Kabula

"The Starship comes just in time! Your foe is Kabula, sky lord! It's the king's flying fortress!"

- Pause-screen description

Kabula, originally known in English as Kaboola, is a boss that makes a few appearances in the Kirby series. She first appeared as a boss in Kirby's Dream Land and then made a minor appearance as, once again, a boss in Kirby's Block Ball. Nearly a decade later, Kaboola (now referred to as Kabula) made her re-debut to the series as a boss in Revenge of The King in the game Kirby Super Star Ultra.

Kirby's Dream Land
Kabula's (referred to as Kaboola in this game) first appearance was in Kirby's Dream Land as a normal blimp with a cannon. The battle against Kaboola at the end of Float Islands fully takes place in air. Kaboola, who has two more health bars than other bosses, shoots flurries of bullets and dashes at Kirby. In advance to this battle, Kirby swallows a special Mint Leaf, which allows him to spit unlimited air puffs at Kaboola. Kirby simply has to shoot the air puffs at her to win, but she is constantly moving around, making the battle much more difficult.

In the Extra Game Kaboola is much more aggressive; she will shoot more bullets at a much faster rate than before and charge at Kirby more unexpectedly.

Kirby's Block Ball
Kaboola is the boss of the ninth stage of the game. She now has two cannons mounted to her sides, which she uses to stun and diminish Kirby's paddles throughout the battle. Kaboola can aim her bullets almost anywhere but, like the rest of the bosses in the game, is defeated simply by knocking into her. The battle take place slightly above ground and in the clouds.

Kirby Super Star Ultra
Kabula is the boss of the fourth level of Revenge of the King. She has been ordered by King Dedede to guard the skies above Mt. Dedede, where she eventually blasts Kirby off his Warpstar. Nevertheless, Kirby returns on the Star Chariot to engage Kabula in combat.

She looks significantly different to past games. Apart from being larger, she has a mean grimace spray-painted onto her hull. Although her cannonballs can now be shot down, her attacks have been upgraded as she can shoot Gordos that cannot be shot down, and shoots groups of bullets rather than individual ones more frequently. Unlike in Dream Land, the Starship's stars cannot pass through Gordos and are destroyed when colliding with a cannonball. When her health is low, she will try to overwhelm Kirby by swarming the stage with powerful large missiles that are similar in appearance to Banzai Bill from the Super Mario series (albeit bearing more resemblance to Kabula herself). As a last struggle to defeat Kirby, she fires four missiles in a row if her health is low. After her health is completely depleted, Kabula is engulfed in flames, deflates, and crashes into the ground below. Kabula re-appears in The True Arena as one of the first six bosses. If a computer helper is taken in to the battle with Kabula, the helper will disappear immediately and will not be present after the battle, much like Galactic Nova Nucleus.

Physical Appearance
Kabula has arguably had the most radical redesigns in the series. She first appeared as a yellow blimp with a Shotzo underneath her. She also had a strange, pink eye-like hexagon on her. She would keep this design in Block Ball, however she would also have another Shotzo mounted on her side to increase the difficulty of the battle.

Most recently, Kabula was given yet another redesign. Here she appeared once again as a blimp. She now has a tan patchwork fabric stretched over her hull and a menacing face spray-painted on her head. Her fins are now orange and her blaster is a regular cannon rather than a Shotzo, which probably explains why the bullets can now be shot down. She is also a lot larger than she was before, meaning that the one in Kirby Super Star Ultra might be a different one.

Gender
The instruction booklet for Kirby's Dream Land refers to Kaboola as a female, despite being mechanical and non-sentient. At the time however, this was largely regarded by players to be an error. But in the real-world, battleships, planes, blimps, and other large vehicles are often referred to using feminine pronouns, despite obviously being non-sentient and genderless, which was at the time another possibility.

In Kirby Super Star Ultra Kabula's gender was finalized. Kabula was now given a more feminine appearance- having large eyelashes surrounding her eyes. Oddly enough however, Kabula was referred to as the "sky lord" in this game. Lord is normally a masculine title of nobility, and the correct word would be "lady". There has been some exceptions to this rule in real life, however.

Trivia

 * Kabula's missiles strongly resemble Torpedo Ted from the Mario series games, but are airborne like Bullet Bill.
 * The name "Kaboola" may be a reference to "ka-boom", the sound of an explosion.