Mai Shiranui returns in Fatal Fury the City of the Wolves...

I don’t know why but I had a massive spike in views the other day. I’m betting it had something to do with the character reveal trailer for Mai Shiranui in Fatal Fury / Garou City of the Wolves. This was a long running series and I had blogged a much earlier this year I even did some character breakdowns for the game for both new, and returning faces. Takashi Nishiyama was the Godfather of the fighting game genre, while he may not have designed Mai Shiranui, he certainly deserved respect from the entire community for the direction of the SNK titles.

I’ve never talked at length about Mai, or most of the characters in the Fatal Fury / King of Fighters franchise by SNK. I played through most of the games, but enjoyed the titles by Capcom just a little bit more. I still loved the characters, and canon they created for audiences. Mai was unique among all the early fighting game girls. The Capcom titles tended to make caricatures of the fighting arts with their cast. The difference for the SNK universe was in their costuming. Very often the Fatal Fury characters were also masters of the fighting arts, but they didn’t always dress the part. That was the genius of the SNK school of art. They hid the masters in plain sight. A world champion level boxer for example could show up in a dress suit, an assassin might sport a fur coat.

Female ninjas were referred to as kunoichi. They were normally presented with a dark outfit, and a mask. The very first kunoichi in gaming that I remember was in the game The Ninja Warriors. The Taito game used multiple screens, and featured rotoscoped animation. It was an important contribution to the genre with a shocking ending. From there on kunoichi weren’t featured very often in fighting games. I could remember Taki from the Soul Edge series by Namco. To be fair Kunimitsu was a hidden character in Tekken from 1994, she was a boss for Michelle Chang. The last new lady ninja that I could remember was Hibana from the action game Kunoichi (Nightshade) by Sega. She was the successor to the Shinobi franchise. In essence it seemed that a new lead female ninja character would appear once a decade in gaming. 

Mai looked nothing like any of the classic lady ninja characters in pop culture. She wore a bright red outfit, that revealed her bosom, and backside. Mai was anything but shy or demure. She was the heiress of the Shiranui clan. Her form of ninjitsu went back centuries, and was closely guarded. Despite protecting her form of fighting the team at SNK made sure she stood out from her contemporaries. This tradition continued into 2024 with an updated form-fitting leather outfit.

Mai was meant to be a response to Chun-Li. Street Fighter II was more than a fighting game. When it came out in 1991 it became a global phenomenon. A few months after it came out SNK released Fatal Fury, which helped keep the momentum going. Fatal Fury was more than a lucky break, it was more than a studio trying to capitalize on the moment. The game was designed by Mr. Nishiyama. He had created the original Street Fighter back in 1986. He was planning new ideas for a Street Fighter sequel, some of which would inspire Street Fighter ’89, which would later become the arcade hit Final Fight. Mr. Nishiyama changed companies and wanted to try out entirely new play mechanics through Fatal Fury.

Mai was not in the original Fatal Fury, she debuted in 1992 with the release of Fatal Fury 2. During this time Capcom was developing a Super Famicom / Super Nintendo follow up to Final Fight. The game from 1993 would introduce some new faces, among them a female ninja wearing red, and white. The blonde Maki Genryusai debuted in Final Fight 2. Despite outward appearances she was not a clone of Shiranui. Maki had a completely different move set, her costume, and sneakers were designed to parallel Guy. It was simply coincidence that Mai, and Maki had similar looks. Not only that but Mai was meant with a fighting game in mind, rather than a brawler.

Terry Bogard, and Ryo Sakazaki (Art of Fighting) were a sort of male equivalent to Ken, and Ryu, but the studio needed a strong female lead as well. From the very first day audiences knew that Shiranui was a scene stealer. There was no doubt in our minds that she was going to be the face for the franchise, similar to how Chun-Li was embraced by the global community. When it came to fan art the two female leads were in a category all their own. Capcom and SNK would play up the friendly rivalry in official art, and often present Chun-Li and Mai Shiranui as opponents. Sakura was considered a little sister clone, a jab at Yuri Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting 2. In fact Dan Hibiki was also a parody of Ryo, and Robert Garcia from the Art of Fighting. This is why they sometimes turned up in the Mai vs Chun-Li art as well.With her leather outfit the most recent version of Mai was one of the better contemporary remakes for the character. It was not the first time she was presented with a mostly black costume.

When the Fatal Fury games went to 3D many of the main characters got makeovers in the form of alternate costumes. Noise Factory developed the King of Fighters Maximum Impact in 2004. The updated looks of all the returning characters were well done, and Mai specifically had a bold new design. Her long hair had been cropped short. Her trademark red outfit was swapped to black. The occasional redraws by Tatsuhiko Kanaoka aka Falcoon were memorable.

I am a big fan of Falcoon’s art. I consider his bold style to be the BENGUS equivalent of the SNK art team. Back in 2005 the studio released two limited edition posters at the E3 in Los Angeles. I was able to get the black version of Mai for my little brother. I wish I had known about the signings both days so I could have scored the two prints.

It was great to see the Fatal Fury series continue into the 2020’s. I was glad that there were teams still passionate about the classic fighters. They were keeping the genre alive, and sharing them to an entirely new generation of fans. I’m certain that Mai would reclaim her spot on the fighting ladies Mount Rushmore. What did you think of Mai, and her new look? Were you a fan of any of her redesigns, or did you prefer her classic look? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!