The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate announcement left us completely jaw-dropped with its slogan: “Everyone is here!” Its director, Masahiro Sakurai, had the absurd idea of bringing together each of the fighters from the previous installments and, while he was at it, adding new faces, adding to this two season passes and sneaking in an insane amount of cameos in the stages. Crazy. And, despite this, it had to be leave Mai Shiranui out of the party.
Mai Shiranui is not just any character: she is an icon. She is, according to SNK, The Queen of Fighters. She made her debut in the sequel to Fatal Fury and almost instantly became, alongside Terry Bogard and Athena, the definitive ambassador of the entire company. In fact, beyond the games produced by the Osaka company, she became Chun Li’s legitimate rivalwho was and still is the most popular female fighter in the entire genre. Something that even Capcom and its artists have acknowledged. So why leave her out of the biggest crossover in video games?
An absence as blatant as Mai Shiranui herself
First things first: Mai deserved to appear in the Nintendo game and that is completely indisputable. Terry Bogard knocked down the entrance door to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for all the characters from the SNK fighting sagas as a guest fighter and, in addition, as a great attraction of the second Fighters Pass by facing on equal terms other legends such as Ryu, Ken or Kazuya from TekkenWhat’s more, even Virtua Fighter characters came as costumes for Mii Fighters.
However, what’s special here is that Terry landed in Nintendo’s game with tons of content from all of the company’s franchises, including costumes inspired by SNK’s Iori, Ryo, and Nakoruru, not to mention a board filled with spirits born on the arcade and Neo Geo systems. If that weren’t enough, a musical selection made up of 50 great songs. In this Smash Bros.
In fact, the truly curious thing is that in Terry’s scenario for Smash Bros.The King of Fighters Tournament, up to twenty characters from up to four SNK fighting sagas were added. Two dozen. Many more than the selectable ones that were included in most fighting games from 30 years ago.
- From the saga Fatal Fury veremos a Andy Bogard, Joe Higashi, Tung Fu Rue, Geese Howard, Blue Mary, Rock Howard, Kim Kampwan, Billy Kane o Ryuji Yamazaki.
- From the saga The King of Fighters We will be able to see Athena, Kyo, Iori, Goro Daimon, the criminal couple Chang and Choi,
- Of Ikari Warriors Ralf and Clark are present with their King of Fighters skins
- Finally, from the saga Art of Fighting We have Ryo, King, Yuri
In other words, no SNK fan missed the fact that Mai was left out in the face of such secondary characters in the series as Tung Fu Rue or Blue Mary, who, no matter how you look at it, doesn’t match her popularity.
Above all, because Mai Shiranuigiven her status as an SNK superstar, is a recurring guest in all kinds of fighting games and sagas: from all the crossovers with Capcom to Fall Guyspassing through no less than two installments of Dead or Alive, and from there to Dungeon Fighter Online and, from there, more than twenty games that signed the Neo Geo star as a claim. Because it is a claim. However, for Nintendo’s game it was a small big problem.
Why Mai Shiranui was excluded from Super Smash Bros.
When Terry was announced for Super Smash Bros., Masahiro Sakurai himself made an individual introduction of the 20 characters that would come to the stage and took a minute to explain and apologize to the fans, without beating around the bush, for the absence of Mai Shiranui.
“By the way, you may have noticed that a very important character from the Fatal Fury series is missing. Yes, Mai Shiranui. Super Smash Bros. is a game for almost all ages, so we decided not to include her. I hope you’ll forgive us.”
In that sentence given by Sakurai there were two implicit realities: in Japan the game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has a CERO rating, which, like (almost) all Nintendo games, allows parents to buy them and not worry about the content. The problem went beyond Mai’s more than revealing outfit, which could be modified or covered, but also the game’s publisher itself.
In fact, over the years there have been many redesigns and variations of the traditional attire of his clan.
One of the most curious aspects of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate It offers an editor in which you can place almost any character and create scenes, compositions and photographs with enormous margins of freedom. However, in order to maintain the ZERO age rating seal, female characters had to be subtly modified.
In the case of Princess Peach herself from Super Mario, an effect was created to make it impossible to see what was under her skirt. So each fighter or cameo on stage had to be carefully studied, and in the case of Mai Shiranui, they decided not to tighten the rope any further so as not to have to raise the recommended age for playing.
Censored illustration from SNK vs Capcom (left) versus the original (right). Note Mai’s costume in the central area.
This is not the first time that Mai Shiranui has been censored, and it was not the last. In view of the relaunch of SNK vs Capcom Chaos in 2024, SNK itself created two variants of the main image and in one of them it was decided to cover up the kunoichi much more. Fatal Fury. And, while we’re at it, hide Athena a little more in the logo. Luckily, we’ll have Mai for a while.
The return of the SNK superstar
The plans of the reforged SNK are to give much more room to its star characters, and that implies giving more prominence to Mai Shiranui: in addition to returning in the last two installments of The King of Fighters and once again measure themselves in popularity and strength with Chun Li in Capcom Fighting Collection 2
Mai Shiranui only had mentions and a small cameo in Garou Mark of the Wolves, the last installment of the series to date. She appeared fleetingly between lines of dialogue, was known to be okay by the endings, and beyond that, her image appeared on a large billboard in one of the stages. But her absence was far greater than that of any other character rooted in the franchise.
That’s why his return feels like a debut in the sequel. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves It is a real blow to the table, even when it comes with a complete redesign of her wardrobe.
SNK will bring back Mai as a draw for the game, but also as a key piece for the convergence of the plot and characters of Garou Mark of the Wolves with the events of the games of Fatal Fury. We will have her classic look, but the opportunity has been taken to show her a new main outfit of which she only keeps the hair band and the fan. Which does not make her any less deadly in combat.
Does the new outfit lose the charm of the classic Mai? Not at all. Chun Li herself or the legendary Ryu changed their appearance in Street Fighter 6 without giving up their identity or what really makes them the icons that they are. And not only that: in the face of Garou Mark of the Wolves Terry Bogard himself lost his cap, changed his jacket and cut off his long blond ponytail. Of course, SNK knows its fans very well and how special its kunoichi is, so in its cover letter it gives her a very, very special title: The real Queen of fighters.
A new suit, same techniques and, in fact, a brave but very curious move, as SNK is moving ahead into the future and opening the only door that was closed to Mai Shiranui: if a new game is ever made, Smash Bros., Sakurai will be able to include it without having to raise the recommended age for playing.
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