Kirby

This article is about the enemy species in Link's Awakening. For the main Kirby character, see Kirby (character).

Kirby
Habitat(s)	Eagle's Tower
Health	8
Attack	Contact , Swallow
Weapon(s)	Bomb, Boomerang, Magic Rod

Kirby,^(Series) also known as Anti-Kirby,^(LA) is a unique enemy exclusively found in Link's Awakening. In spite of their name and identical appearance to the titular main character Kirby of the Kirby series, it is not actually such, as these foes are corrupt, dangerous versions of him.

Characteristics

Link encountering an Anti-Kirby alongside a Goomba in Eagle's Tower

In Link's Awakening, despite at first appearing rather harmless and friendly like the actual Kirby and tends to walk about at random directions, Anti-Kirbies are hostile creatures that are encountered in certain areas of the first floor in Eagle's Tower, the seventh Dungeon, sometimes alongside Goombas - an enemy from the Mario series. They are described as "Kirby's evil twins" in the Nintendo Player's guide of the game. Its only attack is by periodically attempting to inhale Link into their wide gaping mouths, itself Kirby's signature move to defeat or copy his foes' techniques, in which he will be slowly sucked toward the enemy unless Link is at a sufficient distance away or behind it. If they manage to swallow the young hero, they will briefly hold him for a moment before spitting him back out and causing damage, similar to a Like Like. Although Anti-Kirbies are not powerful (unlike the real counterpart), they are among the most resilient enemies in the game, as only a few items are effective against them and the Sword will merely bounce off of the enemy, rendering the blade useless. Anti-Kirbies can only be defeated with two well-placed Bombs, two hits from the Magic Rod, or four hits from the Boomerang. Unusually, the enemies will cause more damage onto Link simply by coming into contact with one than by being swallowed.

In the Kirby series

Main articles: Kirby (character) and Super Smash Bros. series

Kirby as seen in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, as his powerful Ultra Sword form, which itself a Super Ability that makes himself resemble Link

In his source material, Kirby is the main protagonist of the franchise of the same name, which as a whole made its debut in the 1992 Game Boy title Kirby's Dream Land. Appearing to be a pink, spherical, very flexible body with small arms and large red feet, he lives in a dome-shaped home within a peaceful land called Dream Land, itself a country on his home planet, Planet Popstar. His adventures in most Kirby games take him throughout Dream Land and occasionally into local star systems for various reasons, and he has saved his homeland, and even the universe, many times, usually against his arch-rivals King Dedede or Meta Knight. Kirby also loves to eat massive amounts of food and sleep. Kirby's best known abilities are being able to fly (which the Anti-Kirby counterpart cannot do), stretch his mouth incredibly wide to inhale and swallow his enemies which allows him to copy their possible abilities (or create an ally in some cases) as aforementioned to gain critical advantages against powerful opponents, and possess expert fighting skills. Interestingly, Kirby's Dream Land, his first appearance, did not yet introduced the iconic Copy Ability, as this was added in its next installment Kirby's Adventure on the Nintendo Entertainment System in March 1993 - three months before Link's Awakening's Japanese release.

One of Nintendo's stars, Kirby himself is famous for not only his cute appearance or innocent personality (which is especially popular in Japan), but also being one of its strongest playable central characters, much like Link or Mario (although not technically invincible nor stated by Nintendo, fans frequently claim him as arguably the most powerful in all video game media in terms of canonical feats). He also shares the same creator as the Super Smash Bros. crossover fighting game series - Masahiro Sakurai, therefore making Kirby a popular pick, and is one of its eight original characters alongside Link. Jigglypuff from the Pokémon franchise in that series is considered Kirby's "clone character", as it shares a similar moveset and weight. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, he teams up with Mario, Link, and various other Nintendo heroes to stop multiple threats by Ganondorf, Bowser, and some other villains in the Subspace Emissary mode.

