Athena Asamiya (Psycho Soldier)

Note: Not to be confused with the ancient Greek goddess or Athena Cykes from Ace Attorney Athena Asamiya is one of the two main characters of Psycho Soldier and a distant relative and modern-day counterpart of Princess Athena from Athena. In later games, she appears as a regular fighter in The King of Fighters series and is always changing outfits and hair styles for every main installment. Athena is a modern day high school girl in Japan. She teamed up with her friend, Sie Kensou, to fight in the name of justice. In Psycho Soldiers, she was one of the "heroes of light" who defended the world from the Shiguma forces. Her psychic powers are believed to be transmigrated to her rather than inherited by her family. As such, she is sometimes referred to as the resurrected Athena who is gifted with esper-like powers. In the King of Fighters series, she is a student of Kensou's Kenpo teacher, Chin Gentsai. Her team participates in the tournaments as a form of training and to save the populace from an apparent future threat. Other times, they enter to disrupt any evil forces they may feel at the time.

Why She Rocks

 * 1) Athena is very outgoing, polite, and friendly which would cause her to treasure her fans and those who are helpless. Also a strong sense of righteousness.
 * 2) She's really cute. Enough said. However, she can still fight you know as you may guess.
 * 3) She was man enough to spent most of her life training in China's mountains where she is taught by her teacher Chin Gentsai. How inspiring!
 * 4) She became a J-Pop star that is famous since the NESTS saga and was able to get many fans like Jhun Hoon, Momoko, and Kaoru Watabe. Thing thing about it is that she still teaches players that while she's famous, she does not brag about her fame since her polite manners are still on play.
 * 5) At first Chin dislikes Athena's proposal to enter the King of Fighters tournament since he didn't want his students to forget the purpose of training (it's because Athena's and Kensou's charisma and notable prowess in martial arts has been giving them fans since '94). However, Athena presents Chin with an inspirational letter from Kaoru Watabe. The contents in the letter helps her argument that the team's publicity moves people to do better things which is of course another way of saving people. This lead to chin to still join the fight and sees that his student's are improving. This is proof that she does have some well-meaning morals.
 * 6) While it may be true that she ignores Kensou's belief that he has a crush on her, but that does not mean that Athena hates him (she still in good terms with him) as proven in Psycho Soldier where she did teamed up with Kensou or when she becomes concerned that Kensou lost his powers in the NESTS saga. She even reunites with Kensou in King of Fighters XI. She even hugged Kensou in King of Fighters '99.
 * 7) Has some really shady comebacks that are admittedly hilarious such as "You weren't that bad. You were pathetic! Go home!", "Something wicked this way comes... Man, did you shower this week?", or "If you want your butt kicked again, just call on me!"
 * 8) To be fair, Athena ignoring Kensou's ideology of him having a crush on Athena is pretty hilarious running gag like in her special intro with Kensou in The King of Fighters 2000 and in '98.
 * 9) The song that she's accosted with is non other than the Psycho Soldier theme song which is really popular and true to her character. It's also shown that she's a good singer as implied in some songs like Present Holiday and that she's a J-Pop star.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) She can be a hypocrite at time like when she got mad at Kula Diamond for joining the King of Fighters tournament just because Kula is 14 years old. However, Athena actually allowed Bao (a 12 year old) to join her team
 * 2) She can be bit of a crybaby at times.

Trivia

 * 1) Athena was a highly anticipated character for the King of Fighters lineup and developers relate that they are constantly working to keep her in the series.
 * 2) Throughout the years, her sailor uniform outfit was a frequent request from Japanese fans that was denied due to the belief that it wouldn't translate well with the overseas audience (this kept up until recent installments).