It’s not every day that you see official merchandise for a series getting its signature character’s name wrong. Recently, Japanese clothing store Shimamura listed pre-orders for a new Kirby hoodie that is adorable and pink. It had the puffball’s face on the front and his name spelled out on the hood. When buyers got their hands on the hooded sweatshirt, however, there was a pretty obvious error in the spelling.
Hilariously, the hoodie read “KARBY” on the hood instead of Kirby. My first reaction to this wasn’t confusion, but the idea that maybe someone in Japan wrote out Kirby’s name very literally. In Japan, Kirby is pronounced closer to KARBY than his vowel would lead you to believe. It’s the same with a character such as Link or Luigi where the L sounds like an R. Japanese vowels make different sounds and someone designing the hoodie likely messed that up.
What’s to be done about Karby?
While Shimamura is offering customers either a refund or a replacement hoodie, on Twitter, some users are stating they might actually keep the rare typo. Really, it reminds me of those Japanese shirts that have random English words on them for no apparent reason. I would keep the “messed up” hoodie.
Via: GoNintendo
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
