This for the franchise as a whole. Go to the following for examples related to specific games and other works.
- Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
- Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
- Klonoa Heroes: Densetsu no Star Medal
- Klonoa: Dream Traveller of Noctis Sol
- Adorkable:
- Klonoa himself, while he already had a cuter design and notably upbeat in Door to Phantomile. His redesign which debuted in Lunatea's Veil and onward gave him a much older appearance and expanding more on Klonoa's personality. The sequel alongside Klonoa Beach Volleyball, Klonoa Heroes, the GBA games, and the crossover game Namco x Capcom has plenty of moments where his adorkable nature is more prominent.
- Guntz' sea sickness as well as his fanboy tendencies when involving guns puts him up there with Klonoa on the adorable chart.
- Broken Base: Which design of Klonoa is better. His original design from Door to Phantomile or his redesign from Lunatea's Veil. Some prefer his design from the first game, finding it to be cuter and more distinctive than his later design, while many adore his later design and finds it to be a cool slightly more mature take on the character. And than there is his redesign in the Wii remake, which is its own can of worms.
- Common Knowledge: A number of fans assume Klonoa loses his memories of his previous adventures when he leaves a world. The games never actually make reference to this and overall contradict it; for example in Lunatea's Veil Klonoa carries his Character Development from Door to Phantomile and is aware of his nature as someone who travels between worlds.
- Complete Monster: Ghadius and Janga. See those pages for details.
- Cult Classic: It isn’t the most successful series, but it has earned a devoted fanbase (and one that has arguably grown over the years through word of mouth). It has even earned something of a title as one of, if not the, most underrated series in gaming.
- Difficulty Spike: The platforming games almost universally face one towards the end. One can expect that with any game, sure, but these games are usually incredibly chill and easygoing early on, so it will shock many players when the endgame of the first title is suddenly requiring really precise platforming skills over many a Bottomless Pit and some tight timing on the puzzles to progress. The best way to know you're in for a tough time is when the story takes a rough turn for the dark.
- Evil Is Cool: The series has an especially well-liked rogues gallery, especially Ghadius, Joka, and the King Of Sorrow.
- Fandom-Enraging Misconception: If you wish to not be set on fire by both the Klonoa and Sonic fandoms at large, then for the love of God, do not call Klonoa a Sonic character!
- Fandom Rivalry:
- It used to have one with the Sonic fandom, largely due to Sonic and Klonoa fans being annoyed by people calling Klonoa a Sonic character. Though this has died down over time and by the time Phantasy Reverie Series came out, the two have more or less become Friendly Fandoms, with plenty of crossover art between the two upon its announcement and release.
- Used to have one with Pac-Man, Mainly back in the early 2010's, that's more or less died down over the years.
- Friendly Fandoms:
- The Fandom gets along quite well with the NiGHTS into Dreams… fandom, primarily thanks to their dream-based settings.
- In Japan, the Klonoa series shares fanbases with Unico created by Osamu Tezuka, thanks to both works sharing a cute tone and atmosphere, combined with darker villains and both containing a similar Bittersweet Ending with both protagonists forced to leave the friends they've made along the way.
- The fandom is also on good terms with the Kirby fandom, due to them being platformers that share a similar bright and cutesy atmosphere and tone, while also both having dark and often tragic villains that clash against the setting. The fact that both franchises take place in dream-based settings helps too (though it's far less emphasized in Kirby).
- Hilarious in Hindsight: A Klonoa anime was "announced" as an April Fool's joke. While it was cancelled, an actual Klonoa anime, a movie, was announced afterward.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While Dream Champ Tournament was well-received, some complaints were raised at the fact that not much changed from its predecessor.
- Love to Hate: Janga is a popular villain, but it's clear that the fanbase knows how scary and horrible he is, and play up these qualities in fan works. He does get the Draco in Leather Pants treatment sometimes, but not as frequently as some of the other villains in the series.
- Memetic Mutation:
- A minor one, but a particular shot of Klonoa with an angry face from Door to Phantomile is often given captions to make it seem like Klonoa is angry about other things, such as how he hasn't gotten any games in a while.
