Mai Shiranui

Mai Shiranui is a character from the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters games.

Mai is the granddaughter of Hanzo Shiranui, master of ninjitsu and Koppo-ken. Mai learned from her father the secrets of Ninjitsu. She had met Andy Bogard, during this time, who had come to train under her grandfather. Mai then had to take alternate courses from her grandfather's friend, Jubei Yamada in ninjitsu. At first, Mai was uninterested in Andy and only thought of him as another callous man only interested in his training. It wasn't until he gave her a present on her birthday that she saw him in another light and eventually fell in love with him.

She spends much of the series endlessly pursuing Andy and fantasizing various daydreams about their wedding.

Appearance
She has fair skin with long brown hair tied into a tight high topknot style waist length ponytail with parted bangs and amber eyes. Like the other girls, she has a voluptuous figure, having a relatively large bust, although her most notable trait would be her long, shapely legs as well as her ample wide hips and somewhat large thighs.

In her default outfit, she also wears black two-toed shoes with red linings. Similar to Kasumi, she wears a kunoichi dress as her default, although her dress was primarily red in color and was sleeveless, as well as two red and white tassels at the back containing orbs of the opposite colors, and circular ropes around her shoulders. She also wears another dress that was similar in overall appearance, but was blue instead of red. She also carries a Japanese war fan.

The only thing in common with her various outfits are her twin tassels at her back (which are always colored in a similar manner to her current attire) and her paper fan (of which the edges have a similar color to the attire she's currently wearing).

Personality
Mai is a very cheerful and temperamental girl. She tends to also be somewhat of an airhead and admires any kind of beauty or attractiveness, which sometimes comes across as being vain. She also at times compares attractive boys who flirt with her or acknowledge her beauty to Andy, acknowledging their attractiveness but ending with a comment saying they're 'not as cute as Andy'.

Like many girls, she has dreams of getting married to her Prince Charming. She found that same Prince Charming in Andy and self-proclaimed herself his fiancé, which at times, has creeped out Andy himself. A notable example of this is her intro with Andy in KOF97, proposing to Andy outright in a wedding dress, or scaring Andy with a mock child doll in KOF '99 and 2001. Despite this, Andy mutually acknowledges her love, but prefers to keep quiet about it.

Although her peppy fighting persona suggests otherwise, Mai is actually a traditional and ideal Japanese beauty. However, her pride as a Shiranui ninja and infatuation with Andy usually keeps her from fitting the mold 100% of the time.

Abilities
Mai uses the Shiranui-ryuu form of ninjutsu combined with her fire powers to fight.

Her style resembles normal ninjutsu with more graceful and majestic moves, somewhat in reference to traditional Japanese dance. She also uses paper fans as weapons, integrating them into her combat technique and using them to perform several combinations and moves. Her clothing, specifically, the tassle on her ninja garb, is also used to attack the opponent. She's also exceptional in hand to hand combat using different throws and techniques to gain the upper hand. Mai has shown great Strength as well being strong enough to throw enemies heavier than her and using her strong elbow strike capable of breaking through her enemies defense's incapacitating them.

Powers

 * Pyrokinesis: Mai is able to create and control fire. She cannot control flames she didn't create however and is not immune to other types of fire.
 * Create Fire: Mai can create fire.
 * Fire Attacks: Mai can infuse her attacks with fire. She can also completely cloak herself with her flames.
 * Fire Channel: Mai can channel fire through her clothes, weapon and anything she touches.
 * Fire Burst: Mai can cause explosions and eruptions of fire.
 * Aerial Control: Mai has the ability to temporarily stay airborne and control her movements in the air. This allows her to float, glide, change directions in mid-air or gain temporary flight.
 * Hammer Space: Mai can hide/pull out infinite weapons and items from her clothing and cleavage, from seemingly nowhere. She keeps multiple fans (her weapon of choice) with her that can't be seen. She also sometimes carries clothes, giant fans, and usually an umbrella.
 * Bushin: Mai can temporarily project shadow images of herself and her weapon.

