User:WillIdleAway/Kirby around the world

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: Draft outline. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 16:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Kirby and the Kirby series as a whole have journeyed to regions all around the world.

“

... some people in the western market said a pink, soft character floating in air would never be accepted. So in the West, they changed Kirby's color on the box from pink to white. Maybe they thought I would not notice. I did!

”

— Satoru Iwata

The history of Kirby around the world is one of varying levels of interest and effort in exporting Kirby games and associated properties from HAL Laboratory's home country of Japan to international regions.

Kirby in the Asia Pacific region

Japan

A 1993 Kirby's Adventure plush of Kirby with the Star Rod, pictured in front of the HAL Laboratory sign in 1997.

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: I've tried to organise it into three brief paragraphs: games, anime, merch/other. Things still need fleshing out overall. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 21:38, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Kirby enjoys a high level of popularity in HAL Laboratory's home country of Japan, where Nintendo has published every single game in the series except for Kirby's Avalanche (a rebranding of Super Puyo Puyo for Western audiences) and the e-Reader title Kirby Slide. An example of the outsized popularity of Kirby in Japan can be found in the sales numbers for Kirby Star Allies across fiscal years 2018 and 2019 (which is to say April 2017 through March 2018, then April 2018 through March 2019). Japanese sales accounted for 0.86 million of 2.56 million units sold worldwide, or 34% of worldwide sales, which is a significantly higher proportion compared to other games that launched worldwide in FY2018. The only comparable game is Splatoon 2, from a franchise that also enjoys outsized Japanese popularity.

A comparison of Kirby Star Allies sales against other Nintendo games with a simultaneous FY3/2018 worldwide launch
Game	Release date	Fraction of units sold in Japan
		FY3/2018	FY3/2019	April 2017–March 2019 total*
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	2017/04/28	1.68M/9.22M (18%)	0.89M/7.47M (12%)	2.57M/16.69M (15%)
ARMS	2017/06/16	0.47M/1.85M (25%)	n/a**	>0.47M/<2.64M (>18%)**
Splatoon 2	2017/07/21	2.61M/6.02M (43%)	0.83M/2.69M (31%)	3.44M/8.70M (40%)
Super Mario Odyssey	2017/10/27	1.91M/10.41M (18%)	0.34M/4.04M (8.4%)	2.25M/14.44M (16%)
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	2017/04/28	1.68M/9.22M (18%)	0.89M/7.47M (12%)	2.57M/16.69M (15%)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2	2017/12/01	0.31M/1.31M (24%)	n/a***	>0.31M/1.73M (>18%)***
Kirby Star Allies	2018/03/16	0.50M/1.26M (40%)	0.36M/1.30M (28%)	0.86M/2.56M (34%)
(*Some sums will be approximate at the level of tens of thousands due to rounding errors.) (**ARMS sold less than one million units during FY3/2019, so a breakdown of Japanese versus overseas sales was not available. Total sales for ARMS numbered 2.10 million up to the end of September 2018, on par with Kirby Star Allies. [33] However, ARMS was no longer a top-selling Switch title at the end of March 2019, when the lowest-selling title listed was Mario Tennis Aces at 2.64 million. [34] This puts an upper bound on worldwide ARMS sales at 2.64 million, and allows us to put a lower bound on the proportion of ARMS sales in Japan at 18%, as either a lower worldwide sales number or more Japanese sales in FY3/2019 would result in the Japanese market accounting for a higher proportion of ARMS sales.) (***Xenoblade Chronicles 2 sold less than one million units during FY3/2019, so a breakdown of Japanese versus overseas sales was not available. As with ARMS we can constrain the fraction indirectly, this time based on a worldwide sales count of 1.73 million given by Monolith Soft's Tetsuya Takahashi in an interview. [35])

Kirby: Right Back at Ya first aired in Japan through TBS Television network affiliates, in particular CBC. Due to its chaotic, parody-heavy nature, Japanese communities have come to refer to it as 和製サウスパーク (wasei sausu paaku, or Japanese South Park).

