Kine

"On land, Kine is, well, a fish out of water! In his element, though, he can navigate through the killer currents with ease."

- Description

Kine is an ocean sunfish that appears as one of Kirby's Animal Friends in Kirby's Dream Land 2 and 3. He can help Kirby traverse through water stages more easily. His name is derived from kai, a Japanese word for the sea. Kine also makes a cameo in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards as a statue while using the Stone Friends combo ability, and in Kirby Super Star Ultra as a statue when Kirby uses the Stone ability and in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe he is sleeping. He recently appeared in Kirby's Return to Dream Land as a Stone form; a statue of the three original Animal Friends. Kine also appears as a sticker in Kirby: Planet Robobot. He also appears in Kirby Star Allies after the first update alongside Rick and Coo as a dream friend along with Marx and Gooey.

Appearance and Characteristics
Kine is a large blue fish, resembling a stylized sunfish. His body is shaped like a semi-circle, with tall yellow dorsal and anal fins. He has clam-shaped pectoral fins, and a yellow clavus. His eyes stare vacantly outward at his front above his gaping, thick lipped mouth, generally held open.

Kine is laid back and relaxed, typically not showing any emotion outside a blank expression. However, he is very sensitive and can be easily brought to tears when something upsets him.

Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kine specializes in underwater travel. He is a strong swimmer and can power through even strong currents to allow Kirby to reach places no one else can. Kine allows Kirby to inhale and spit out enemies even when submerged. While paired with Kine, Kirby will hold his place within water and will not drift to the floor. Outside of water, however, he handles like the proverbial fish and can be awkward. Kirby's Copy Abilities are changed into the following, which typically fare better than other powers underwater, especially the Burning ability, which isn't affected by water as much as other burning-based abilities:

Kirby's Dream Land 3
Between games, Kine was improved in terms of mobility. In addition to his strong water mobility, his size allows him to crush smaller foes when jumped upon. Kine can swim against jet streams to reach valuable items. Enemies can still be inhaled and spat out as normal when submerged as when out of the water. When carrying Gooey, his tongue attack is still used in place of suction. Kine's vertical leap reaches four blocks, one higher than Kirby manages on his own. Kine's land speed was increased, making him as fast as any other character. Additionally, when Kirby or Gooey separate from the fish, he would rocket them out from his mouth. In this game, Kirby's Copy Abilities are changed into the following:

There is a female fish that is introduced in this game, Mine, who is Kine's wife.

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
When the player mixes the Stone and Cutter abilities, Kirby gains the mix ability Stone Friends, which lets him turn into statues of any of his past animal friends, including Kine. However, the Kine statue is useless, as it can only turn around. It will not even move (besides turning around) in or under water. This is reminiscent of the Stone ability in many Kirby games.

Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kine is drawn by Paint Roller in Paint Panic.

Kirby Mass Attack
In the Kirby Brawlball sub-game, Kine rests at the bottom of the pinball machine. He saves Kirby from falling into the sink once before disappearing, and he comes back if Kirby activates all the switches along the top of the machine.

Kine also appears in the Kirby Quest sub-game along with the other two original Animal Friends if Kirby loses a battle.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Sometimes, if Kirby uses Stone, he transforms into a statue of the original Animal Friends.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe
Kine appears in the sub-game Kirby Fighters (as well as in the downloadable Kirby Fighters Deluxe). In the Coo's Forest stage, he'll occasionally come out of doors and flop around before going back in the same door.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe
Kine appears in a cameo. In the main hub, he is seen sleeping on the bench after the player defeats Landia EX. A remix of his theme from Kirby's Dream Land 2, which is based on the composition from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, can be heard in this game.

Kirby Star Allies
Kine appears in Kirby Star Allies as a Dream Friend in the game's first update. He works alongside Rick and Coo as a three-in-one Dream Friend, with each character using different elements. In Kine's case, he uses the Splash and Blizzard elements.

