Nightmare Enterprises
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Nightmare Enterprises, known in the Japanese version as Holy Nightmare Corporation (ホーリーナイトメア社 Hōrī Naitomea sha?), or HNM for short, is a fictional corporation that appears in the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime. It is found in Nightmare's Fortress and led by an evil being known as Nightmare (eNeMe in the English dub of the anime).
Nightmare created the company tens of thousands of years ago as a front for the armies of demon beasts (monsters in the English dub) that he uses to conquer planets. NME already has control of much of the universe at the series' beginning. He also profits by selling his demon beasts to customers like King Dedede.
In addition to various demon beasts, NME also produces a plethora of mundane items- such as clothing- and it even has its own TV network, Nightmare Network. However, all profit goes to the same evil purpose.
The company's base of operations was finally destroyed when Kirby and the rest of the Halberd crew blew up the entire fortress from the inside in the final episodes.
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[edit] Nightmare's Fortress
Nightmare's Fortress is a planet-sized fictional space station that serves as the company's base of operations. Its appearance is first shown in the show's closing episodes (released in America as the direct-to-video film Kirby: Fright to the Finish).
Nightmare's Fortress appears to be a gigantic, dark blue, U.F.O.-like spaceship with huge, glowing structures covering the surface. The inside is a maze-like mass of metal corridors and massive trenches as well as trolleys like those found in the Halberd. A red orb on the front of the fortress could be a reference to the computer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey movie, as the company that produces Kirby did take its name from that. Less likely it is a reference to the Kirby series villain Dark Matter, but it never appears in the final version of the anime (as it only appears in the pilot).
The fortress itself is controlled from its command center at the very heart of the base, which is also used to deliver the monsters to customers like King Dedede himself via the monster transporter located inside it as well as control all other aspects of the company and fortress.It is accessible from an elevator, and is also the very same room where he often speaks with the shadowed Nightmare in. The command center is found inside a metallic tower with a top connected by tons of metal cables, plus it includes that same elevator used to access that very room the Salesguy speaks to Dedede from.
Another part of the fortress is Nightmare's private room, containing only a giant chess board suspended in space. That is the place place where Nightmare creates nightmares and all of his demon beasts- including Kirby. It is first seen in the episode "Kirby's Duel Role".
Another portion of the fortress is the Demon Beast Training School, revealing in episode 94, Escaped Demon Beast Phanphan, aired in the US as The Cowardly Creature. There, various monsters are split up between four classes (the flower class, star class, moon class, and snow class) where they train and compete against each other to be the best. It is led by an assortment of evil clown-like creatures and resembles a circus in some ways.
Nightmare's Fortress is protected by massive disk-shaped ships called Destrayers, and countless guns on the surface and interior, as well as Air Riders, which are ninja-like aliens carrying different weapons and riding on different Air Ride Machines.
[edit] Nightmare Enterprises Salesguy
The sales guy for Nightmare Enterprises, also known as Customer Service in Japanese, is one of the only employees for Nightmare. He, like his name suggests, sells the monsters his boss creates to customers like King Dedede and Escargoon, who are only able to speak with him via videophone. Whenever the monsters they buy from him fail to defeat Kirby, he leaves them with a large unpaid bill that Dedede refuses to fork over any money for. He speaks very politely in the Japanese version, though he never passes up a chance to insult his customers. His personality is more like that of a stereotypical car salesman in the English dub. The Salesguy could also likely have been made by Nightmare, but strikingly, he looks a lot like Nightmare himself, which confuses many fans into thinking that the Salesguy may actually be Nightmare.
In the final episode, we finally get to see the Salesguy's full form; in fact, when met in person, the salesguy is actually about as short as Kirby, according to Escargoon. This happens when Dedede & Escargoon and the Salesguy finally meet face to face. It's also here that Dedede finally gets his revenge on the Salesguy for stiffing him so much by feeding him with Chef Kawasaki's liver and spinach surprise meal. An interesting fact is that in the Japanese version of the finale, when the company's base of operations is destroyed, the Salesguy dies in the process. The proof is shown when you hear him screaming as the whole space station explodes.
The Salesguy is voiced by Banjō Ginga in the Japanese version and Dan Green in the English dub.
[edit] Destrayers
Destrayers (sometimes known as Destrayas) serve as protection for Nightmare's Fortress. They are massive disk-shaped ships that attack by firing orbs from their bottoms or lasers from their fronts. Their attacks are very powerful, and one was even able to chip off a piece of Kirby's Warpstar. The first of the Destrayers showed up in the two-part episode "Crisis of the Warpstar", aired in the USA as "Air-Ride-in-Style".
Not all Destrayers are used for bad things, however; three of them were stolen by Knuckle Joe, Sirica, and Arthur, Falspar, Noisurat, and Dragato, who piloted them to help Kirby and his friends enter the fortress to challenge Nightmare.
[edit] Air Riders
Air Riders also protect Nightmare's Fortress. They are alien creatures riding on four different Air Ride machines (Formula Star, Rocket Star, Winged Star, and Shadow Star) and carrying different weapons. They are stored inside Destrayers and fly into action when needed. The weapons they carry include batons, flamethrowers, gold maces, endless supplies of tops, and missile launchers (which look like their flamethrowers but shoot missiles instead of flames). In the original version, the Air Ride Machines they ride on are said to be what Nightmare stole from the Star Warriors that were all but leveled by his monster armies. According to Kabu, Nightmare had been stealing these Air Ride Machines throughout the universe. For every Air Rider that Kirby defeats, he gets to ride on its Air Ride Machine until it is destroyed.
The letters shown in the beginning of the names for the Air Ride Machines are placed on each of the Air Riders' foreheads. The letters show what Air Ride Machines they ride on. The "F" symbolizes that that rider rides the Formula Star, the "R" symbolizes that it rides the Rocket Star, the "W" symbolizes that it rides the Winged Star, and the "S" (in the Japanese version, the letter is a "D") symbolizes that it rides the Shadow Star.
[edit] Trivia
- The monster transporter in King Dedede's castle appears in the Nintendo DS game, Kirby: Squeak Squad. However, it was just added as a reference for fans of the show.
- The Air Ride Machines that the Air Riders ride on were actually first seen in the Nintendo GameCube game Kirby Air Ride.
- The spacecraft that flies way up above the City Trial city but below the garden in the sky in the same game that the Air Ride Machines were first seen in strikingly resembles the Destrayers. It appears in one of the events in the City Trial mode.
