Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 1: Volume 1

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I’d already been made aware of Kirby being an omnipotent elder god of some sort through lore videos, but nothing could prepare me for the zany shit confined within this manga’s pages, which ranges from hilarious to shockingly outlandish. Though the proprietary legacy of the manga may have something to do with why its release was delayed, a different perspective emerges when we compare Kirby Manga Mania to Super Mario Manga Mania, released in December 2020. It’s an element that Kirby Manga Mania shares with Mario Manga Mania, a December release from Viz Media that was similarly a best-of collection of strips starring a Nintendo icon, in which the Italian plumber was ruder, cruder, cowardly, and generally more venal than he seems in his games. Manga Kirby isn’t even the determined, pugilistic, angry-eyebrowed manlet seen in American advertising for so long.

Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 1 VIZ | See Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 1

I’m glad I did, because I’m sure they wouldn’t have liked it (I ended up getting them Star Allies instead). While the Kirby brand is known for its light-hearted and comedic tone, this is the first time this series had made me laugh hard.

Many references to Japanese culture and media are fully retained, though without any translation notes for them. In the first installment of manga-ka Hirokazu Hikawa’s manga strip that appears in Kirby Manga Mania, Dream Land’s King Dedede is hosting a picnic feast beneath the cherry blossom trees when Kirby inhales everyone’s food, gets drunk—or, um, “loopy”, I guess, given that the bottle he gulps down is labeled “Loopy Juice”—and proceeds to wreck the party, inhaling several picnic-goers, cornering King Dedede to give him heartfelt repetitive advice, badly singing karaoke, flipping a table, and ultimately collapsing into unconsciousness. I don't read manga, so this genre is all new to me (my students like manga, so I figured I'd give a few titles a go based on my interests), but Kirby is supposed to be a kid-friendly franchise, and IDK how this got past Nintendo and HAL Labratory for approval.

Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 6 (6): Hikawa, Hirokazu Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 6 (6): Hikawa, Hirokazu

Although this manga is considered non-canon amongst Kirby fans, I’d argue that Kirby lore benefits from this wacky thing’s existence. Presumably, this release would have covered the complete series starting with the first 1995 volume, if it had happened. In the Kirby video game franchise, which kicked off in 1992 with Kirby’s Dream Land, the character is an adorable pink sphere of a hero, using his ability to inhale enemies and objects and either spit them out as projectiles or gain special powers through his “copy ability” to defend his home world from various threats and villains.dugan I mean, Breath of the Wild is the bestselling game in the entire Zelda franchise by a huge margin, and yet New Horizons--which released 3 years later--has surpassed it by approximately 10 million units. Despite Kirby being none the wiser to Dedede’s body double, somehow Dedede ends up being injured by Kirby whenever he thinks it’s safe to switch back out of his disguise. Aside from Kirby himself, the manga features many of the characters from the Kirby series of games, including Meta Knight, King Dedede, and many of the regular enemies and bosses from the games as well. Despite their many conflicts, the two still regard each other as friends at heart, and they sometimes work together. While Kirby’s campaign promises don’t go beyond him yelling that he’s going to be king of the world, how he inevitably gets there is some “stop the steal” type shenanigans.

Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 1 by Hirokazu Hikawa, Paperback Kirby Manga Mania, Vol. 1 by Hirokazu Hikawa, Paperback

With Kirby and the Forgotten Land coming out later this week, I decided to do some reading up on Nintendo’s pink puffball by checking out a wacky collection of his manga aptly titled Kirby Manga Mania. CoroCoro Aniki ended publication in print in the spring 2021 issue, where Kirby and other manga would continue to be published online.

This version of Kirby isn't particularly heroic, at least not in any of these stories, instead generally causing trouble for King Dedede and others. Hikawa selected the stories from his personal favorites, making the books equivalent to "best of" or "greatest hits" releases, with added bonus content like making-of pages. A special chapter was published in the December 2017 winter issue of CoroCoro Aniki, where it has been continued to be serialized.