.
    • The Halberd easily shoots down the six Destroyas sent after the first, but once it approaches Nightmare's fortress it quickly proves it's not up to fighting an entire fleet of them.
    • While refusing to see a dentist, Dedede takes medicine that stops the pain on his teeth. As Tiff points out, all that did was numb his teeth. Getting desperate he orders a monster to stop the pain. Said monster of course, is a dentist.
    • After replacing all of the Waddle Dees with a single robotic servant that's more competent at their tasks, it's unable to keep up with the mass workload they did in their hundreds, forcing Tiff's parents to help with a ton of laundry.
  • Stylistic Suck: Dedede: Comin' At Ya, which is acted almost as poorly as it is animated.
  • Subordinate Excuse: The Waddle Dees only serve King Dedede because they want to return the hospitality that was given to them.
  • Sugar Apocalypse: The entire Series Finale, where Nightmare Enterprises sends some Destrayas to raze Dreamland, forcing Meta Knight to unveil the Halberd and take the fight personally once and for all.
  • Super-Fun Happy Thing of Doom: This has to be the only reason King Dedede ordered monsters from Night Mare Enterprises. Doesn't help that a few of the soon-to-be gigantic enemies are pretty cute at first, and some of them are even Cute and Psycho. The dub doesn't have this, of course...making Dedede look like more of an idiot in the process if it was possible.
  • Super-Persistent Predator: Mumbies is a vicious monster designed by Nightmare to specifically exterminate Star Warriors. It relentlessly chases, ambushes and attacks Kirby until the latter is injured and exhausted and Kirby only manages to escape because the monster gets burnt by the sunrise. It's so dangerous that Meta Knight instantly decides that Kirby needs help.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: "Pink-Collar Blues" has Dedede purchase a robot who is an extremely effective servant compared to the slow Waddle Dees, so he fires all of them. This later causes a problem because a sole efficient worker isn't able to take care of an entire castle (on top of being a secret thief) unlike the hundreds of Waddle Dees preventing the castle from going into decline, forcing Tiff's family to pitch in which involves a massive amount of laundry.
  • Swiss-Army Weapon: A one-shot Action Girl character has a machine gun/sword/flamethrower/grappling hook/missile launcher. Seriously.
  • Symbolic Blood: The haunted mansion in "Scare Tactics" is full of the stuff. Escargoon accidentally gives Dedede the impression he's bloodstained ghost and Dedede later gets chained up in a dungeon with blood running down his face! (It's actually only red paint but still!)
  • Take Up My Sword: A non-lethal example—In episode 26, Meta Knight falls unconscious and Kirby takes his sword in order to defeat the Monster of the Week.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The monster delivery system. This becomes the heroes way home in the Grand Finale after the Halberd gets destroyed, but Professor Curio has to fix Dedede's end of the system after it got wrecked in the beginning.
  • Tentacled Terror: Octagon, the first enemy destroyed by Kirby in the series, is a gigantic, sheep-eating, flying, fire-breathing octopus.
  • Terrible Artist: In one episode, Dedede recruits the entire cast to make a cartoon. Half the episode is actually an interesting insight into how cartoons are made, but once it's actually completed, Hilarity Ensues. Also, Dedede himself is shown to be abysmal at art.
  • Theme Twin Naming: Tiff and Tuff (Fumu and Bun in Japanese), though they're not actually twins. Lololo/Fololo and Lalala/Falala may also be examples (also not twins, but two halves of the same being.).
  • This Cannot Be!: Sirica utters this when, to her horror, she sees Kirisakin appear in the Valley of Kabu and make its way towards her and Kirby and co. Escargoon also screams this in an earlier episode when he finally realizes that nothing is making Dedede stop acting nice and get angry, despite not knowing that Togeira took away his ability to get angry.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: King Dedede, of course, has this as his Catchphrase in the original version.
  • Those Two Guys:
    • King Dedede & Escargoon.
    • Sword and Blade are straight examples.
  • Title Reading Gag: An In-Universe example in the episode where Dedede makes his own anime. The Japanese version has Dedede's anime have a title card in the style of the actual show's own, reading "The Plump Visitor" (a nod to the actual show's first episode, "He's Here, The Pink Visitor") Fumu starts to read out the title, but briefly pauses midway through, before saying it in an exasperated tone, and questioning if that's really the title. (Since the dub didn't have title cards, its version instead has Tiff seemingly read the title "Dedede Saves The Day" from the script. She still does question it afterwards.)
