K9999


 * For informations pertaining to his new identity, see here.

K9999, pronounced as "Kay Four-Nine", is an original character in The King of Fighters series. He debuts as a violent and unstable man, and appears as a member of the NESTS Team in The King of Fighters 2001 and in The King of Fighters 2002 (the story arc's Rivals Team).

In The King of Fighters series, he was voiced by Nozomu Sasaki.

Development
His character design was heavily inspired by the villain character Tetsuo Shima, from the 1988 animated film Akira (adapted from the manga series of the same name). His name is a homage to a character in the anime Armored Trooper Votoms.

Personality
K9999 is considered to be a man not to be tampered with. He has a very short temper and is easily driven to violence. He hates K' with a passion and intensity, and considers him his ultimate rival.

He also develops a rivalry with Kusanagi in The King of Fighters 2002, though this is non-canon. Ángel, another NESTS agent, is the only person he considers to be a friend, but most of the time, K9999 despises everyone around him, including his superiors. In a fight, he attacks with such ferocity and strength that, at times, he doesn't even mind being hit, as long as his opponent falls to the ground. A true psychopath, K9999 continues the path to his own destruction.

Powers

 * Pyrokinesis - K9999 can control fire, but his ability is quite limited in comparison to Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami or even K'. He can only create fire, cause highly-heated gas to erupt from the ground in front of him, and attack with streams of fire in a slashing manner.
 * Limited Shapeshifting - K9999 can shapeshift his hair to resemble K's. K9999 can also shapeshift his clothes.
 * Psionic Shield - K9999 can create a moon-shaped shield of psychic energy.
 * Tentacle Summoning & Transformation - K9999 can transform his right arm into a fleshy tentacle and lash his opponents.
 * Polymorphic Arm - K9999 can transform his right arm into an iron drill, a blade or a shotgun-like weapon.
 * Full Power Energy Attack - By using his full power, K9999 can release energy through the air causing damage to anyone nearby. This power is non-canon since it is exclusively used in the original version of The King of Fighters 2002, a Dream Match.

Skills

 * Motorcycle Driving - K9999 can be seen riding a motorcycle very well in the 2001 novel.

Fighting Style
K9999 fights with his polymorphic arm. The arm can transform into claws, blades of different sizes and shapes, and into a shotgun. He knows some basic fighting techniques.

Music

 * NESTS: Ruler of the Dark - The King of Fighters 2001
 * Napolitan Trance - The King of Fighters 2002

Appearances
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Games

 * The King of Fighters 2001
 * The King of Fighters 2002: Challenge to Ultimate Battle - potential mid-boss
 * The King of Fighters Neowave - unused character, only usable through cheating
 * KOF x Garou Densetsu - final appearance in an SNK game

Cameos

 * Days of Memories (seventh title)
 * The King of Fighters 2003 - in the Egypt stage, PS2 and Xbox versions only
 * The King of Fighters '94 Re-Bout - in the Mexico stage
 * KOF: Maximum Impact 2
 * The King of Fighters XV - mentioned in Krohnen Team's ending

Novels
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 * The King of Fighters 2001 MORE THAN HUMAN
 * The King of Fighters 2001 THE GODS THEMSELVES

Controversy & Removal from the Series
Several of K9999's mannerisms, attacks, and animations directly reference Tetsuo Shima, the main antagonist of AKIRA (specifically its anime adaptation); he quotes some of Tetsuo's lines from the film and is voiced by Tetsuo's actor Nozomu Sasaki. While SNK has designed several characters after others from more famous series (e.g. Benimaru Nikaido's design in early installments was based after Jean Pierre Polnareff from Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series), K9999's similarities to Tetsuo Shima was singled out as blatant to the point of nearing plagiarism.

K9999 has not appeared in-story and in-game since The King of Fighters XI (in KOF 2003, he appears as a background cameo only in the PlayStation 2 version), with his last official appearance in a SNK game being KOF x Garou Densetsu. SNK has taken several measures to remove him from official media:


 * The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, a remake of The King of Fighters 2002, introduced Nameless, a new character created specifically to replace K9999.


 * On the former KOF Official Website, K9999's developer story stated, "For various reasons K9999 is a scary character to deal with. Of course he's based on "you know who" and has, well, similarities that we're happy a certain "Katsuhiro Otomo" didn't object to. If you count the similarities between "you know who" and the other "you know who," you'd be counting from now to St. Swithun's Day. K9999 boasts a big following of fans in Korea and Japan, but no other character has such obstacles against him appearing in KOF again. Yup, he sure is a hard character to comment on....". After KOF 2002 UM release, his character portrait was completely removed from the KOF website.


 * The The King of Fighters XIV 's manga adaptation, A New Beginning, and the mobile game The King of Fighters All Star depict Ángel as the only one to betray the NESTS at the climax of the KOF 2001 tournament without mentioning K9999, effectively retconning him out of the NESTS Chronicles Saga.


 * K9999's portrait in The King of Fighters Character Encyclopedia, which featured every KOF character in the series up to The King of Fighters XIII, was censored into a black silhouette.


 * K9999 was edited out of all past artwork that featured him in The King of Fighters XIV's Gallery, which also includes every artwork where he was paired up with other characters.


 * K9999 is not even mentioned in the new KOF Character Portal Page, being replaced by Diana, an NPC character who would be part of the NESTS Team in KOF 2001. Additionally, the main promotional art for The King of Fighters 2001 section was slightly redesigned remove all of K9999's likeness to Tetsuo on the Portal site.

A commonly held myth among SNK fans was that K9999 had been disowned by SNK to avoid legal action from AKIRA distributor Toho and/or creator Katsuhiro Otomo. SNK community manager Krispy Kaiser corroborated this rumor in 2019 when speaking to the Brazilian fansite Power Geyser, stating there was an unspoken rule within SNK that K9999 could not be mentioned by name except by non-descriptive terms (e.g., "the one replaced by Nameless".) and going far to claim that "from now on, in any SNK game, he'll never return." Furthering this, a 2019 post from The King of Fighters All Star 's official Japanese twitter replied to a fan who asked if K9999 would appear as a character in the game: "K○○○○...? I'm afraid I don't know who that is (Please understand)".

Despite these myths, the truth behind K9999's removal slowly began to slip out over the years. In 2015, SNK artist Falcoon stated on Twitter that K9999's removable from the series wasn't "for the reasons you think", and that his removal "was really peculiar". When asked about K9999's fate at Gamescom 2016, SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda answered, "Maybe one day we’ll find out what happened to Ángel's partner, K9999.".

Krohnen McDougall, a new character debuting in The King of Fighters XV, appears to be an updated version of K9999, with traits from Nameless and Alba Meira. Krohnen possesses the same moves, color scheme and even some mannerisms from K9999 and Nameless, but sports a new appearance. In the Team Krohnen storyline, and in The King of Fighters All Star's "Wings of Freedom" storyline, K9999 is confirmed to have resurfaced as Krohnen, and the name is a mere alias.

Following Krohnen's reveal, Krispy Kaiser stated on the official SNK Discord channel, "I had to keep the lie going for years", implying that the legal issues around K9999 were faked for decades and his omission from official media and manga were publicity stunts to build up mystique to the character.