This is a list of fictional characters in the Kirby video game series developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo.
Kirby (カービィ Kābī) is a pink "puffball" who has been the star of a number of namesake games developed by HAL Laboratory. Kirby has appeared in over twenty games since 1992 and has starred in his own animated series. The Kirby series has sold over 33 million units worldwide. The core games of the series are platformers. The villains he encounters typically threaten his home of Dream Land (プププランド Pupupu Rando, "Pupupu Land") on the planet Pop Star, most often the greedy King Dedede or the mysterious Meta Knight. The main games always have Kirby with the same basic abilities; he can walk, run, jump, float, and inhale and spit out or swallow his enemies. Following Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby was able to gain the abilities of the enemies he swallowed, such as Fire, Sword, Fighter, and Cutter. Kirby also can spit water out of his mouth while underwater. Kirby also has had his own anime.
King Dedede (デデデ大王 Dedede Daiō) is the primary villain of the series and the archenemy of Kirby, though he is sometimes an anti-hero. He is a large penguin-like creature who serves as the monarch of Dream Land, carrying a large wooden mallet and is known to be self-centered; furthermore, Dedede causes many problems for the inhabitants of Dream Land through selfish mischief. Despite this, he is not truly evil and does care for Dream Land. He and Kirby do not hesitate to team up against a common enemy. A recurring motif of the series is the assumption that Dedede has performed an act which is essentially benevolent, such as sealing away the villainous Nightmare from Kirby's Adventure, which is misinterpreted as malevolent. Dedede often pats his belly in a jolly manner, and has many of the same abilities as Kirby himself does, such as being able to inhale objects and spit them back out with tremendous force, and the ability to suck in air and fly. He can't copy abilities. Pretended in "Cartoon Buffoon" in the anime.