Merchandising has also been prominent in Japan since the start of the Kirby series, including plush dolls associated with Kirby's Adventure. In the present day, HAL Laboratory's involvement in Kirby merchandising has expanded significantly through involvement in projects like Kirby Café. Anniversary events like the Kirby 25th Anniversary Orchestra Concert and the Kirby 30th Anniversary Music Festival also principally occur in Japan, as do collaborations with brands like Lawson, Zoff, and Suntory.

South Korea

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: A good figure here would be the tie-in books from 2005 and 2022, as a sort of bookend. Also document the weird thing with boxed download codes (not download cards!) in Korea. I would also like to source things more properly where possible. Also abridge historical background if there's too much. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 16:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Korea was under Japanese rule throughout most of the first half of the 20th century, falling under indirect rule in 1905 and being annexed entirely in 1910. The occupation significantly impacted Korean cultural identity, with policies of cultural erasure in place by the late 1930s. Korea regained independence in 1945, and South Korea began normalizing foreign relations with Japan in 1965. However, South Korea remained extremely wary of Japanese cultural influence, and cultural importation from Japan was still strictly forbidden by law through the mid-1990s, when Kirby first appeared in other regions.

Throughout the 1990s, Japanese game imports were indirect, rebadged versions distributed by Korean companies. Hyundai Electronics (defunct 2001, succeeded by a number of companies including SK Hynix) distributed rebadged versions of the NES (as the 현대 컴보이 or Hyundai Comboy), Game Boy (as the 현대 미니컴보이 or Hyundai Mini Comboy), SNES (as the 현대 슈퍼컴보이 or Hyundai Super Comboy), and Nintendo 64 (as the 현대 컴보이64 or Hyundai Comboy 64). Other key Nintendo series like Mario saw imports alongside these consoles, but no record exists of Kirby games being imported. As a result of this, Korean references to Kirby vary greatly in the chosen transliteration, including 커비 (keobi, following the original English name) but also 카비 or 까비 (kabi or kkabi, following the Japanese version of the name).

After Hyundai's exit from the video games business, Daewon CI (대원씨아이) eventually began importing Nintendo consoles and games, and released five Kirby games in Korea under this arrangement: Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby Air Ride, Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, Kirby: Canvas Curse, and Kirby: Squeak Squad. None of these releases involved a translation of the game into Korean. Any translations provided as part of the packaging, instructions, or promotional materials hewed closely to the Japanese version, to the point where transliterations of names of English origin instead resembled their Japanese versions, as with Kirby (카비, kabi) or the Star Rod (스타롯드, suta rosdeu—although the final consonant of 롯 is pronounced more like a "t", rendering it very close to the Japanese スターロッド or sutāroddo). This arrangement of importing untranslated Kirby games continued through the Nintendo DS era, and ended following the establishment of Nintendo of Korea in 2006.

Kirby games sold in Korea by Daewon CI
Game	Korean title	Release date	Notes	References
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land	별의 카비-꿈의 샘 (byeol-ui kabi kkum-ui saem) Kirby of the Stars: The Fountain of Dreams	2002	Japanese version with Korean instructions.	[36]
Kirby Air Ride	카비 에어라이드 (kabi eeolaideu) Kirby Air Ride	March 6th, 2004	US version with Korean box art and instructions. The box art appears to combine the logo used in Western markets with the Japanese artwork of a smiling, unperturbed Kirby.	[37], [38], [39] (Wayback Machine snapshot)
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror	별의카비 거울의대미궁 (byeol-uikabi geoul-uidaemigung) Kirby of the Stars: The Great Labyrinth of the Mirror	May 4th, 2004	Japanese version with Korean instructions.	[40], [41]
Kirby: Canvas Curse	터치! 카비 (teochi! kabi) Touch! Kirby	April 19th, 2005	Japanese version with Korean box art and instructions. Included pink stylus.	[42], [43]
Kirby: Squeak Squad	별의 카비 드롯체단 등장! (byeol-uikabi deuloschedandeungjang) Kirby of the Stars: The Daroach Gang Appears!	December 2006	Japanese version with Korean box art and instructions. Daewon CI never updated their official website to reflect their DS game releases past Kirby: Canvas Curse, but this untranslated import version did exist and was reviewed by a video games magazine.	[44], [45], [46]