- This infamous magazine ad
◊ that seemingly compares Klonoa to a STI. - Joka is occasionally seen in fanmade crossovers with other video game clown characters, such as Marx, Dimentio, and Jevil. For example, after being absent from the animation Clown Town by PaintraSeaPea, he got a starring role in the followup video.
- #KLONOASWEEP Explanation
- This image of Klonoa's original design has become viral in the Klonoa community on the day of its American release. Usually encouraging gamers to buy Phantasy Reverie Series to convince Bandai Namco to fully revisit the series if the game sells well. Tons of gamers changed their profile pics to Klonoa staring at the viewers including a few Twitch streamers.
- Moe:
- Klonoa is a very cute and fluffy creature to look at. Particularly his original design◊ in Door to Phantomile where he looked notably younger in appearance, behavior, and voice. His redesign in the webcomic not only combined all of his previous designs, but retained his younger appearance◊ compared to his redesign in Lunatea's Veil. The fact that he is a huge woobie certainly helps.
- Lolo due to her clumsy behavior, genuinely sweet friendship and relationship with Klonoa, and a close bond with Popka. Tomoko Kawakami's charming performance as the character only increased her cuteness on par with Klonoa, Popka, and Tat.
- Speaking of Lolo, her loyal friend and companion Popka gained similar treatment as Klonoa. While he's not afraid of mouthing off and being brutally honest at times. Fans find him adorable due to his unique design with his long arms and gemstone eyes getting the most attention.
- Despite being Leorina's loyal sidekick, Tat is also very cute due to most of her speech sounding like a cat's meow. As contrast to Leorina's stern and serious attitude, Tat is notably bubbly and very mischievous. It's more prominent with her white side being notably nicer with Klonoa compared to her purple side. Knowing she's voiced by Satomi Koorogi (voice of Pichu and Chi the kitten) really helps her cuteness. Even her English voice actress for Klonoa Beach Volleyball is adorable to hear.
- Klonoa is a very cute and fluffy creature to look at. Particularly his original design
- Most Wonderful Sound:
- Anything that comes out of Klonoa's mouth. He's so just darned adorable while shouting, whooping, and "Wahoo!"ing that you can't help but smile when Klonoa does so. (Unless he's hurt or dying in some fashion; that will only make you cringe and strive to prevent it from ever happening again.)
- Lolo's voice is also on par with Klonoa's voice in terms of loveability. Every line of dialogue from her is so sweet to lessen to, especially when she starts giggling either out of excitement, happiness, or embarrassment when it comes to smaller actions. This even extends to Lolo's loyal friend Popka who has a gruff but cute voice.
- The echoing sound of successfully harming a boss adds a satisfying weight to the attack you've worked to connect.
- The sound when you find doll pieces in Lunatea's Veil, especially when you find the last one in the level.
- Narm: In Phantasy Reverie Series, the DLC costumes for Klonoa such as a giant Pac-Man hat can really ruin some of the more emotional moments in the series. The ability to fast forward the cutscenes can also ruin the moment.
- Narm Charm: The Speaking Simlish itself. With the amount of effort and emotion the voice actors put into the characters, it somehow just works, especially with extremely emotional moments.
- Obvious Judas: Bagoo, the Big Bad of Empire of Dreams. His design is so obviously sinister, and his insistence on punishing Klonoa during Klonoa's trial doesn't help. Yet it's still treated as a surprise that he's the one behind the plot to turn everyone into monsters.
- Older Than They Think: The idea of an evil Klonoa from Dream Traveller of Noctis Sol was technically not a new concept.
- The webcomic's writer, Jim Zub, indicated on Twitter that artist Hitoshi Ariga's design for Nightmare Klonoa may have been inspired by this unused concept art◊ from Door to Phantomile, depicting an encounter with a different evil Klonoa that was ultimately cut from the game.
- During 2002, Namco held a contest where gamers would design a Boss for the third world of Klonoa Heroes, one of which was also an evil Klonoa.
