Kyo Kusanagi
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. Initially, this character was called Syo Kirishima, but late in the production, his name was changed to Kyo Kusanagi. This was done in order to relate him with the "Yamata no Orochi" legend, which was used as the inspiration for the first arc (and specifically featured a majestic sword known as "Kusanagi no Tsurugi"). To continue with the idea of the Orochi plot, the designers gave several other characters, such as Kyo's rival Iori Yagami, similar characteristics to Kyo. In "The King of Fighters '99", to contrast the previous protagonist of the series, K' was made to be the "dark hero". K's introduction to the series was meant to remove popular characters Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami from the roster, though this idea was scrapped in the game's release. Due to the large additions of teenager characters in the series, SNK decided to add several middle-age ones to balance them.