A Korean dub of Kirby: Right Back at Ya! aired on Tooniverse in 2005, airing one episode each weekday afternoon from Monday to Thursday at 16:00, with re-runs airing the same week on Thursday and Friday mornings at 08:00 in hour-long blocks of two episodes. The first episode aired on January 3rd, and the final dubbed episode aired on March 31st. The dub is a translation of the US 4Kids dub, and covered the first 53 episodes (in the Japanese broadcast order) except for A Dental Dilemma, for a total of 52 episodes. A summer re-run showed an hour-long block of two episodes every weekday at noon starting on June 17th, changing to a single-episode half-hour block every weekday at 07:00 starting on July 18th until the end of the dubbed run on July 29th. A select number of these episodes were also available to view over the Internet on the Junior Naver section of the Naver web portal.

None of these episodes are available today and are considered lost media apart from unofficial audio and video recordings of a limited number of episodes. Despite this, the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! dub is important as it marked the first official transliteration of Kirby as 커비 (keobi), and introduced the earliest examples of Kirby merchandise made for the Korean market in the form of a number of tie-in books and puzzles.

Since Nintendo of Korea's establishment in 2006, the vast majority of Kirby games have received a Korean-language release, starting with the Korean localization of Kirby: Squeak Squad in 2007. The only exceptions have been Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition (which never received a release outside of Japan and the Americas), Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (for the Wii U, which never released in South Korea), and a number of downloadable 3DS titles (namely 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure, and Team Kirby Clash Deluxe). Every game is fully translated, although with localization choices ranging from creative (translating Daroach as 도팡 or dopang, a portmanteau of 도둑 or "thief" and Arsène Lupin, the fictional French gentleman thief) to unremarkable (translating 惑星 or wakusei as 혹성 or hokseong, which matches the original kanji one-for-one but is a much less commonly used term for "planet" than 행성 or haengseong) to baffling (transliterating "Waddle Dee", ワドルディ or wadorudi, as 웨이들 디 or weideul di).

Nintendo of Korea's push for Kirby in Korea has only continued to escalate. The 30th anniversary saw a Kirby pop-up store open in Seoul, operating between July 29th and August 28th of 2022. The store immediately repeatedly reached capacity limits and ran out of stock of various items including Ichiban Kuji prizes. The shop also sold the first Korean-language translations of Kirby novels, namely of Kirby Star Allies: The Great Friend Adventure! and Kirby Star Allies: The Universe is in Trouble?!, weeks in advance of their official publication. The pop-up store returned (albeit at a different location) in time for the launch of Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, between February 17th and March 2nd of 2023.

Other regions

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: This should include various parts of East and Southeast Asia, but also Oceania—mainland China, HK, TW, SG, AU, NZ, etc, Of course individual regions can be split off. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 16:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Kirby in the Americas

An example of the infamously aggressive marketing surrounding Kirby in the North American market.

Japanese box art for Hoshi no Kirby Wii, featuring a smiling, unarmed Kirby.

European box art for Kirby's Adventure Wii, featuring a smiling, unarmed Kirby.

US/Canadian box art for Kirby's Return to Dream Land, featuring an angry Kirby wielding the Ultra Sword.

The United States

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: Needs more about the games and NoA's marketing in particular; KRBaY and 4Kids; other things that I'm probably not aware of? —willidleaway [talk | edits] 05:31, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

The United States is a key part of Kirby's origin. Following discussions between HAL Laboratory and Nintendo, Nintendo of America provided suggestions for potential names to replace the character's original name of "Popopo" as the Japanese producers wanted a name that would appeal to American children. A significant secondary influence that Shigeru Miyamoto would acknowledge multiple times was the role of US attorney John Kirby in defending Nintendo in Universal v. Nintendo, which solidified Nintendo's foothold in America.