- The webcomic's writer, Jim Zub, indicated on Twitter
- Popular with Furries:
- Klonoa is quite popular with furries due to his cute design.
- To a smaller degree, Tat from Lunatea's Veil also gained a small following in the furry community (mainly fans of cats) due to cute design and voice.
- Sweet Dreams Fuel: For all the Tear Jerkers and Nightmare Fuel it contains, the series still manages to be very sweet. Klonoa himself is a cute, polite character with whom players everywhere can sympathize. The music and visuals are gorgeous and mind-blowing, and no matter how dark things may seem, the games promise us one thing: In the end, good will always conquer evil.
- That One Boss: Bagoo from the first GBA game is also pretty difficult for the game's standards. Despite only taking three hits to defeat, you have to deal with multi-colored enemies, a rotating platform, and massive projectiles to avoid.
- That One Level: The Auto-scrolling and hoverboard levels in Empire of Dreams can become this rather quickly, ESPECIALLY if you're going for all the Dream Stones. The auto-scrolling stage in World 5 is the worst of them.
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Even if the resemblance is most likely unintentional, some have accused Klonoa's redesigns from Lunatea's Veil and the Wii remake of being too similar to the modern appearance of Sonic, to where some who aren't so familiar have accused him of being a Sonic knock-off, much to the enragement of fans.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: It's quite easy to mistake Klonoa himself as a girl, due to his androgynous appearance and feminine-sounding name.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: While the games are perfectly family friendly, they have a fondness for sudden dark and depressing moments that are much heavier and dramatic than you would expect for an overall cute series.
- To recap some major events of the first game: Klonoa's grandfather dies and Klonoa has a breakdown over it, the plot is the Big Bad attempting to revive an Eldritch Abomination to commit a Class X-4 Apocalypse How, and then Klonoa finds out all his memories are fake, from his supposed life up until then to his friendship with Huepow all being a lie, all in hope's he'll be able to prevent the Big Bad's plot. Then, after Huepow becomes the mask, Klonoa gets forcefully torn out of the world as Huepow futilely tries to keep it from happening... and fails, watching his friend get sucked up into a vortex, likely to never see him again. Cue credits.
- The second game is no slouch either. The world is a Crapsaccharine World, with people having pulled a veil over their eyes in a futile attempt to forget sorrow. One of the worlds is in an eternal state of war that they don't even remember why they started it in the first place, and the game's Big Bad is a Tragic Villain who's kingdom had been completely decimated by the rest of the world in their attempts to forget sorrow. The Big Bad dies (though is implied to have been reincarnated in the credits), and the game ends with Klonoa being once again torn from his friends and possible love interest. On the much lighter end of the spectrum, there's a gag in the game where Klonoa accidentally gropes a female character.
- The Woobie: Klonoa. Nearly every game ends with at least one bad thing happening to him. Even in the face of all this tragedy, he still tries to be nice to everyone. It's perhaps one of the biggest reasons why the fanbase wants a new installment in the franchise: They want him to have a completely happy endingnote .
- In the first game alone, he's an innocent and kind-hearted kid dragged into a desperate struggle to save the world through investigating something falling from the sky and basically stumbling into the villains' plot by accident, then his grandfather is murdered and his home is destroyed by The Dragon (the original "Phantomile" voice acting makes him sound very traumatized), and then he finds out that he isn't even native to Phantomile and his best friend Huepow has been playing him along the entire time; Klonoa is really a "dream traveler" destined to drift from world to world, saving them from whatever discord is threatening to unravel them and then being forced to move on with no chance of ever returning - all goodbyes to the friends and loved ones he made are final. And it is implied Klonoa's memories are wiped each time, since he never mentions Huepow or Phantomile in any subsequent games. It isn't so much the events of the game itself but rather the extremely depressing Fridge Logic that this poor boy is condemned to a life of eternal loneliness and repeated traumatizing Tomato in the Mirror moments through no fault of his own and there is nothing he or anyone else can do to change it.
