Athena Asamiya
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Athena Asamiya is a character originally from SNK Playmore's video game Psycho Soldier. She currently appears in the King of Fighters series of fighting games and has appeared in each of its eleven editions.
History
Athena is said to be the present incarnation of the Greek goddess Athena (à la Saint Seiya), the goddess of wisdom and war. Despite the rumor of divinity, Athena tries to act like a normal high school girl — except when fighting crime, entering fighting tournaments, or fulfilling her role as a teen idol. Born an esper with powers rooted in those of the Phoenix, Athena may be the world's greatest psychic. As a true hero, she vows to use her powers for justice and to fight evil.
One day, while returning home from school, Athena saw a couple of Chinese fellows about to defend themselves from a local tough guy, whom she immediately knocked out with her powers before he threw a single punch. After introducing herself to the travelers, she discovered that the teenage boy, Sie Kensou, likewise had psychic powers while the aged man, Chin Gentsai, was a venerable master of many Chinese martial arts. Recognizing a good thing, they joined forces to become the Psycho Soldiers. While Chin trained Athena and Kensou in kung-fu, Athena led their efforts in crime fighting and conquering the world of team combat in the annual King of Fighters tournament.
By KOF '96, Athena had become just as big a sensation in the fighting world as she was on the pop scene for her charm, unique style, and amazing powers. Though she had never led her team to an overall championship win, she and her powers--along with those of other major heroes in KOF — played a crucial supporting role in helping Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, and Chizuru Kagura defeat at various times Rugal Bernstein, Geese Howard, Goenitz, and Orochi.
In the aftermath of KOF '97, the Psycho Soldiers met Kaoru, a crippled teen girl inspired to learn to walk again after she saw her favorite team of underdogs bravely overcome fighters in their physical prime and twice their size. She now travels with them to most of their engagements and was even a striker in KOF 2000.
Between KOF '98 and '99, she met Bao, an adopted student of Chin and perhaps the most gifted psychic youngster she'd ever met. She also liked the boy very much since he was so cute and friendly, so he became the fourth Psycho Soldier. About this time, Kensou mysteriously lost most of his psychic powers.
In KOF '99, after K' defeated Krizalid, the collapsing NESTS base split Athena and Kensou from Chin and Bao as they fled. Just as Athena discovered an exit, falling debris trapped her leg. Kensou could not budge it, but just as another cascade of falling debris threatened to crush Athena, Kensou managed a massive burst of telekinesis to deflect it and finally extract Athena. Once they were safe and reunited with the other Psycho Soldiers, Kensou collapsed from exhaustion while Bao, who had barely a scratch from the ordeal, mysteriously went unconscious.
In KOF 2000, not advancing to the final round, the Psycho Soldiers remained on the streets of Southtown while K' and his team fought against Zero, a renegade NESTS agent. When the orbital laser cannon above, which Zero had planned to use to destroy NESTS, went haywire and began blowing up all of Southtown, Bao managed to deflect one of the blasts back into the cannon, which helped destroy it. The incident injured him so badly, though, that not even Athena's potent vitakinesis could help him.
Luckily, Kensou somehow unleashed his hidden "Dragon's Spirit", which saved Bao. Since then, Athena and Chin have determined that Kensou and Bao share some sort of psychic connection, especially because as Kensou's new psychic power has waxed, Bao's psychic power has waned. Chin thinks they simply share the same power, but Bao reveals to us after KOF 2001 that he secretly knows the true nature of their relationship, one not yet made clear to KOF fans.
For the first time since the beginning of KOF, the Psycho Soldiers did not enter the tournament in KOF 2003 since Kensou and Bao went on a year long training mission with Chin to master Kensou's unreliable "Dragon's Spirit". Not wanting to miss out on her annual fix of tournament competition, though, Athena joined forces with Hinako Shijou and Malin to form the High School Girls team, a strange but rather successful partnership.
For KOF XI, Athena reunites with Kensou after his year of training, and Momoko, one of Chin's growing cadre of psychic students, joins them to form the Neo Psycho Soldier team.
Though neither Athena nor the other Psycho Soldiers have much connection with the major plot in KOF 2003 through KOF XII (not yet released, but presumably the climax of the latest KOF plot arc), it seems she is destined to soon struggle alongside Kensou against the evil and powerful Ron and his henchmen, who intend to steal Kensou's power of the Dragon's Spirit. If Kensou and the other Psycho Soldiers fail, will Athena and her Power of the Phoenix alone be enough to stop Ron?
Original Athena
Athena Asamiya is the present incarnation of the goddess Athena, who appeared in her own arcade game, later ported to the NES, titled Athena. She most recently made an appearance in her original form in the non-canon game . There she was portrayed as an angelic being guarding the entrance to heaven. Along with Red Arremer, who guards the entrance to hell, she is a powerful character who must be unlocked. She also appears in this form in NeoGeo Battle Coliseum, only as a hidden character with loosely story and with much modified gameplay.
Trivia
- Unlike any other KOF character, Athena changes her outfit and hair style for virtually every edition of King of Fighters. Athena's appearance in Capcom vs. SNK 2, however, was based on her King Of Fighters '95 appearance, but managed to at least keep her movelist from up to KOF 97.
- Original Athena appears as Athena's Another Striker in KOF 2000.
- Kensou never seems to give up in trying to make Athena his girlfriend, though she rejects him time after time.
- Athena has a crush on Kyo Kusanagi, although she respects that he already has a girlfriend, Yuki. She has recently given up, for the sake of her friend Yuki.
- Athena feels rather uncomfortable around, and at times, down right dislikes Terry Bogard. She thinks he is a rather rude person.
- Athena has appeared in all of the King of Fighters games from KOF '94 to KOF XI.
- Athena also appears as a playable character in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and '. She even appears in her original form in ' as an unplayable boss character (unlockable in the home version), and also returns in this form in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum.
- When SNK switched home publication from the NES to their own Neo-Geo, Athena made an appearance in Baseball Stars Professional.
- Athena was the mascot of SNK in the late 1980s, with platformers like Athena and Psycho Soldier, the latter game also marking the debut of Sie Kensou. Terry Bogard of Fatal Fury fame later took her place as SNK's mascot.
- If you play KOF 94, 96, 97, and 2002, you'll notice a remixed version of the theme from Psycho Soldier as Athena's theme song.
- While Athena has had the same voice actress since KOF '98, it's been a sort of running joke that Athena must have a different voice actress in each game (just like she always needs to change outfits and hairdo) since that is exactly what happened from KOF '94 through KOF '98. Haruna Ikezawa provides the current voice of Athena, but probably the most memorable voice has been Yukina Kurisu, who sang a version of Athena's Psycho Soldier theme song in the non-Neo Geo versions of King Of Fighters '97.
- In 1999, SNK released , an RPG for the PlayStation, in Japan. It tells the story of Athena's psychic awakening, though some of its details conflict with KOF canon.
- In the Drama CD for KOF '99, the Omake track features Athena hosting a talk show (With Shingo Yabuki as her sidekick) and interviewing a few of the characters from the game. Over the course of the show, she gets rather irritated with some of her guests; The first being K`, who she promptly Psycho Balls. K` can be heard crying in pain in the background for a short while afterwards. She later loses it when Jhun Hoon comes in and she (apparently) decimates the entire studio with Psycho Balls, leaving a frenzied Shingo to end the show.
External links
- [The King of Fighters 10th Anniversary Official Website]
- [psychosoldier.com] A site about the Psycho Soldier video game
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