In what year was the Kirby anime first broadcast in Japan? Kirby: Right Back at Ya! was first broadcast in Japan in 2001. The Japanese television series premiered on October 6, 2001, under the title Hoshi no Kirby.
The anime was based on HAL Laboratory's Kirby video-game franchise and followed Kirby after he crash-landed on the planet Popstar. It introduced original human characters Tiff and Tuff, while also featuring familiar figures such as King Dedede and Meta Knight. The series combined comedy, fantasy adventure, and adaptations of ideas from the games.
Japanese broadcasts ran on CBC and TBS and continued until 2003. The series ultimately contained 100 episodes, although the final episodes had an unusual release history in Japan and were later associated with the film Kirby: Fright to the Finish!
The date is sometimes confused with 2002 because that was when the English-language adaptation began airing in the United States. The American version, titled Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, premiered on FoxBox in September 2002, nearly a year after the Japanese broadcast began.