Oh, Kirby. You’ve always been something of an enigma. Was the world ready for this revelation? Probably not, but here it is regardless. It’s official: Kirby does indeed purr like a cat when pet.
Now, perhaps more so than any other Nintendo icon, Kirby could be seen to perfectly encapsulate everything that the company’s all about. He’s brightly-colored, super cute, has a nigh-permanent grin on his face, stars in some of the most adorable games you ever saw… and he’s just all-round happier and jollier than anyone you could ever meet. He radiates good vibes.
Granted, that whole thing about mercilessly swallowing opponents alive and stealing their powers for his own is a little morally questionable, but everybody’s got to have a character flaw, right? If there was just one other lingering question we could ask about Kirby, it would be this: what the heck is he?
A little like Yoda of Star Wars fame, we know that Kirby is a member of a species, but know little to nothing about that species. Other than Keeby and Shadow Kirby, we don’t get to see any other members. The little floating Jigglypuff look-alike has remained one of gaming’s biggest enigmas since his first appearance in 1992’s Kirby’s Adventure for the Game Boy. However, a bizarre new factoid has just come to light, and we feel like we already know the guy a little better.
That’s right: if you pet Kirby, he starts to purr!
This unsettling information comes to us courtesy of the Pupu Taizen, a Japanese publication which, Nintendo Soup reports, arrived at the same time as the Japanese release of Kirby’s Adventure (1993). The enterprising Twitter user who brought this fascinating trivia to the world’s attention clarifies the matter a little further:
So, there we are. Kirby might purr happily, you say? That’s just not good enough. How disappointed would you be if you encountered Kirby, went to the trouble of giving him a friendly fondle, only for him not to purr contentedly? How rejected would you feel?
We don’t know about you, but we just don’t think our hearts could take that.
Source: Go Nintendo
