 When designing characters for the first King of Fighters game, developers wanted a new, "snazzy" hero who would easily fight against Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters. Through most of his development, Kyo was meant to be called Syo Kirishima (霧島 翔, Kirishima Shō), and was dressed in martial arts clothing common in fighting games at the time. But late in production, his name was changed to Kyo Kusanagi in order to relate him to the Yamata no Orochi legend, which was used as the idea for the first story arc. His fighting style was changed as part of the series'overhaul in The King of Fighters' 96. To appease fans, producers also included an older version of Kyo from KOF '94 into The King of Fighters' 97 and placed The King of Fighters'95 version of Kyo in The King of Fighters' 98, which made both versions of Kyo popular during location tests. Developers of the game decided that Kyo's main skill would be fire along with the other movesets from the other members of the original Japan Team inspired by the anime Getter Robo. In addition, the three members of the Japan Team had personalities similar to those of the main characters from such anime. Kyo was based on the main character who had a fiery persona. The elements and the personalities are also an homage to a Japanese phrase about giving birth to fire; it is roughly translated: "lighting strikes the earth which sparks the flame". According to Kyo's designer, Ashita no Joe and Devilman were influences too.
