| “ | I need a monster to clobber that there Kirby! | „ |
| ~ King Dedede's during the theme song of the show |
| “ | 🎶Dedede! That’s the name you should know! Dedede He’s the king of the show! You’ll holler and hoot, he’ll give Kirby the boot! Dedede is the one! (Lively trumpet fanfare plays) DEDEDE IS THE OOOOOOOOOONE!!! 🎶 Comin at ya! Yeah!! |
„ |
| ~ King Dedede's own theme song he wrote himself and sung in the episode "Cartoon Buffoon". |
King Dedede is the main antagonist of the Japanese anime series Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, which is based off the Kirby video game series. He is the greedy king of Dreamland who is willing to do anything to achieve his selfish desires, which normally involve getting rid of Kirby. He is far more dangerous and willing to commit harm than his video game counterpart.
He was voiced by Kenichi Ogata in Japanese, and Ted Lewis in English.
His Evil Ranking[]
Debated Validation[]
- It is possible that he redeemed himself in the end, as the five-part finale shows him ultimately joining Kirby and friends to confront Nightmare Enterprises once and for all after he and Escargoon got betrayed by NME. Furthermore, the threat of him ordering monsters is no longer a concern since both NME and his company were destroyed. However, the last we see from him, he bemoans he can't order monsters anymore and is simply seen disappointed when his phone to contact the NME Salesman no longer worked. Therefore, whether he redeemed or not is hard to determine, especially since we do not see what he does after the company is destroyed.
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- This version is more heinous in comparison to his video game counterpart. While the Dedede in the games stole all the food for himself and starved everyone at worse (prior to evolving into a better person over time), this version frequently commits far worse crimes.
- He likes to attack and/or humiliate Kirby multiple times, even when the latter is not provoking him. While Meta Knight stated his animosity was out of jealousy and suspicion, it has evidently become entirely the former. And given the fact that Kirby is a baby and Dedede knows this, this shows how low he can go.
- In “A Whale of a Tale”, he enslaves a baby whale as a submarine, with Tiff pointing out he was hurting her by forcibly controlling her movement.
- Even before Kirby came to Dream Land, Dedede had been terrorizing the Cappies for a long time in contrast to his game counterpart who usually leaves the residents of Dream Land be and keeps his feud between him and Kirby, only involving them when his schemes are to publicly humiliate Kirby.
- He likes to attack and/or humiliate Kirby multiple times, even when the latter is not provoking him. While Meta Knight stated his animosity was out of jealousy and suspicion, it has evidently become entirely the former. And given the fact that Kirby is a baby and Dedede knows this, this shows how low he can go.
- In "Curio's Curious Discovery", he unleashes the Dedede Stone on Kirby and his friends. Despite many people being there, he clearly did not care who got killed by it. He proceeded to attempt to strike Tiff by crushing her to death with it and would have done so had Meta Knight not swooped in to save her.
- In "Beware! Whispy Woods", he caused Whispy Woods to be cut down, which is a forest with a lot of trees. Might not sound like much, but the trees are sentient, and he clearly knows this and cuts them down anyway. Not to mention that they are clearly in pain whilst getting cut down. He also kidnaps Kirby, Tiff, and Tuff in the process.
- To make matters worse, he tries to take down Whispy Woods twice more, with the second time even causing most of the forest to burn up in flames. He is expected to re-plant all the trees he burnt down in the end.
- In "Hail to the Chief", he threatens to fire Chief Bookum for falling asleep during a traffic jam, causing Kirby and his friends to commit crimes to keep Chief Bookum's job safe. Even after Chief Bookum saves Tuff's life and regains the townsfolk’s respect and support, Dedede still tries to fire him, and when Kirby sucks up the waiver that allows him to fire Chief Bookum, Dedede attempts to shoot Kirby and them with the cannon on his tank.
- In "A Fish Named Kine", he manipulates Kine into telling him where the Rainbow Coral Reef is so that he can destroy it and rebuild it into an underwater castle.
- In "Flower Power", he has Kirby inhale a Noddy, resulting in Kirby being put into a deep sleep for most likely a century. It's revealed that he did this so that he could get Kirby, Tuff, Fololo and Falala killed by the Puki Flower, knowing that it's the only thing that can wake up but it's also a monster than can kill him.
- In "Here Comes the Son", he tricks Knuckle Joe into thinking Kirby killed his father as a way to get rid of Kirby. This caused Knuckle Joe to tear apart Cappy Town and beat Kirby to near death.
- Also, while Kirby was getting brutally beat up, King Dedede was shown taking sadistic pleasure in seeing Kirby getting hurt.
- In "A Princess in Dis Dress", he challenges Commander Vee, who was actually a disguised Princess Rona, to a duel, blaming "him" for Princess Rona (actually her lady-in-waiting) declining his proposal. When Rona easily overwhelms him, he cowardly unleashes Susshi on her; when Kirby steps in as Sword Kirby, Dedede hypocritically calls him out on cheating.
- In "The Empty Nest Mess" he attempts to turn Dyna Chick into a monster.
