Alright, time for Kirb. King Dedede is celebrating the anniversary of his coronation, and forced everyone to get up at 5am for this. God, you can just tell Meta Knight hates being here because he’s not allowed to stand on anything, and it just really shows off what a tiny, tiny blueberry man he is. But turns out being a massive monster ordering chode makes people not want to celebrate you in any way shape or form. Not even his own employees respect him right in front of his face. Tiff comments that this is because everyone knows the Cappies were the founders of Cappy Town, not Dedede’s clan. So, they have no respect for him since his family apparently unfairly took over the throne. Yes, that’s why they don’t respect him. That is the only reason. It has nothing to do with all the attempted murder. Honestly, I don’t know if the Cappies really founded anything? They didn’t travel to Dream Land, I’m pretty sure this is just where they’ve always existed, so it already belonged to them by default. There was nothing to found. I mean, you can found a town, but I don't know if you can found a land that you naturally evolved on. This is actually putting a layer of history into Dream Land that I never thought I would need to think about. In the games, everyone just exists in Dream Land, on planet Pop Star. King Dedede or his never mentioned family didn’t… take any throne. He just declared himself King one day, and no one cared because it effectively changed nothing and he doesn’t do anything except live in a big castle. They only seem to care if he’s being a bad king when he’s being possessed by dark matter for the eighth time this month. Nothing is stated about him stealing the throne or taking the country wrongfully as his own. He just kinda lived there too, and said "Hey, I'm King." Just, you know... On a weekend. In this, the Cappies were the rightful rulers, apparently, and a bunch of penguin people showed up and just took over. This is a much sadder and potentially darker history than I would prefered in my Kirby media, considering this is never properly explored again, but here we are, I have to go with it now. [KING DEDEDE] There's only one bona fide ruler of Cappy Town! [KING DEDEDE] And that's me! KING DEDEDE! Ruler of Cappy Town?! You’re a king! You... You rule all of Dream Land, dude! It's a country! The Mayor leads Cappy Town, you fucking moron. Is the extent of Dream Land just Cappy Town and Whispy Woods? Oh my God... Is this a translation error? I'm gonna check. I didn't check before I wrote this. I'm... I'm dumb. Like and subscribe if you think I'm stupid. So, later on, after the theme song, Tiff is helping local old man, Mr. Curio excavate a site that has... You know, it's a site. It's got artifacts. Mr. Curio says exposistions something like: "Brauugh, these artifacts are from ancient Cappy civilization over 4,000 seconds ago beugh beh baugh." They keep saying words like “our ancestors” and “our history” when I’m like… 99% sure Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby are not Cappies. Tuff has decided that he has had enough of Tiff and decides to break at least one of her bones by making her fall down into a pit, where Tiff appears to have discovered something that Mr. Curio seems strangely nervous about. And surprise! It's a dead person! Tiff assumes it’s an ancient Cappy king, who I assume viciously stole the crown away from King Waddle Dee, and gathers everyone to immediately to show them the Cappy King that Tiff and Curio haven’t even looked at yet. [TIFF] Hey, this must be the burial site of an ancient Cappy king! ...How does she know it’s a man? King Dedede shows up and is totally cool with all of this. I wonder why. They open the coffin and~ [TIFF] That can't be right! [BONETROUSLE by Toby Fox plays] Surprise! Dedede's family has always ruled, and the Cappies just have to accept him even though he’s tried murder them about eight times now. Maybe more. imagine. There was absolutely something physically wrong with Dedede’s ancestor here. He appears to be, um, mostly giant ribs with no pelvis bones. Mr. Curio sad. Tiff tries to cheer him up by saying he can just bullshit up new theories and maybe they’ll be an off chance that they’ll be true, and Mr. Curio just makes sounds at her. [MR. CURIO] Braurh? [MR. CURIO] Dooohh... [TIFF] Besides, remember what you always say. [TIFF] The most important things isn't to show your theory's right, [TIFF] but to dig all the way to the truth. [TIFF] Now we all know the truth thanks to your work. [MR. CURIO] Brruaa I want you to remember this quote for later. It's very important. And then, um... Uh... Man. Is anyone really not invested in this? Maybe because it’s not about Kirby, or Meta Knight, or Dedede, or even goddamn Kawasaki, or any of the characters I actually give two damns about. I’d care about an episode centering around Tuff more