Kirby: Right Back At Ya! - The Inner Thoughts of a Flawed King

The Inner Thoughts of a Flawed King

Kirby: Right Back At Ya is a pretty polarising show in the Kirby community with the reception of the show shifting from person to person. The people who view the show negatively have many complaints when it comes to the show with one of the main ones being the characterisation of King Dedede. King Dedede in the show is an irredeemable mess of a character and nothing like what Dedede is like in the games. Now most people may wonder why Dedede is like this and I will attempt to justify why. In this theory, I will try to tell you all that the events of the anime take place in the mind of the Dedede we see in the mainline games and represents all of his insecurities and self doubt.

Firstly to avoid confusion:
The Dedede from the anime - Anime Dedede
The Dedede from the games - Game Dedede

Firstly, I will talk about Anime Dedede himself. Anime Dedede is meant to represent how Game Dedede views himself. He sees himself as a gluttonous, mean and selfish person who doesn't deserve to be king. This is due to the fact that Game Dedede is still haunted by when he stole all of the food in Dream Land 1 and all of the times he got possessed and was forced to be evil. Anime Dedede represents all of Dedede's flaws but exemplified.

Secondly, I want to mention why Game Dedede's other friends (Bandana Dee, Adeleine, etc) don't appear. This is due to the fact that the anime takes place around the time in between Dream Land 1 and Adventure. This is because Game Dedede's mind is constantly fixated on the bad he's done at that time. His friends, whilst they don't physically appear, are represented in one character and that character is Escargoon.

(Escargoon's existence in Game Dedede's mind doesn't disprove his possible existence in Game Dedede's universe)

Escargoon is a representation of all of Game Dedede's friends. Anime Dedede constantly abuses Escargoon in the anime but Escargoon still sticks with Anime Dedede (and even has a crush on him if your watching the anime sub). This represents how Game Dedede feels like he doesn't deserve his friends because of the type of person he sees himself as.

(The NME Salesman's existence in Game Dedede's mind doesn't disprove his possible existence in Game Dedede's universe)

NME represents Game Dedede seeing himself as a coward who hides behind his friends and his waddle dees as in the anime, Anime Dedede uses NME to attack Kirby and never really goes head on to attack him.

The townspeople represent how Game Dedede thinks the townspeople in Dreamland view him. Nothing more to say here.

Tiff and Tuff represent the two sides of Kirby. Tiff represents the moral side while Tuff represents the carefree side of Kirby. Tiff is constantly complaining about Anime Dedede and she hates him which represents the fear that Game Dedede has that Kirby doesn't fully trust him. Tuff also hates him but is easily fooled which represents the previously mentioned statement only including how Kirby is easily betrayed by the villains in the Kirby series.

Overall, the anime represents Game Dedede's flaws, insecurities and self doubts and Anime Dedede is a manifestation of Game Dedede's worst qualities but exemplified.

Don't worry, Game Dedede is fine though and sometimes he plays video games with Bandana Dee, Kirby, Adeleine, Ribbon and Meta Knight to cheer himself up.