—How did you come up with the idea for the adorable character of Kirby?
Sakurai: Just after I joined Nintendo, they were accepting game design plans for “a game that anyone could enjoy.” That got me thinking, “I want to make a cute main character who everyone will love!” The game I ended up making then was the Kirby’s Dream Land for the Game Boy.
Iwata: When someone really loves a character, they like to sketch them in their notebooks, right? That’s why we gave Kirby a simple circular design, so anyone could draw him.