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There are certain questions people all over the globe have been pondering for decades now. The kind of questions that keep us up at night and make us wonder what life is all about. Yes, I’m talking about questions pertaining to Kirby, of course!

Nintendo fans have had all sorts of questions about Kirby over the years, and surprisingly, some of the team behind the franchise has shared new insight. Polygon had the chance to talk to HAL Laboratory executive director Shinya Kumazaki and director Tatsuya Kamiyama, and they approached the duo with some hard-hitting Kirby questions. While some of the questions are a tad off-the-wall, the team’s answers are nothing short of fantastic.

First up, what does the inside of Kirby look like? What’s actually on the inside of everyone’s favorite cream puff?

Dreams. Filled with dreams. Of course, we want to keep a mysterious side to Kirby. So I’ll say we will keep it a mystery.

[Director Shinya Kumazaki]

Next, what would happen if Kirby swallowed another Kirby?

Kirby’s ability is to swallow and copy an object’s ability. In past games, there would be times when a yellow Kirby got swallowed by a pink Kirby. Pink Kirby would spit it out. So really nothing would happen. In terms of game design, we haven’t created anything special reaction associated with that.

But given Kirby’s ability is to copy, and it swallows a Kirby with the same ability, nothing would change. Though I do think it would be funny if it made two Kirby.

[Director Shinya Kumazaki]

Most important of all, what happens to the enemies that Kirby swallows? Does Kirby gobbling them up end their lives?

Because the base world is a fantasy world, it’s not like they get swallowed and digested inside of Kirby. Because that might be jarring, and because we made the game to be approachable, having that kind of extreme or violent expression might negate making the game so approachable.

Instead, we have this comical, funny depiction where the enemies poof. When an enemy or creature gets swallowed by Kirby, they may disappear but they do resurface somewhere else in the world.

[Director Shinya Kumazaki]

It’s pretty fantastic to see that HAL has actually pondered some of these questions and had answers to share. Speaking of questions, there’s a few more Kirby-related ones that HAL was willing to answer, and you can find them in the full interview.

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Comments (4)

Most Upvoted

smashbrolink

Considering Kirby's kind nature, that's actually pretty on-brand-sounding.
I mean, we know that it wasn't really depicted that way in the cartoon show [though we also never saw swallowed foes in Kirby's stomach dimension, either, iirc], but it's still a nice thought.

martynstuff

1y ago

I just really like that they took these questions seriously. As they should. Kirby is important


riftsilver

1y ago

> When an enemy or creature gets swallowed by Kirby, they may disappear but they do resurface somewhere else in the world.

Fascinating. So does this mean Kirby just simply steals their powers and teleports them away?


smashbrolink

1y ago

@riftsilver

Considering Kirby's kind nature, that's actually pretty on-brand-sounding.
I mean, we know that it wasn't really depicted that way in the cartoon show [though we also never saw swallowed foes in Kirby's stomach dimension, either, iirc], but it's still a nice thought.


joshua220

1y ago

Kirby is the greatest!