Desultory Novice

I wonder, when I see merch like this…

Like, I’m an old school Kirby fan so I’m thrilled to see Kirby and the animal trio depicted as close buddies again, as if we were living in an alternate dimension where "Super Kirby Star Stacker DELUXE" released last year with a brand new mode where Gryll has to solve a variety of deadly sudoku puzzles to get out of hell but…

The last game the animal trio was truly playable in was Star Allies (2018) and that was as part of a DLC update. I noted a couple of years back that new Kirby merch was tending to release with these little booklets detailing the "cast" of Kirby; and that in addition to Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight and (generic) Waddle Dee... Rick, Coo, Kine, Marx, and Magolor were included too! (...Hmm? Unambiguously female characters? In Kirby? Don’t be silly! Those don't exist! XD) Now, I was still really happy to see all these guys “canonified” as important Kirby characters but I wonder…

Is HAL Labs going to, err, do anything with this? IE: Will this ever be reflected in the games? I don’t have any experience in the field of merchandising or licensing, but it feels odd to sell your partners the rights to characters who were last relevant in the 90s?

Of course, I could be massively overthinking it and this could be an instance of, "Look, they're 'kawaii' and that's all that matters to people!" You don't HAVE to know that the hamster's name is Rick or that he spits fire or that he has a girlfriend named Pick! But to the average consumer, wouldn't it just look like, "Aww! It's Kirby! ...And some random forest critters!" Wouldn't it be better (?) if you could pack your child's soup up in a Kirby bowl and THEY were the one excitedly telling YOU about how broken Coo is and Kine may be a secret alcoholic rather than you telling them, "In my day..."

Of course, I just said that Kirby is for everyone and that means that tired Japanese office workers whose memories of Kirby are distinctly set in a balmy 90s summer afternoon parked in front of their Super Famicon deserve to have merch too! I'm just...curious, is all.

...

Ah, this is just another excuse for Dess to pray to the gods of game development that the next Kirby game takes place in a Popstar populated by nostalgic characters ready to be interacted with!!

If this were the anime, they would definitely be "that butterball glutton's rotten friends!" as the strongest feel that Rick and co give me, even in game, is as specifically "Kirby's allies." But then I remember that the four of them SAVED King Dedede in Dream Land 2, and again in Dream Land 3.

So even if they've never worked together with King Dedede directly, I think he respects that he owes his life to their and Kirby's team work, and would have no negative thoughts toward them.

They definitely are part of a different side of Dream Land than he is, being of the more rustic, natural, laissez-faire "food and naps" culture as opposed to his majesty's fancy castle and constant attempts to show off with games and technology. I could see the animal friends taking a vague interest in some of Dedede's more harmless activities! Golf Dream Course and such. (They were there in Star Stacker too!)

But they probably see him... as a BIT of a blowhard. Someone who takes the rivalry thing with Kirby too seriously!  I imagine Kirby has more patience for Dedede than the animal friends do, as a result, they probably don't see too much of each other.

But now that Dedede's calmed down somewhat in the later games, I wonder if they wouldn't get along a lot better? Dedede, for his part, might have to make an active attempt to come around on seeing the group of them as something other than Kirby's old lackies though, and I think his majesty PREFERS a more active and combative type of person that can match with his own competitive streak, and the animal friends might be a bit too breezy for him at first?

Basically, I think they have no hard feelings for each other but not a lot of reasons to be close, either. Dedede is liable to initially respond with, "Who??" while the animal friends are liable to go, "Oh, HIM! Is he up to his old tricks AGAIN?" In anime terms, it is the story of the season 1 nakama versus the season 2 nakama XD

I think King Dedede probably has more respect for Gooey because Gooey helped save the day right alongside Kirby. Also Gooey is Dark Matter, and Gooey has a more firmly established role as "Kirby's Best Friend." (Alongside Bandee and now Elfilin.) Gooey probably fits Dedede's qualifications for someone to take note of slightly better than the others, but one conversation with Gooey probably makes Dedede reconsider that choice! (Love you, Gooey!)

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(I myself don't see Dedede holding anything against Gooey for being Dark Matter, to me, he seems like the type to get over that pretty fast, but I think HC where he has a much stronger negative reaction to Dark Matter and Gooey as a result are also interesting!)