K9999

K9999 (pronounced Kay Four-Nine) is a fictional character from SNK's fighting games The King of Fighters. He is a hotheaded, psychopathic member of the NESTS organization who debuted in The King of Fighters 2001. He would later be re-introduced in The King of Fighters XV as Krohnen McDougall (クローネン・マクドガル, Kurōnen Makudogaru). The 9999th clone of Kyo Kusanagi, he has pyrokinetic abilities and is able to transform his arm into a long-deformed flesh tentacle. He has an intense hatred towards K' and despises everyone around him. Despite this, he considers Ángel as a friend. In KOF XV, he returns as the leader of Team Krohnen alongside Kula Diamond and Ángel. K9999 is heavily based on Tetsuo Shima, a character from Katsuhiro Otomo's manga Akira. Due to copyright issues, K9999 was removed from The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match in 2009; he was replaced by a new character called Nameless. After twenty years of his absence, K9999 was added to The King of Fighters XV with a major redesign as claimed by artist Eisuke Ogura. He was originally voiced by Nozomu Sasaki who was replaced by Kenn. In the story, K9999 written to be the inferior rival of the NESTS arc protagonist K' as the writer Akihiko Ureshino claimed the staff wanted to a different take from Kyo and Iori Yagami from the Orochi arc who see each other as equals. Critical response to K9999 was initially positive but the removal from several games led to theories about the company committing several copyright violations, making it impossible for him to return. With KOF XV there were initially multiple theories about Krohnen's identity based on his similarities with K9999 until the release of the game which confirmed they are the same character but under a different name. Krohen earned a favorable response...