Appropriately, the US (along with Canada) was the first market outside of Japan to meet Kirby. 1992's Kirby's Dream Land saw a release there on August 1, a little over four months after the Japanese release. Every Kirby console game has seen a US release since then apart from a couple of Japan-exclusive Super Famicom games (namely the Super Famicom version of Kirby's Star Stacker and the Satellaview-only Kirby's Toy Box mini-games).

One notable aspect of marketing for Kirby games in the United States was the tendency to highlight Kirby's 'rougher and tougher' side to contrast with his normally cute and innocent-looking demeanor. TV commercials for early Kirby games, most particularly those for Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Avalanche, and Kirby's Dream Land 2, were notable in making Kirby look outright intimidating despite his small squishy appearance, with the Kirby's Adventure commercial in particular coining the apt phrase "one tough cream puff". Despite this, however, the box art, instruction booklets, and other direct paraphernalia with the games were generally more in line with the Japanese depiction of Kirby. Starting in 2002, however, as part of a push to bolster Kirby's faltering popularity in the U.S., Nintendo of America asked HAL to depict Kirby as tough and determined on the box art and other related game art, with this sometimes being as simple as changing Kirby's face from a carefree smile to a serious dour look (as most aptly illustrated on the box art for Kirby Air Ride). This trend to highlight Kirby's serious side in the U.S. continued with little pause until after Kirby's Return to Dream Land, as from that point on, the box art of subsequent games for both Japan and the U.S. would become largely identical in how it depicted Kirby. When discussing the reasoning for this period of difference in marketing, Kirby series director Shinya Kumazaki had this to say in an interview for GameSpot:

"For the Japanese versions we are, at [Kirby series developer] HAL, involved in everything throughout development, including the package design. The most powerful image of Kirby is that cute image, we think that's the one that appeals to the widest audience," explained Kumazaki in an interview with GameSpot. This cute Kirby "brings in the most people to play" in his home country of Japan.

"While it does start cute," Kumazaki continues, "we know there is a serious side to Kirby as well, and throughout the gameplay we see more and more of that, and the games themselves have quite a bit of depth. That being said, we recognise that Kirby's cuteness is his biggest draw in [the Japanese] market."

Kumazaki asys^[sic] Nintendo of America controls the shots in the US, and provides HAL with "feedback and insight" into the market. "What we have heard is that strong, tough Kirby that's really battling hard is a more appealing sign of Kirby, so that's what we feature in the US."

Outside of the games and limited home video releases of the anime, merchandise has traditionally been scant, but does exist. Viz Media, a US subsidiary of Shogakukan, publishes a number of Kirby books for the North American market, in particular Kirby Manga Mania and Kirby: Art & Style Collection. Additionally, Nintendo's New York store holds launch events for Kirby games, sells Kirby merchandise, and introduced a set of Kirby statues (originally from the Kirby and the Forgotten Land Universal CityWalk pop-up) to the upper level to commemorate the release of Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Kirby also seems to occasionally make appearances at the store for no particular reason.

HAL Laboratory and Nintendo appear to making a stronger marketing push for the Kirby series in the United States beginning with the 30th anniversary, with examples of this including a temporary Kirby and the Forgotten Land-themed pop-up attraction at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood, a limited Kirby-themed bubble tea flavor available at Kung Fu Tea (which continued being sold without the Kirby branding when the promotion ended), and more licensed merchandise, including statues from First4Figures and other products for retailers like BoxLunch. As a result, while the series isn't quite at the same level as its native Japan, it is not quite as scarce in the United States as it once was.