- He takes advantage of the Cappies several times. One of the worst being in "Labour Daze", where he brainwashes them into slavery. In "Cartoon Buffoon", he also forced them to work on his anime/cartoon with absolutely no sleep at all, threatening to beat them up (send them to the dungeon in the original Japanese) if they don't. Some of his schemes are stealing or extorting their money, such as “Don’t Bank On It” and “Dedede’s Raw Deal”; he is also willing to sacrifice them if it means saving his own skin as shown in “Fossil Fools, Part 2”.
- While he initially loved his pet Scarfies, he ultimately subverted it when he learned how costly it was feeding them, which was mostly from how he was spoiling them, an action pointed out by Tiff, with food and abandoned them in the woods. When learning that they had multiplied and become a menace, he remarked they weren't his problem anymore, his apathy and irresponsibility much to Tiff and Tuff's disgust.
- He will often try to absolve himself of blame for his actions and pass it entirely on others; for instance, he blamed the aforementioned Scarfies running amok on Escargoon on the grounds he disliked them.
- In "Right Hand Robot", he orders Escargoon around multiple times without letting him take a break, while also threatening to fire him if he keeps messing up. Then after learning Escargoon built a robot clone called Escardroid, Dedede then uses it to attack Kirby.
- In addition to this, when Escargoon broke down crying over Escardroid getting destroyed, Dedede callously stated it was a "hunk of junk" that deserved to get destroyed, a heartless statement Tiff called him out for.
- In “Tooned Out”, he locked three animators in the dungeon and had them workday and night with no rest under strict watch until they finished his cartoon.
- In one episode, he tried to crush Kirby, Tiff, and Tuff underneath a statue.
- He is horrible to those who are loyal to him, such as Escargoon and the Waddle Dees. He frequently plays tricks on Escargoon and physically abuses him for even the most minor slights, steals his jewelry collection, and even attempted to attack his mother. He abandons the Waddle Dees in "Pink Collar Blues" and "Waddle While You Work". and even stingily attempted to starve them in "Hunger Struck" after he found out their food was costing him too much.
- In the aforementioned "Hunger Struck", wherein which the Waddle Dees revolted against him for the malnourished meals, he tried to exonerate himself of fault for starving the Waddle Dees on Sir Ebrum, Lady Like, and Chef Kawasaki (the former two who had nothing to do with the action), having them on trial as scapegoats.
- He is very hypocritical, notably in “A Trashy Tale”, he humiliates the Bookums on television when discovering their home was a cluttered mess, even calling them slobs, (and also planned to showcase the other Cappies’ homes for publicity) when he has shown earlier before (and other episodes) to have completely no regard for cleanliness given how he lazily allows his throne room to be filthy.
- Even though eNeMeE and Customer Service did worse, they clearly have more resources than Dedede by a landslide. They are capable of using an endless number of monsters with extreme powers whenever they want, whilst Dedede needs to rely on either his own strength or monsters who he often has little control over.
- While one could argue that he actually cares for Escargoon and the Waddle Dees deep down, as he misses them when they are not present for a long time, this could be considered very hypocritical of him because he abuses them a lot.
- With the exception of a naive Kirby, nobody likes him, with Waddle Doo and the Waddle Dees, Sir Ebrum and Lady Like, Meta Knight, Customer Service, and even Escargoon, all of whom can show tolerance towards Dedede due to respect for his royal status, getting fed up with him and/or only using him for their own agendas, willing to defy him on different occasions when he goes too far; his infamy and poor social standing evident in “D'Preciation Day”, where it’s clear no one genuinely appreciates him. He also very rarely gets any sympathy from anyone when bad things happen to him, his comical defeats, be it slapstick or owing debt, more often than not completely deserved given how cruel his actions can be, how low he can stoop, and that he often brings them on himself.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is frequently played for laughs since he suffers from comical defeats and slapstick and is shown to be childishly immature a lot. The Japanese version also gives him a habit of adding “zoi” to every word, which makes him even more comedic. He is also incredibly incompetent, with few of his plans having any real effect.
- He can have a few Pet the Dog moments from time to time. When he thought he killed Kirby in "D'Preciation Day", he was mortified to the point of crying. When it was revealed that the whole thing was a trick and Kirby was alight, Dedede, instead of getting mad that he was fooled, shed tears of relief that he was okay and hugged him. Meanwhile, in "Prediction Predicament", he ultimately built Kirby a playground after he and his friends had been asking for one for a long time.
- He is On & Off. Some episodes ("The Chill Factor" for example) show him teaming up with Kirby.
- Although he abuses them, he actually cares for Escargoon and the Waddle Dees deep down, as he misses them when they are not present for a long time.
- He is somewhat affable, and genuinely respects Kirby as a rival. When he thought he killed Kirby in "D'Preciation Day", he was mortified to the point of crying. When it was revealed that the whole thing was a trick and Kirby was alight, Dedede, instead of getting mad that he was fooled, sheds tears of relief that he was okay and hugged him. Meanwhile, in "Prediction Predicament", he ultimately built Kirby a playground after he and his friends had been asking for one for a long time.
- He is arguably a scapegoat as some episodes show him getting treated like dirt when he hasn't done much wrong.
- The final time he kidnapped Tiff, during "Fright to the Finish", he (and Escargoon) were brainwashed by ENeME into doing so. Therefore, it wasn't his fault, but ENeME's.
External Links[]
- King Dedede on the Villains Wiki
- King Dedede on the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! Wiki
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
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