  • Towering Flower: In "The Flower Plot", Whispy Woods has the fortune of having a flower grow right in front of him, which he names Lovely. However, King Dedede transforms Lovely into a monster. Like in the video games, Lovely deceives others with her adorable face. Unlike the games, she goes One-Winged Angel and tries to suck the life out of Whispy.
  • Town Contest Episode: The series does this quite a lot, sometimes with absurd fads sweeping the town. One episode included the residents of Cappy Town collecting figurines of themselves, which Meta Knight thought was absurd... until he saw one of himself and changed his mind.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Watermelons for Kirby. Exploited a few times such as the two-part "Born to Be Mild" episode; in order to get Kirby to participate, 2nd place prize is literally a pile of watermelons.
  • Tragic Ice Character: The Pengys, a race of penguins, invade Cappy Town and freeze it in an Endless Winter. It's later revealed that they did this because they lost their natural habitat to global warming.
  • Training from Hell:
    • In episode 3, Meta Knight speed-trains Kirby to wield a sword... by beating the crap out of him and pointing out all his mistakes. He often also leaves Kirby to be beaten up by monsters with little interference, only giving out the occasional tip, unless the situation is so dangerous that he has to help out, especially if others beside Kirby are also in danger.
    • In the Wacky Racing two-parter, Meta Knight deliberately tries running Kirby off the road and has his knaves sabotage Kirby's Starship in order for him to awaken his latent piloting abilities, which he can only do if he is truly in danger.
  • Umbrellas Are Lightning Rods: Inverted and weaponized with Kirby's Parasol power in this anime: his umbrella can fire lightning at his enemies. However, it's worth noting that the Parasol powerup doesn't have this effect in the Kirby games.
  • Unaffected by Spice: In one episode, Chef Kawasaki competes with another cook in creating foods so spicy that they cause anybody who eats them to start breathing fire. Kirby, however, is completely unaffected by any of the dishes produced now matter how spicy they get. Ultimately subverted at the end of the episode when Kawasaki makes the Toxic Atomic Curry, which is spicy enough to get a reaction from Kirby during a serious fight, which is lampshaded by Tuff and Meta Knight.
    Tuff: Yeah! He's Fire Kirby!
    Meta Knight: No, that is the heartburn from Kawasaki's cooking!
  • Unexplained Recovery: "Don't Bank On It" ends with Dedede stuck in Kirby's Black-Hole Belly after Kirby swallows the last Voodoo Doll. Naturally, he's free in the following episode.
  • Ungrateful Townsfolk: Kirby can beat monsters like there's no tomorrow and will do what he can to help, but quite often, the villagers will rail on him if a monster has done more damage than usual and Kirby can't stop it in time. Despite Kirby's heroics, Dedede can also still trick the whole of Cappy Town into thinking that Kirby's done something bad and not always with using some kind of monster. Taken to the extreme in Episode 98 Cappy Down Town where the whole of Cappy Town is leveled by Destroyas and though Kirby could have done nothing to prevent it, everyone rails on him and, when reminded about how many times Kirby's saved them before, they say he didn't save them this time and he should go. Keep in mind Kirby's a baby.
  • Unperson: The monster Erasem from the episode "Escar-gone", has the power to do this. It enters Escargoon's body one night and by the next morning, everyone he ever knew doesn't know who he is. This doesn't affect any physical evidence like photographs, leading to everyone being confused on why this complete stranger shows up in nearly every photograph alongside King Dedede. However, this can be reversed if Erasem is removed from the host's body. This happens to Kirby at the end of the episode, to the point where the iris-out star forgets who he is and floats around aimlessly, only to accidentally squeeze Kirby and that gets rid of Erasem.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In an episode where Tuff decides to go on a crime spree to prevent the only cop in town from being fired.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: A trait inherited from the games.
    • Masher 2.0 in a Darker and Edgier episode of the same name (in English, of course). Sure, Masher was already powerful enough in his original appearance in the second Knuckle Joe episode before that, but Masher 2.0 is even more dangerous and powerful than he was before. He did a good amount of damage to Knuckle Joe and even now comes equipped with a powerful laser. After Joe defeats Masher 2.0, everything goes back to being comical and happy.