than I care about this one. And I think it’s because it’s about the town Cappies, who are boring and I don’t like them. The town Cappies are really not distinguished characters, they all have about half a dimension to their personality. At least Tuff has a whole one dimension. Basically, they’re all backwoods small town morons with very little distinguishing them from each other. Chief Bookem is a moron cop doing the bare minimum, Gus is a moron who does car stuff, Melman is a moron who delivers mail, Mr. Curio is a moron who researches history. That's the extent of all of them. And that's all their dialogue ever consists of. Is reference to what they do. They’re not particularly attached to the main characters, and none of them have much to do with the larger story. In fact, they seem to hate Kirby most of the time. This episode is one in many attempts throughout the series to make you give a shit about the Cappies. Like, it tries so hard to give them another personality trait, but they never retain it after the episode ends. You know how sad adults used to complain about townspeople episodes in Steven Universe? Well, you wanna know why those worked and these don’t? Because while the townspeople in Steven Universe were minor characters, they were, you know, likeable. Had at least a few personality traits, were friends with the main character who is also pink and star themed. Which is funny. Sometimes they had problems that were actually valuable lessons for kids. Including Steven. And usually had to do with parenting or family which connected to the overall theme of the series. Sadie is that girl who works at the donut shop, turns out she likes singing, turns out she has an overbearing mother who she has a hard time saying no to, she talks to her mother who completely understands and supports her in whatever way she’ comfortable with, and oh my god she’s overcome her insecurities and is in a band. Sour Cream is a teenager who wants to be a DJ, his step father, Yellowtail disapproves, and his bio dad takes advantage of him, and Yellowtail steps in to try to support Sour Cream for real, showing us that family isn’t just who you came out of but who actually treats you as family, which him and Yellowtail realize together, and Sour Cream accepts him as his dad. These stories centering around family and relationships helped teach Steven about how compassion and functioning relationships work, which informs the culmination of the main storyline as Steven has to deal with his dysfunctional family on his mother’s side. What do the townspeople in Kirby do? Well, let’s go ahead and use this very episode as an example. Mr. Curio plants false artifacts tricking people into thinking Dedede's family has always ruled so Dedede funds his real research. And Mr. Curio ends up deciding that’s bullshit and loudly pulls out of the deal in front of everybody. Then a monster is fought. I suppose the monster is a consequence for Curio’s actions, but something tells me Dedede would have pulled it out anyhow. I can’t fully pin this on Curio. The monster does not symbolize anything, it is not a metaphor for Curio’s insecurities or fears. He just barely contributes to the fight against it. The lesson he's learned doesn't help Kirby defeat it or anything. Kirby just smashes it. Like he does with everything. He didn't really do much. Kirby was the one who did all the heavy lifting. Even by baby show standards, it’s kind of confused, and since there is no charm to the character it is focused on, I have a hard time overlooking these things. Curio tells everyone he lied, Kirby defeats a monster, Dedede faces no consequences, and the only thing that was learned was… don’t lie, I guess? And getting the facts is important An okay lesson on its own for a baby show. But what does THAT have to do with THIS? Mr. Curio did not overcome anything that was ever a problem before and will never be a problem again. He needed funds for his research, learned that lying to do that was bad, stopped, and at the end of the episode, is basically back where he started. Nothing was accomplished. He is not rewarded for his honesty in any way. This show is about Kirby’s life in Dream Land fighting Nightmare’s monsters and one day, fight Nightmare himself. Of course some episodes can be about the supporting cast. That's very important to flesh out your characters. Of course Kirby can sometimes be pushed a little to the side to develop them. But the climax and resolution come around, it becomes about Kirby again. It’s always going to be about Kirby, because he’s the only one with the powers that can defeat the monsters, which is pretty much always the problem. We can't have an episode where that isn't the problem. I think there's, like, a few Maybe, like, three to five episodes where a monster isn't the problem. Out of the whooole series. There is no