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 spelled Kaboola) is King Dedede's personal aircraft. 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, Kabula made her re-debut in the series as a boss in Revenge of the King in the game Kirby Super Star Ultra.

Kirby's Dream Land
Kabula's first appearance was in Kirby's Dream Land as a normal blimp with a cannon. The battle against Kabula at the end of Float Islands fully takes place in air. Kabula, 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 Kabula. 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, Kabula 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
Kabula 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. Kabula 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 takes 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 lies in wait for Kirby. She successfully blasts the arriving Kirby off his Warp Star, causing him to fall to the ground below. Nevertheless, the Sparkling Stars come to his rescue and merge into the Starship. Kirby returns on the star craft to engage Kabula in combat.

She looks significantly different compared 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 reappears 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 with the Galactic Nova Nucleus.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Kabula makes a cameo appearance in the Scope Shot sub-game. She flies slowly by in the distance and can be targeted for bonus points. She can be taken down with a single shot.

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 Kabula as a female, despite being mechanical and non-sentient. At the time, 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 seemingly finalized. Kabula was now given a more feminine appearance -- having large eyelashes surrounding her eyes and a pink nose cone. Oddly enough, however, Kabula still had conflicting gender details, such as being referred to as the "sky lord" (lord is normally a masculine title of nobility, and the correct word would be "lady", though there have been some exceptions to this rule in real life) and "it" both in the same description.

Trivia

 * Kabula's original name may be a reference to "ka-boom", the sound of an explosion.
 * Kabula makes a cameo in the Super Famicom version of Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu, in the title screen's opening animation.
 * Kabula's theme in Kirby Super Star Ultra is a revamped remix of the Power-Up theme.
 * Kabula's missiles in Kirby Super Star Ultra strongly resemble Torpedo Ted from the Mario series games, but are airborne like Bullet Bills. Also, they have an angry smile, like Banzai Bills, again from the Mario series.
 * In Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby's Block Ball, Kabula carries a Shotzo. In all other appearances, however, she carries a generic cannon.