Kyo Kusanagi
Kyo Kusanagi was created by artist Shinichi Morioka. When designing characters for the first "King of Fighters" game, developers wanted a new, "snazzy" hero who would fight against characters from two other SNK series, "Fatal Fury" and "Art of Fighting". Through most of his development, Kyo was named and was dressed in martial arts clothing common in fighting games of the time. His design was inspired by the main character of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga and film "Akira", Shotaro Kaneda. Late in production, his name was changed to Kyo Kusanagi, as a means of relating the character to the "Yamata no Orochi" legend, which was the basis of the story arc of the game. The name Syo would later be used for Kyo's Another Striker in "The King of Fighters 2000". Another planned name before Syo was but no design was elaborated from it. However, in the end SNK chose the name Kyo as they felt it more fitting.