connection. Kirby doesn’t learn anything from the others’ mistakes, it’s not helping a larger story, it’s never a metaphor or analogy or foreshadowing. The Cappies have a problem, they overcome, monster, Kirby copy ability, Cappy summarizes what they learned that wasn’t at all aided by battle with monster. So, what I'm saying is... the monster fight in this didn't need to happen. But it has to happen. So, that’s my essay on why most of the Cappies are useless and I don’t care about them as characters, like and subscribe and don’t forget to hit the notification bell so you never miss a single sad rant on a baby anime from almost TWO DECADES AGO- Okay, time to resume the usual bullshit. Blah, blah, blah Tiff catches Curio planting a Dedede artifact, and confronts him about it the next day when he presents it as if he discovered it. Mr. Curio, um, makes some more sounds. [MR. CURIO] Reeuull [TIFF] Well, you better stop "finding" all this phony stuff around here, [TIFF] Or I'll have to turn you in. [MR. CURIO] Bell I bruu Dedede and Escargoon find out that Tiff found out about their plan, and look like they’re about to commit three counts of child murder. But actually, they just tie them up, but they’re probably going to leave them there to die. Ssssslowly. During Mr. Curio’s speech to the other backwoods morons, he breaks down and reveals that they’re all fake. Now, back to Tiff's line about not proving your theory correct. [TIFF] The most important thing isn't to show your theory's right, but to dig all the way to the truth. It's actually kind of, um, doesn't go with the actual lesson. Curio’s theory was correct, and was the truth. Wouldn’t that line be more effective if, say, they revealed the Dedede stuff was fake, but then found the coffin of an even older ruler, one that wasn’t a Cappy, maybe a Waddle Dee or something. Tiff is surprised, but Curio’s quite pleased and is all, “Like you said, it doesn’t matter that my theory wasn’t correct, but rather that we dug our way to the truth!" And they all are happy with it, and learn to live with it. Because they found the truth. But, like, it doesn't REALLY affect the status quo or anything. Okay, sorry, anyway. Curio tells everyone they’ve been lied to, and he did this just so Dedede would fund his research. Dedede tries to tell them that it’s the photos that are fake, but oh no, the children we left to die have escaped because we straight up forgot Meta Knight existed, and always always knows when bullshit is up and the exact right moment to intervene. Misty, as Meta Knight: "Chief Bookem, I highly recommend at the very least putting Dedede and Escargoon on trial at least for kidnapping. AT LEAST." Misty, as Chief Bookem: "Aaaahh... Man. I-I'm not gonna do that." Misty, as Meta Knight: "I hate it here." For a second, it actually looks like the Cappies are going to try to overthrow Dedede, like they should have a long time ago, but nope, can’t do that, he’s got a monster. See, Mr. Curio, like, he attempts to stop this and redeem himself, but, like, how you gonna do that, man? There’s actually a moment here where Dedede attempts to murder Tiff yet again, by crushing her to death, and even here, Curio pulling her out of the way would at least make him be part of the action, even show that he cares about her even after lying to her so much. But no, he’s incompetent, so you know who saves her? The guy who just got here. The only person in this show with a brain cell, Meta Knight. With his unbreakable magic sword. And they just like, are in no hurry to get Meta Knight out of the way of certain death. Telling Kirby to suck up the giant rock, even though I recall an incident with another giant rock, where we learned repeatedly that Kirby can’t inhale enemies that are too big or heavy. You just take your time to remember that, guys. Mr. Curio decides he’s gotta do fuckin' somethin' in this situation. This episode was about him. And he pickaxes at the giant Dedede stone’s foot, but only so he can pick off some shards of stone and let Kirby do the work. There. Mr. Curio redeemed. All is better now. Kirby saves Meta Knight, because god knows no one else will. And Dedede stone bad CGIs at Kirby, and Tiff asks Kabu to send the Warp Star, which she probably should have done several minutes ago. Might have even helped with that whole “Meta Knight is about to squashed like a blueberry” thing if Kirby could have swiftly whisked him out of there. Kirby turns into Crystal Shards Stone Kirby again, and just tears through the giant statue, right down the head and right down the crotch. It shatters, and Dedede and Escargoon’s only punishment for fraud and several counts of attempted murder is getting stuck in a pile. And so Kirby has saved the day for a story he was not a part of. Misty, as Meta Knight: "I regret moving here more and more every single day." [BONETROUSLE plays]