Canada

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: Soliciting information specifically about Quebecois French localisations and Canadian KRBaY broadcast history. —willidleaway [talk | edits] 16:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

In general, English-speaking provinces of the country received a lot of the same games and merchandise as the United States did. Initially, video games and their systems sold in French-speaking Québec did not have any mandatory language laws associated with them (meaning game packaging and manuals were most often in English only), but starting in the late 90's (though not actually taking effect until the early 2000's), it became mandatory to provide French-language instruction manuals with the games, even if the games themselves did not have a French translation on them. As a result, most manufacturers started providing bilingual game covers and manuals in English and French, a practice which continues to this day.

Following a deal with the video game industry and the Office québécois de la langue française in 2007, it would eventually become provincial law for all video games sold in retailers across the province to provide bilingual packaging in both languages and a French localization in the game itself if one exists, whether it be the Canadian or European dialect. Needless to say, this change wasn't received positively at first by players who thought this change was unnecessary, had assumed that video games would take longer to come out in North America as a result of how expensive and how long the translation process might take, and would probably import a copy from elsewhere. By the time the change actually took effect on April 1, 2009, besides the occasional scare here-and-there, it didn't really do much harm, probably because the language settings could often be changed, either on a system menu or in the game itself. In regards to the Kirby series, the first game to provide a French-Canadian translation would be Kirby's Epic Yarn, and almost every future game since then (except for Kirby's Dream Collection) would also receive such a translation.

Latin America

Brazil

This article or section is under construction. Therefore, please excuse its informal appearance while it's being worked on. We hope to have it completed as soon as possible. Reason: I will leave an outline here, and add more references, and improve the existing ones, and more information as I can. - Gigi (talk • edits) 12:51, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Kirby's history in Brazil is directly tied to Nintendo's: the company has seldom directly distributed its games in the country, instead relying on a third party, or simply not having any official distributor at all, giving fans no choice but having to rely on unofficial importers. Nintendo first officially arrived in Brazil's marked in 1993, via Playtronic, which officially released the NES and Game Boy and its games in the country. The series' first game, Kirby's Dream Land, was officially distributed, and Kirby's Adventure even got its own NES bundle in the country. Games released in Brazil often mirrored releases in the USA, and most Kirby games released around this period were released in Brazil, including games like Kirby's Dream Land 3. Playtronic was eventually succeeded by Gradiente in 1996, which continued being Nintendo's official distributor until 2003, when it decided to end the partnership, citing the high USD exchange rate, piracy, and other reasons as factors. Brazil would then have no official distributor until 2006, when instead Latamel assumed the role. Once again, releases often mirrored those in the USA; in particular, even Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition was released in the country. In 2011, Latamel stablished a local branch called Gaming do Brasil, which then became responsible for distributing Nintendo hardware and software in Brazil. In 2015, Nintendo once again left the country, citing high taxes as the biggest factor. In June 2018, an online Nintendo store with a limited selection of Switch games (one of them being Kirby Star Allies) released without notice, and later on on October 2018, during Brasil Game Show 2018, Nintendo would appear as one of the main sponsors of the convention, where it announced prepaid download cards for a selection of Nintendo Switch titles, which once again included Kirby Star Allies. Nintendo would officially return to Brazil in 2020, focusing more on digital releases than physical games, and this time around without a third party. This meant that physical releases of games were still only possible via unofficial importers. While Nintendo has started selling physical copies in Brazil in 2022 with translated game boxes, it's only a limited selection of games, and no Kirby game is part of it.

No Kirby game had been official translated to Brazilian Portuguese until Kirby's Dream Buffet in 2022, since, apart from some mobile games, Nintendo games had never been officially translated to Brazilian Portuguese until the release of Mario Party Superstars in 2021, which marked a slow start on games of the company being translated to Brazil's main language. While various Kirby games were officially released in Brazil before, they were always only available in American English, and any other languages supported in the North American version of said game when applicable. However, game boxes were often translated to Portuguese, but they kept the English terms used in the games to not confuse players.

