, more commonly known as K.K. Slider or simply K.K., is a character within the ''

Animal Crossing is a social simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo. It was created by Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami. The player character is a human who lives in a village inhabited by various anthropomorphic animals and can ...

'' franchise. One of the franchise's most popular characters, he debuted in the title ''

'', and has appeared in every installment since. K.K.'s main role is as a

folk rock Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...

(according to the game)

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

who performs to the townsfolk, through live performances and purchasable in-game albums. He is based on Nintendo video game voice actor and composer

Kazumi Totaka is a Japanese video game composer and sound director who is best known for his various compositions in many Nintendo games. He occasionally does voice acting as well, most notably voicing Yoshi from the ''Mario'' series. He also directed the ...

– his Japanese nickname "Totakeke" being a contraction of "Totaka K." – and has been said to be an animal caricature of Totaka. K.K. Slider has also appeared outside of ''Animal Crossing'' several times, such as a costume for the player's Mii fighter in the crossover fighting games ''

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and , both commonly referred to together as ''Super Smash Bros. 4'' or ''Smash 4'', are 2014 crossover fighting games developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U video game cons ...

'' and ''

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' is a 2018 crossover fighting game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series, succeeding ' ...

''.

Concept and creation

K.K. Slider was created for the 2001

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

''Doubutsu no Mori'' for the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

, later released on the

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

as ''

''. K.K. Slider is based on the composer

. His music was composed by various members of the compositional staff across the series; some songs were composed because some members were skilled in a specific genre, while others were composed so they could challenge themselves.

Appearances

K.K. Slider was first introduced in the franchise's debut title '' Doubutsu no Mori'' for the

, later released on

as ''

'' . His role within the game is as a

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

who performs songs for the player and townsfolk only at a certain time and day each week and, once finished, gives the player a virtual copy of the song that can be played on a radio in their home. This role remains virtually the same throughout every main series ''Animal Crossing'' title with minor changes, up until '' Animal Crossing: New Leaf'', in which he also takes the role of a DJ under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

DJ KK. He also appears in '' Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer'', '' Amiibo Festival'', '' Pocket Camp'', and ''

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

''. In ''New Horizons'', he appears after the player's island has a three-star rating. Four new K.K. songs were added in ''New Horizons,'' with 12 additional songs being added in the game's 2.0 update. In the ''Happy Home Paradise'' DLC, DJ KK will appear on the main archipelago once the player has constructed thirty homes and designed all five facilities. A concert related to his appearance in the DLC was held in October 2022. K.K. Slider has also received a costume that can be worn by Mii Fighters in the crossover fighting games ''

'' and ''

'', as well as his own amiibo. He appears in the 2006 film '' Dōbutsu no Mori''. In October 2019, K.K. Slider – in the form of a hologram – opened for a ''

Splatoon is a third-person shooter video game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami and Shintaro Sato and developed and owned by Nintendo. Set in the far future on a Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic Earth that has been repopulat ...

'' concert that took place during Nintendo Live in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Reception

K.K. Slider has received generally positive reception, with ''UGO'' identifying him as the most famous ''Animal Crossing'' character in a 2013 article. K.K. Slider came in first place in a 2019 popularity poll by Nintendo in Japan. Abby Lee Hood of ''NintendoLife'' noted him as a

breakout character A breakout character is a character (arts), character in Serial (literature), serial fiction, especially a member of an ensemble cast, who becomes much more prominent, popular, discussed, or imitated than expected by the creators. A breakout c ...

for his music appearing through remixes, social media videos, and

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

. ''

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

'' writer Nina Corcoran discussed K.K. Slider's influence, noting that he introduced people to new music genres and that he has inspired multiple people to create covers of his music, as well as covers of other songs in K.K. Slider's style. ''

Polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

'' described K.K. Slider as a "fan fave". Cameron Faulkner of ''

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American Technology journalism, technology news website headquarters, headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City and operated by Vox Media. The website publishes news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, cons ...

'' considered K.K. Slider his favorite artist of 2020, talking about how much he appreciated him being a "beam of positivity" during 2020, which he considered a difficult year. He felt that the music didn't resonate with him on 3DS, attributing it to the 3DS' smaller speakers, but found it much better on his TV.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slider, K.K. Animal Crossing characters Animal characters in video games Anthropomorphic dogs Video game characters introduced in 2001 Musician characters in video games Fictional guitarists Fictional DJs Video game characters based on real people Male characters in video games