The Stunning Evolution of Mai Shiranui's Design (1992 - 2025)
August 22, 2024
Mai Shiranui's brand new design for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves has generated lots of discussion. It's just impossible to not notice her new attire. For a character who has been associated with the same classic look for more than three decades, this change is really significant. This redesign represents a bold step in her evolution — this is a very different Mai Shiranui from her early days in Fatal Fury 2 and The King of Fighters '94.
To fully appreciate Mai's drastic transformation, let's take a look back at how her designs have changed over the years. I promise you that her design has evolved a lot more than you would think.
Mai Shiranui In Pink And Yellow!? — Fatal Fury 2
Unless you've played Fatal Fury 2, you probably wouldn't have known that Mai Shiranui's classic look actually started off with a completely different set of colors. Her original kunoichi dress was primarily a watermelon pink color, accentuated by yellow trims. And if you're wondering, no, it wasn't some kind of display error on arcades.
Pink and yellow were, in fact, the colors that SNK had decided upon for Mai. Any kind of promotional work with her involved showed her off in those colors. The Fatal Fury 2 animated special, Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle, very clearly shows this. Her clothes are very slightly different from the design she uses in-game, but it definitively shows the kunoichi in pink and yellow.
Red, White, And Ball — Fatal Fury Special and Fatal Fury 3
Fatal Fury Special, an upgraded version of Fatal Fury 2, would be the first time that Mai Shiranui would don the classic red and white colors. There's no going back from here. The pink obi around her waist, on the other hand, would take a while to find a consistent color. The following Fatal Fury titles opted for a black obi while The King of Fighters entries opted for a white one.
Fatal Fury 3 would give Mai her weird red orb thing. Truly, I wish I knew what to refer to it as...Regardless, it would become a staple of her design from henceforth. This game actually got pretty inventive with Shiranui's design, also opting to give her a vest instead of her previous uwagi-like top. It also decided to make her partially barefoot. These redesigns would stick within the final Fatal Fury games, but The King of Fighters never incorporated these changes.
The Queen Of Fighters — The King of Fighters '99 to The King of Fighters XI
For about a decade, Mai Shiranui's design stayed completely stable. There wasn't even so much as an intent to innovate on her design. The only thing different about these iterations of Mai are that they have a pair of different-colored orbs (one red and one white), starting from The King of Fighters '99. She would go completely unchanged until The King of Fighters XIII. That said, she would make some appearances in other non-mainline games such as Maximum Impact where she would go back to the one red orb design.
Modern-Day Kunoichi — The King of Fighters XIV to the Present-Day
We'll be briefly glossing over Mai's The King of Fighters XIII design mainly because it only serves as a stepping stone to her modern-day attire. It finally settles on the one orb look and brings back the black obi. The following games would make her design even more intricate.
The King of Fighters XIV is where Shiranui would settle on her present-day look (the design from that specific game is not pictured here). You'll quickly notice the one orb and the black obi, as previously mentioned, but you'll also notice that she has a lot more patterns all over her outfit. Mai's kunoichi dress now has a prominent white floral pattern below her waist. Her red orb also has a floral design on it now, but it's a more golden color there. Mai's black obi now has something of a rippled pattern, accentuated with golden squares in the design and a golden rope fastened around the sash.
It's undeniable that Mai Shiranui's design looks a lot more complete with all these changes. It's still a relatively simple look, but that extra bit of personality goes a long way. It certainly suits her 3D models way better as they make her stand out more. Compare her design from Dead or Alive 5 Last Round to her design from Dead or Alive 6 and you'll see what I mean. This modern look for her is the golden standard. So where do you go from here? Of course, you need to give her a completely new design.
Skin-Tight Leather — Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves
Finally, we've made it to Mai Shiranui's most recent design. And, yes, it is quite the extreme departure from what she's worn before. No more bare legs — Mai Shiranui wears pants now. But seriously, it's a perfectly fine outfit for Mai; it looks really good on her. Again, it's fairly simplistic, but that's just her style. There are still floral patterns on this outfit actually, but, clearly, they're in completely different places than before. The outfit may not anything kunoichi-like, but she may be well past that lifestyle by now, given the jump in time.
This shouldn't even be worth addressing, but everyone who thinks that Mai Shiranui's new design lacks sex appeal has to be kidding themselves. She's wearing skin-tight leather. Her cropped jacket is zipped almost all the way down. You could very well argue that her chest is even more of a focal point than before. Look, this design may be more family-friendly, but not by much.
From her debut in Fatal Fury 2 to her most recent appearance in Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, each iteration of Mai Shiranui has built upon her legacy while keeping her essence intact. She has always been designed to captivate. That's just who Mai Shiranui is. But she's been doing it in different ways since her very first game. While the recent evolution of her design is stunning, it's just another chapter in a long history of stunning designs.