Kirby games officially sold in Brazil physically
Game	Distributor	Notes	References
File:KDL Box.jpg Kirby's Dream Land	Playtronic	North American version with the game box in Portuguese.	[47]
Kirby's Adventure	Playtronic	North American version with the game box in Portuguese.	[48]
Kirby's Dream Course	Playtronic	North American version with the game box and manual in Portuguese.	[49]
File:KDL2 Box.jpg Kirby's Dream Land 2	Playtronic	North American version with the game box in Portuguese.	[50] [51] [52] [53]
Kirby's Block Ball	Playtronic	North American version with the game box in Portuguese.	[54] [55]
Kirby Super Star	Playtronic	North American version with the game box, cartridge and manual in Portuguese.	[56] [57] [58] [59] [60]
Kirby's Dream Land 3	Gradiente	North American version with the game box in Portuguese.	[61] [62]
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards	Gradiente	North American version with the game box in Portuguese. Released in July 21st, 2000.	[63] [64] [65] [66] [67]
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble	Gradiente	North American version with the game box in Portuguese. Released in April 30th, 2001.	[68] [69] [70] [71] [72]
Kirby's Epic Yarn	Latamel		[73]
Kirby Mass Attack	Gaming do Brasil	North American version with a cardboard cover containing the Brazilian rating in the front, and safety and support information in Portuguese in the back. The description of the game in the back is left in English.
Kirby's Return to Dream Land	Gaming do Brasil	North American version with a cardboard cover containing the Brazilian rating in the front, and safety and support information in Portuguese in the back.	[74] [75]
Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition	Gaming do Brasil	North American version with a small sticker of the Brazilian rating of the game in the front, and another sticker in the back containing safety and support information in Portuguese. The description of the game in the back is left in English. Released on September 2012.	[76] [77]
Kirby: Triple Deluxe	Gaming do Brasil	North American version with a cardboard cover containing the Brazilian rating in the front, as well as the description of the game and safety and support information in Portuguese in the back. Released on May 2014.	[78] [79] [80]
Kirby Star Allies	Nintendo / Lojas Americanas	Prepaid download card of the game.	[81] [82] [83]

The Kirby anime also released in Brazil with a Brazilian Portuguese dub based on the English 4Kids dub, first airing in Fox Kids sometime in 2003. The show aired from Monday to Saturday, at 10:30 AM and 10 PM. It would later also air in Jetix, which succeeded and replaced the Fox Kids channel in 2004. The show would air there for a couple more years, until at least 2007. While it's unknown if the whole show was dubbed, as not every episode has been preserved, it's assumed so, due to the sheer variety of episodes preserved, including the last episodes. The Brazilian Portuguese dub of the anime has yet to been rereleased officially after its airing, but during its run two DVDs were released: "Kirby e Seus Poderes" (Kirby and His Powers), which included the first two episodes, and "Kirby e Seus Poderes 2" (Kirby and His Powers 2), which included episodes 3 and 4.

Other kinds of Kirby media, such as merchandise, are not available in Brazil apart from very few imports, most unofficial. For example, Kirby Art & Style Collection is available in Amazon Brazil, but it's simply an import of the English version. The Kirby series does not appear to be widely popular in Brazil; in particular, official marketing of Kirby game has been scarce compared to other Nintendo titles. For example, during Gaming do Brasil's activity, it often held events to celebrate the release of various titles, including third party ones like Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins, but none were held for any Kirby releases. As another example, after the airing of the Nintendo Direct in February 8th, 2023, the official Twitter account for Nintendo Brasil tweeted about various titles featured in the Direct, but didn't tweet about Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, despite the Direct revealing a brand new mode for the game, as well as a demo; it is particularly odd when the game features a Brazilian Portuguese translation. On the other hand, Kirby's Dream Buffet's status as the first Kirby game released in Brazilian Portuguese didn't go without notice: the game was notably present in Nintendo's stand in Brasil Game Show in 2022, being playable at the event with its own section which featured a big banner.