Others

 * Changing: With only one gesture, Mai can change clothes within a second.
 * Climbing: Due to her ninja training, Mai is an expert with climbing surfaces.
 * Stealth: Also because of her training, Mai is a master of stealth.
 * Clothing: With her revealing outfit, it's easy for her male opponents to get distracted, giving her the opportunity to defeat them. She can also create clothing, particularly traditional Japanese clothes.
 * Cooking - Mai can cook food for particular occasions.

Trivia

 * Mai was rated #4 in GameSpy.com's "Top Ten Babes in Games" feature and number 5 in Game Informer's "Top Ten Hottest Girls of the 16-Bit era."
 * In the character popularity poll on Neo Geo Freak's website, she was voted as the fifth favorite character with a total of 2,380 votes.
 * Mai is the only female character with a cheerleader DLC costume to wear heels with it; The other girls wear sneakers with socks.
 * Mai's birthday (January 1) is on New Year's Day. She also shares her birthday with Bankotsubo, the final boss in Dead or Alive 2.
 * Coincidentally, both characters had fighting styles that revolved around fans of some sort (Paper fans in Mai's case, and ha-uchiwa 's in Bankotsubo's case).


 * In the teaser for Mai at Dead or Alive Festival 2016, she was shown to have a face and build similar to Momiji. However, she was given a slight redesign in the August 2016 Famitsu coverage for the character's gameplay that made her closer to her appearance in the King of Fighters series, marking her the second character to have a different design from the first "final design", the only other being Hitomi when Dead or Alive 5 was first announced.
 * Mai is the second guest character in the overall series to only speak in her native language (Japanese) regardless of language options while not having recycled voice clips (despite having had English voices in some previous SNK games), the only other being SPARTAN-458 from Dead or Alive 4.
 * Mai is the fourth character that holds an object when fighting, after Gohyakumine Bankotsubo, Genra, and Nyotengu. Similar to those two tengus she holds a fan, but of a different design.
 * Unlike Nyotengu, Mai utilizes the same object (in her case, a paper fan) regardless of her current outfit.
 * Also, Mai is the second character that uses fire in her attacks. The first was Momiji.
 * Technically, this is the second time Mai and Kasumi have "interacted" to some degree, as they had both previously been in the crossover video game Queen's Blade.
 * They also "interacted" in a special wallpaper that was released in collaboration by SNK and Team Ninja celebrating the Steam release for King of Fighter XIV and 8 million downloads of Dead or Alive 5 Last Round.
 * Mai is the only character to be absent from the Halloween 2016 costume set. This was most likely because she debuted long after the 2016 Designer's Contest ended yet before the actual release of the Halloween DLC. However, Team Ninja recently announced a Designer's Contest for 2017, but for unknown reasons, Mai is the only character absent for a costume design for said year.
 * All of Mai's costumes appear to have their own tassels, much like her original outfit does.
 * Some of her moves, such as her Yoshikiri-Gaeshi ("Reed-Cutter Counter") and Oraku-To ("Falling Crash"), have her open her fan, but without using it for attacking.
 * Mai did not receive any further DLC costumes following her debut pack.
 * If Mai performs her fire summon attacks in the Azuchi stage, the lighting in the arena will briefly dim during the attack's duration. It's unknown whether or not this is intentional.
 * It's unknown whether or not her appearance in the series is canon, as her bio makes no outright mention on whether she is participating in the tournament or how she even got into the DOA universe, unlike Naotora Ii.
 * Mai is the first guest character to reappear in another Dead or Alive game (not counting expansion packs), having first appeared in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, and reappearing in Dead or Alive 6. This make her a polar opposite to Ayane who has been a recurring Dead or Alive guest character in Marvelous’ Senran Kaguragames (namely Shinovi Versus and Peach Beach Splash). Conditionally, both Mai and Ayane are the first known recurring DLC guests on Dead or Alive and Senran Kagura respectively.