    • Mumbies in Episode 84. This dude is considered to be even more dangerous than most of the bad guys Kirby's already faced before. Throwing in a creature that Kirby almost can't fight due to its trickery and supply of surprises was enough to give Kirby himself a hard time. And this thing's not the only one; there's even more Mumbies scattered across the universe, hidden on each planet all with the same goal of causing chaos and killing Star Warriors. After Kirby defeated this particular Mumbies, everything went back to happiness and humor. But not for long...
    • Twelve episodes later came the even Darker and Edgier five-part series finale, which featured the truly competent Destroyas. These things were the main reason why Cappy Town was getting burned to a crisp and suffering from a Sugar Apocalypse. In fact, a blast fired from one of the Destroyas even knocked off a piece of Kirby's warp star!
  • Voodoo Doll: The Dedede Dolls. Though Dedede intended for them to only move when he moved, he finds out in the most unpleasant manner that the reverse is also true.
  • Wall of Weapons: Meta Knight has one in his room; they are Sword and Blade's former weapons, which they hold to remind them of the day they met Meta Knight.
  • Weakened by the Light: Exaggerated in the episode where the Mumbies appear—they're only active at night, but when the sun rises, they get vaporized when the sunlight hits them.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: WolfWrath, one of the monsters made by Nightmare (and one of his most ferocious and powerful ones), also has one main weakness - naturally, since he's a fire monster, his main weakness is water. Needless to say, once submerged in it, pretty much anything can finish him off. Kirby still slices it in half for good measure.
    • Pretty much the exact opposite of WolfWrath, the monster called Fridgy will melt into a huge pile of water if he gets burned enough by fire.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Dedede's kingdom as a whole has seen a lot of weird crap from monsters to invasions ever since Kirby came.
  • Welcome to Evil Mart: NightMare Enterprises is a corporation that specializes in selling malevolent monsters, and it's where King Dedede gets almost everything for his evil schemes.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: While Kirby isn't Meta Knight's son, the latter sometimes praises him for getting progressively stronger. Less often, he'll show pride in Knuckle Joe or Tiff.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back!: When King Dedede gets turned nice by a monster, only Escargoon wants him back. Averted with everyone else, who prefer him this way.
  • We Will Meet Again: A lot of the guest characters say this to Kirby near the end of the episode. Barely any of them come back.
  • Wham Episode: "Hour of the WolfWrath" was the first episode to place Meta Knight in a state of vulnerability, leaving Kirby to tough out the Monster of the Week without his guidance. Also, the episode further contextualized Meta Knight's past, pitting him against a monster with which he and his knaves had a newly-discussed personal history.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • The Galbo that Kirby hatched is absent the following episode and never returns.
    • Yamikage flees swearing vengeance upon Kirby and Meta Knight, nothing comes of it.
    • Erasem also escapes and is never seen again aside from a cameo as a toy in a later episode. Granted, its behavior implies that it didn't really give a crap about following Nightmare's orders.
  • Wishful Projection: Tiff assumes that, when this legendary Star Warrior Kirby steps out from his containment pod, he will be a tall prince with a slender figure and a sword, only for it to reveal it is actually a pink puffball that can't even speak. This literally shatters her mental image.
    • While she sometimes falls for Dedede's tricks, Mabel is one of the few Cappies who outright criticises and opposes King Dedede on a regular basis. She also often doles out sound advice in the form of one of her predictions.
  • World of Pun: Most of the English episode names are pun-based, and quite a bit of the dialogue is pun-heavy.
  • You Killed My Father: Both Knuckle Joe and Silica initially blame Meta Knight for killing one of their parents and come to Pop Star to hunt him down. Their accusations are both true, but he did it for good reasons.
  • You Monster!: Knuckle Joe was consumed by hatred in his quest to avenge his father, which led him to do terrible things, such as trying to kill Kirby who wouldn't even fight back. That was more than enough reason for Meta Knight to call him a monster.
  • Zerg Rush: Near the end of "Pink-Collar Blues", while Stone Kirby pins down the robotic Monster of the Week, the Waddle Dees run towards its brandishing tools.

 
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Water Kirby

The Water ability made its debut in episode 97 of the Kirby anime, and his primary method of attack is spewing a geyser from his mouth, as demonstrated here. It eventually made its way into the games starting with Kirby's Return to Dream Land.

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