Athena Asamiya

Athena Asamiya is the main protagonist from the Psycho Soldier game and a character from the King of Fighters franchise.

Athena is a descendant of Princess Athena. She is a member of the Psycho Soldier Team alongside her friend Sie Kensou and her teacher Chin Gentsai.

Appearance
Athena Asamiya is based on the title character from SNK's video game Athena. The staff did not like the title character and thus wanted to create an improved sequel, Psycho Soldier. Athena has long pink hair and wears a black Japanese school uniform. In order to generate contrast between the two Athenas, Psycho Soldier 's was designed to look more mature. In retrospective, character designer Ogura felt Athena's marketing as an idol was ahead of its time, citing stuff such as her songs and anime-like illustrations. The fact that Athena changed outfits in every game felt like something that Ogura believed would appeal to the demographic.

For The King of Fighters '94 series, there was pressure within staff about including the character. The staff worked so much on her that other developers accused them of favoritism. One of the designers tried to explain Athena's poses but the developers found it funny. Athena wears new outfits in every game, some with little changes. Her hair, however, is purple and becomes short from The King of Fighters '99 to The King of Fighters 2001, and regardless of her outfit, one item that remains relatively unchanged is the tiara she wears on her hair, with accompanying star-shaped hairpins. The staff from the series has been requested by fans to return her Japanese school uniform in several games, but they only made her wear it only in her introductions as they thought it would not be well received by gamers from other countries. In the Maximum Impact series, her normal costume as the basis for it, it is piece of "cute clothing that she has per her heart and soul into". On the other hand, her "Another" is a "school wear" outfit with glasses according to the staff.

However, by The King of Fighters XI, Athena appears with a white school uniform and in The King of Fighters XII she returns to her original Psycho Soldier outfit as the members from SNK wanted to return The King of Fighters series to its "original concept." In The King of Fighters XIII, Athena returns wearing the same clothes but with a color alteration (white shirt and blue skirt; more in line with her attire from The King of Fighters XI). Eisuke Ogura was given multiple directions by the game staff in how Athena should look such as her facial expressions and limbs. Director Kei Yamamoto explained many of Athena's mechanics are based on psychic moves with Psycho Ball being one of her most famous ones. Yamamoto explained that the XIII staff worked to produce balanced variations of her attacks. Her strongest move in that game, the Psycho Medley 13 brought multiple difficulties to the team but in the end SNK were satisfied with the result.

When making The King of Fighters XIV with the Unreal Engine, the original game had more realistic visuals but clashed with character models Athena's and Kula Diamond's models that have been compared with anime-like series so they opted for the current look. The character was redesigned by Keisuke Ogura rather than veteran Nobuyuki Kuroki in order to appeal to newcomers. Sound director Asakana found Athena as character who remained faithful to previous incarnations to the point the staff had fun designing her.[12]According to SNK, Athena's appearance from The King of Fighters '98 remains as the most popular within the fanbase which led to her inclusion in XIV as downloadable content.

For the spin-off SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, Athena was given a magical girl-like outfit that would also fit her characterization. Multiple accessories were then added in order to appeal to a young demographic to the point of making her look like a main character. Bracelets were meant to look like morphing accessories on a comical note. Ogura wanted to give her a stuff but the idea was rejected by the team. Nevertheless, the main theme of the game was that the cast would wear an outfit they would not like. Yasuyuki Oda stated it was difficult how to perform Athena's 3D models and yet making it look like her original 2D model.

Personality
Athena is very outgoing, polite, and friendly. A happy girl with righteous virtues and well-meaning morals, she treasures her fans and those who are helpless and strives to do her best to fight for them, though she can be a bit of a crybaby at times.

Athena often chides Kensou for slacking off in his training. She either is well aware of his crush on her, but usually chooses to ignore his romantic advances since he seems to embarrass her, or she is oblivious about his romantic interest in her.

Abilities
Athena was taught Kung Fu by Chin Gentsai, probably the style of Wing Chun. Her stance was loosely based on Liuhebafa. While Athena is a capable hand-to-hand fighter, she mostly relies on her psychic powers to fight. Athena is not feared for her martial arts training, but she is respected and can somewhat hold her own against some fighters. Athena's fighting style revolves mostly around simple yet effective strikes, and around speed and acrobacies, rather than strength. She uses her psychic powers to full effectiveness when in combat, improving her martial capabilities, controlling the battlefield and getting the enemy off guard with several surprise tactics.

Powers
Psionics - Athena is a powerful psychic, being capable of harnessing several psionic abilities.
 * Psychokinesis - Athena can move objects with her mind.
 * Psychic projectile - Athena can condense her psychic energy into the shape of a ball and fire it at her opponent.
 * Psychic energy strikes - Athena can materialize and coalesce psychic energy on her limbs, in order to strengthen her physical attacks.
 * Psychic barrier - Athena can surround her body with a resilient shield of energy. This energy barrier can also be used offensively
 * Teleportation - Athena can bend space with her mind in order to move herself, objects or other people.
 * Psychic Reflector - Athena can create a shield-like barrier that deflects projectiles.
 * Psychic Healing - Athena can channel her psychic energy in order to heal herself or others of wounds and damage. This is seen in The King of Fighters 2000 as her striker move.

Other Skills

 * Singing and Performing - Athena is a J-Pop star of established fame. She is an accomplished singer who has many fans, including Jhun Hoon, Momoko and Kaoru Watabe. She has found success among male and female fans alike.
 * Web Designing - Athena is good at designing and creating websites and makes a hobby out of it. In fact, she is good on everything relating to the internet and also likes to shop online.
 * Lacrosse - Athena is especially good at lacrosse.

Trivia

 * In the official art for the original  Psycho Soldier, Athena's skin was a very pale pink, which was more obvious next to Kensou's human skin tones. When she transferred over to  KOF , she lost any pink skin to be a normal-looking human girl.
 * Ryo Takamisaki's  The King Of Fighters G  has Athena as the main character, teaming up with Kyo and Iori and pretty much stealing Chizuru's place in the story — despite starting as a borderline Faux Action Girl.
 * In the Special Intro Athena has with Love Heart, she seems to think Athena and Kensou are quite close to each other thus asking if they are a couple, Athena says that it isn't like that, they are just good friends, while being slightly embarrassed; Love Heart finds Kensou similar to Earth, reversing the blushing and embarrassment to herself when Athena asks if Love Heart has someone she likes.