Kirby Air Ride Japan Rom Series Rebranded For

In Revenge of Meta Knight, what used to be an Anti-Hero with uncertain motives, as usual, was given several rewritten lines of dialogue to make him sound less like he was trying to do a good thing for Dream Land and more like he was trying to be the next Hitler.

Japanese developers understand this mysterious truth, but while they keep trying to export their eternally sunny characters to us, we just keep transforming them into gloomy, moody tough guys.

This is often done to characters who were originally intended to be cute.

Sometimes this trope goes the other way, too: an American character may be made cuter for the Japanese release.

Japanese culture, in general, is very accepting of cuteness anyplace, and will take it in stride.

American culture, to the contrary, is not so tolerant of things bright, colorful, and innocent and instead celebrates anything manly and edgy.

This attitude goes so far as to color American perceptions of Japanese culture; some historians have occasionally (and controversially) attempted to link Kawaisa to the national humiliation endured by Japan in World War II and the nations resulting 180 turn from a warrior culture to a pacifistic one.

And speaking of color: in modern Japan, pink is a value-neutral color.

In the US, bright pink tends to be associated with young or adolescent girls, so expect a toning-down of any ostentatiously pink cover images (and gas stations).

Its also not always a bad thing, mind you; if the game itself isnt particularly cutesy, then giving it cute box art is just weird.

It can also mean that a game with cute art direction may hide a heart of blackened steel underneath that gamers might miss out on.

The box art for many of his games since Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land note which obviously means this is averted in previous games have had angry eyebrows added to the main character to make the pink puffball seem more aggressive.

This strange practice is joked on originally in this YTMND and subsequently in this Brawl in the Family strip.

It seemed to have calmed for a brief time with Super Smash Bros.

Brawl, Kirby Super Star Ultra, and Kirbys Epic Yarn, whose box arts have Kirby actually looking happy for a change, but crept up back again with Kirby Mass Attack and Kirbys Return to Dream Land.

Ever since Kirbys Dream Collection, the box art has been consistently the same across all regions, apparently alternating between cheery Kirby and ferocious Kirby.

It seems that Europeans are expected to be able to stand happy Kirby.

A Kirbys Dream Land 2 commercial aired in the US turned Kirby, Rick, Kine, and Coo into scowling tough guys (or, you know, as tough as an 8-inch high puffball and his similarly-sized friends can be) roughhousing some Hells Angels, ending with a menacing voiceover by Tony Jay.

Also compare the commercials for Kirbys Dream Land and Kirbys Adventure, to say nothing of the magazine ad for Kirbys Avalanche and Kirbys Dream Course.

The commercial for those games also established Kirby as a criminal.

Kirby Air Ride Japan Rom Series Rebranded For

The game was an installment of the ineffably cute Puyo Puyo series rebranded for an American audience, giving Kirby a personality more similar to Puyo s protagonist, Arle.

Ironically, the cover of the game is a rather cute image of a cheery looking Kirby and Dedede.