Kirby could have been—and was originally—named Twinkle Pop, according to former HAL Laboratory president, Satoru Iwata. Mr. Iwata, who served as a producer and programmer for the earliest Kirby titles, was joined by game director Masahiro Sakurai and producer Shigeru Miyamoto in an official 1993 roundtable discussing the rising star’s origins. Seeking a more internationally appealing name, Kirby’s creators solicited a list of suggestions from Nintendo of America. “We wanted a name that would sound like an American idol,” recounted Mr. Miyamoto. Among the list sent by NOA were “Gasper,” due to the character’s penchant for inhaling copious amounts of air (and everything else in the vicinity), and Kirby. Like Mario, Kirby was the name of a real person with ties to NOA—this time being John Kirby, the lawyer responsible for defending Nintendo against a lawsuit from Universal City Studios, Inc., who claimed Donkey Kong had infringed on their King Kong character. Mr. Kirby won the case, citing a previous legal battle where Universal had argued in its own defense that King Kong was part of the public domain.
As thanks, Nintendo famously gave Mr. Kirby a sailboat named Donkey Kong, alongside exclusive worldwide rights to use said name for sailboats. But the admiration for Mr. Kirby’s accomplishment didn’t stop there, as his namesake was eventually chosen to live on forever through Nintendo’s newest creation.
“Just after I joined Nintendo,” said Mr. Sakurai, “they were accepting game design plans for ‘a game that anyone could enjoy.’ That got me thinking, ‘I want to make a cute main character who everyone will love!’” This led to Kirby’s debut title, Kirby’s Dream Land, for the Game Boy in 1992. At the time it was developer HAL Laboratory’s most successful game, with over 5M units sold to date. The game, due in large part to its immediately lovable lead character, single-handedly pulled HAL Laboratory from bankruptcy, which had been caused by Japan’s far-reaching economic bubble collapse the previous year.
“When someone really loves a character, they like to sketch them in their notebooks,” said Mr. Iwata. “That’s why we gave Kirby a simple circular design, so anyone could draw him.” Each team member responsible for the Kirby games had their own way of drawing Kirby. “Among our staff many people still call him Twinkle,” said Kirby’s Adventure designer Takashi Saitou. “So we call the fake Kirby drawings ‘[Blank] Twinkle.’” Mr. Iwata laughs, recalling, “The ones I draw, everyone calls ‘Iwata Twinkle.’ Only Sakurai can draw the real Kirby, and we call him ‘Sakurai Kirby.’”
But Mr. Sakurai’s favorite drawings of Kirby have always come from the fans: “After we released Kirby’s Dream Land, I remember occasionally seeing chalk drawings and graffiti people had drawn of Kirby in parks and open spaces. I can’t say that Kirby is going to [see the same success as] Mario, but I do want him to be a character that is always loved by everyone.”