Trivia

The actual Kirby, in which The Legend of Zelda counterpart is directly based on

• Despite being another central protagonist like Link, the appearance of Kirby as an enemy in Link's Awakening is among one of several guests featured from other Nintendo franchises in a The Legend of Zelda series title, including Super Mario. It's likely he was included by the developers in order to promote the character, as the Kirby series was relatively new by the game's release in 1993 and his first appearance was only one year prior.
• According to Shigeru Miyamoto, Kirby's name comes from John Kirby, an American lawyer who helped Nintendo during the infamous court case against Universal in 1982 referring to Donkey Kong being a rip-off of King Kong, as well as the sound of the name itself contrasted with the character's simple but adorable looks.
• Link encountering and defeating Anti-Kirbies, unlike the Mario enemies, is an early example of two Nintendo protagonists able to fight each other, although in this case, it's not technically the character.
  • However, in the Super Smash Bros. series, Link and the real Kirby are playable fighters and therefore can be chosen to clash in a battle.
• The Anti-Kirby in the original version of the game noticeably does not have the dark pink dots seen on its cheeks, unlike the genuine character. In addition, its eyes even in the Switch remake are plain black, making them distinguishable.
  • Ironically, the real Kirby had black eyes in his earliest appearances.
• Much like the true Kirby, due to the hardware limitations of the Game Boy, Anti-Kirbies first appeared as white, but on Link's Awakening DX on the Game Boy Color, they are pink.
• Although the name "Kirby" normally refers to the main character of the Kirby franchise, it is known that multiple other Kirbies exist as a species, which can be seen as early as Kirby's Dream Land. This heavily implies the ones Link encounters are these - simply gone rogue in Koholint Island.
• Although Kirby's gender is canonically unknown, most sources released in North America refer to the character with male pronouns. Some fans otherwise believe Kirby to be female, due to his feminine-looking appearance.
• The Anti-Kirby in Link's Awakening are one of the few enemies in the Zelda franchise which the Sword is ineffective against.

  

  Kirby with the Sword ability in Kirby Super Star, granting himself powers similar to Link's

• In the Kirby series, whenever Kirby copies the Sword ability, he gains a floppy green cap (except for Kirby's Adventure on NES) and many attack moves in direct reference to Link, such as the Down Thrust or Spin Attack and firing Sword Beams when at full health. According to the booklet that comes with the game Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition released on the Wii, this was done as a way to "return the favor" for Kirby's guest appearance in Link's Awakening. Plus, his rival, Meta Knight, is also a sword fighter like Link.
  • In the Super Smash Bros. series, when he copies any version of Link, he gains his green hat and uses the Bow and Arrow, although in the original Nintendo 64 game Kirby uses the Boomerang, instead. The Sword ability itself was also used as his Final Smash in SSB4 and Ultimate, known as the Ultra Sword.
• Despite official sources claim Kirby's height being only 8 inches tall, in Link's Awakening as well as his spin-off appearances such as the Super Smash Bros. series, he appears to be significantly larger - the same size as Link as a child due to his cartoonish physical proportions.
• Contrary to popular belief, when Kirby swallows an enemy, he does not actually kill them by digesting them as food, but rather they disappear and reappear somewhere else in the world.
• The Anti-Kirby's model in the Nintendo Switch version uses a recycled design from the actual character's model used in Kirby Star Allies, as one of its headshapes is a leftover from the original model.

Nomenclature

Names in other regions
Language		Name	Meaning
	Japanese	カービィ (Kābī) (LA)	Kirby
This table was generated using translation pages.

Gallery

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  Link's Awakening sprite
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  Link's Awakening DX sprite
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  Anti-Kirby inhaling from Link's Awakening DX
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  An Anti-Kirby attempting to inhale Link in the Switch remake of Link's Awakening
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  The Anti-Kirby after swallowing Link in the Nintendo Switch Link's Awakening remake
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  The genuine Kirby as seen from Kirby's Dream Land, his first appearance