In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!
Kine has a few appearances in the anime Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. He has a crush on Tiff, mainly because she's near the shoreline a lot. His first appearance was in the 2nd episode, where he bumps into Kirby as Kirby is swimming towards the surface of the lake, causing him to cough up his Stone Ability. He was tricked by King Dedede into revealing the location of the Rainbow Coral Reef to him in exchange to be able to move on land. Dedede kept his promise... somewhat, as Kine was put into a giant fish tank on wheels. When Kine told Tiff that Dedede put him up to this in exchange for the location of the Rainbow Coral Reef, he found out that Dedede was going to destroy the reef to build a new castle. He was played like a fool, and so helped out when Kirby went into the sea to stop him. He also stopped Tiff and Tuff from drowning when their submarine was destroyed (by a torpedo shot from King Dedede's submarine) by creating large air bubbles. In the end, Kine still pines for his next date with Tiff. This would later turn into a running gag with the character. Kine is friends with Joe, who chases King Dedede and Escargoon away when their follies end up with them falling into the sea.

In other appearances, Kine helps Kirby in the water (or rather: out of it) normally when he was pushed or thrown into the sea. He always asks how Tiff is and when their next date will be. In the episode,, he said that he'd have preferred to be helping Tiff out instead of Kirby and Tokkori.

Trivia

 * On the pause menu of Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star, there is a fish that resembles Kine in the right side.
 * Kine makes a cameo appearance in Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, along with Rick and Coo, when Kirby is transforming into Kirby Submarine.
 * There appears to be a running gag about Kine in the games in which he is frequently disliked, made fun of, or considered to be useless in some way. This is most prominent in Kirby's Dream Land 2, but examples also appear in Kirby's Dream Land 3, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and Kirby Fighters and Kirby Fighters Deluxe.
 * In Kirby's Dream Land 2 ' s cutscene for Iceberg, Kirby is shivering and has to decide which Animal Friend to ride: Kine or Rick; he decides to ride Rick, presumably due to his warm fur. In the cutscene for Cloudy Park, Kirby gets stuck while playing in the clouds, and asks Coo to help him out; Coo pulls Kirby out of the clouds, revealing that Kine has latched onto Kirby and was weighing him down. In the cutscene for Dark Castle, Kirby and his Animal Friends look at the castle before journeying over to it; as Coo starts to fly away to the castle, Kirby gets on Rick, who proceeds to bump Kine as a way of telling him to back-off; Kine reacts in an offended manner before slowly following.
 * In Kirby's Dream Land 3 ' s cutscene for Ripple Field, Kirby is walking along the beach with ChuChu, in which Kine decided to take Kirby away from her; the two of them keep fighting for Kirby, but then Kine closes his mouth with Kirby inside, making ChuChu's methods fruitless and causing her to get visibly upset.
 * In Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, the Animal Statues ability allows Kirby to transform into a statue of his Animal Friends; Rick can jump and climb walls, Coo can flap his wings to fly, Nago can triple-jump, Pitch can fly and roll, and ChuChu can jump. Kine, however, cannot do anything besides being able to turn around; he doesn't have any special abilities underwater either.
 * In Kirby Fighters and Kirby Fighters Deluxe, the Animal Friends from Kirby's Dream Land 2 appear in the stage "Coo's Forest;" they appear and disappear rather frequently, with Coo being the most common, Rick also being rather common, and Kine being fairly uncommon. Coo uses his Cutter technique, shooting off three feathers twice. Rick uses his Burning technique, shooting a stream of fire from his mouth. Kine, however, just flops around uselessly, comparably to the attack of the Assist Trophy Goldeen in the Super Smash Bros. series. However, he can do damage by physical contact.
 * Kine's theme was rearranged as the music for Swept Out to Sea in Kirby and the Rainbow Curse and in stage 1 of Onion Ocean in Kirby's Return to Dream Land.
 * Kine's Needle attack causes him to inflate himself to reveal hidden spines, in a manner similar to that of a pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae) or a porcupinefish (family Diodontidae).
 * Kine, along with Rick and Coo, make an appearance in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe after certain Ordeals are cleared.
 * In the American TV advertisement for Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kine alongside Coo and Rick were depicted unusually. In particular, aside from his characteristic blank expression is changed to having angry eyes as well as having his mouth form a scowl before turning into a menacing grin, he was also shown using his tail to repeatedly slap a biker in the face hard enough to leave him dazed.