User blog:Sclera1/Maki Genryusai

Maki Genryusai (源柳斉 真紀), more commonly known simply as Maki (マキ), is a fictional character in the Final Fight and Street Fighter video game series, who originally appeared in the SNES beat 'em up Final Fight 2 as one of the game's main characters.

Maki is a blond-haired red-clad female ninja who happens to be the younger sister of Guy's fiancee Rena (麗奈). Like Guy, Maki is also trained in the Bushin style of ninjutsu and uses many of the same abilities and techniques. She is the only original character from the SNES Final Fight sequels to make comeback appearances in the later games.

Character design
First appearing in Final Fight 2, Maki is portrayed as a practitioner of the Bushin-Ryū fighting style taught by her father, and has a short temper. She is also the former leader of a bōsōzoku motorcycle street gang, who loves to get into street fights. English localizations of the game modified this, describing Maki as peaceful girl who hates fighting in the manual. Designed as a Bushin ninja along the same lines as Guy, she is similar to him in the games, being the fast character in Final Fight 2 and the agile ninja with various running attacks in Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Maki is a bit of a stark contrast in comparison to her sister, being taller and blonde. Her hair tends to be long and held back in a ponytail, her bangs a lighter color than the rest. She wears a red female ninja garb, but designed more in mind for function than flair, showing only her neck and some of her cleavage. Beneath she wears a semi-transparent vest as shown in Final Fight 2's introduction when she calls Mike Haggar. She sports arm and leg guards with small boots. Her alternate palette in Final Fight 2 changes her outfit color from red to blue.

Maki's first return appearance was in the Street Fighter Alpha 2 tie-in manga Sakura Ganbaru! by Masahiko Nakahira, where she appears as one of Sakura Kasugano's competitors in a tournament sponsored by the Kanzuki family. Nakahira redesigned Maki's appearance for the manga, a look that would be reused in her later video game appearances.

For Capcom vs. SNK 2 and later appearances, Maki's design was updated, resembling her appearance from the manga. She now wears red athletic shoes similar to the ones wore by Guy in the Street Fighter Alpha series and wields a tonfa, which was originally a pick-up weapon in Final Fight 2. Her hair is shown to be one complete color now, the leg guards removed, and the shirt part of her attire is now closed. Some of her attacks tend to reveal also she wears black underwear beneath her skirt.

Protional artwork from Club Capcom magazine for Final Fight 2 presented a design for Maki in casual attire in front of her motorcycle. Here she wears a black leather halter top that buttons up near her neck, black biker-style gloves, yellow baggy pants fastened by a black rope, and a long pink bandana. Her hair is not tied back in this design and is more of an auburn color retaining the brighter highlights for her bangs, and appears to be crimped.

Appearances
Maki is introduced Final Fight 2, the plot revolving around the kidnapping of Maki's father and sister, Genryusai and Rena, by the newly revived Mad Gear gang led by Retu. When her father, Genryusai and Rena are kidnapped by a newly revived Mad Gear gang led by a kabuki-like warrior named Retu, Maki enlist the help of Mike Haggar and his friend Carlos Miyamoto to rescue them.

Afterward, Maki would make her fighting game debut in Capcom vs. SNK 2, and this incarnation of the character would be adapted for the portable versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable. Maki's ending in Capcom vs. SNK 2 implies that she is searching for Guy to challenge him for the Bushin style's succession. Maki's storyline in the PSP version of Alpha 3 plays upon this premise and has Maki confronting Guy as her penultimate opponent before M. Bison. Maki also confronts Sakura as her fifth opponent in the single-player mode as a nod to her appearance in Sakura Ganbaru!.

Maki also appears in the SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash video game series by SNK Playmore and in the Street Fighter comic series by UDON, and makes small cameos in the video game Capcom Fighting Evolution and the American Street Fighter animated series.

Gameplay
In Final Fight 2, she is the quick type of the three main characters in contrast to Mike Haggar and Carlos Miyamoto. Like previous Final Fight characters who were adapted for the Street Fighter series, Maki's fighting style in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and Alpha 3 is modeled after her techniques and abilities in Final Fight 2. Maki wields a tonfa in combat (a weapon that could be used by the player in Final Fight 2) and her special technique from Final Fight 2, the "Spinning Handstand Kick" (烈風脚), appears in both games as a special move (which retains the detrimental side-effect of causing her to lose a bit of her vitality).

Merchandise and reception
A Japan-only 4" figurine of Maki was released as part of a set of three for Capcom vs. SNK 2 by Capcom, based on Kinu Nishimura's artwork for this game. Two Street Fighter Zero 3 Maki figures were also released by other companies in 2002 and 2011.

Maki was ranked first on the list of top ten fighting women by Electronic Gaming Monthly in 1993. In the 2002 poll by Capcom in Japan, Maki was voted the 15th most popular Street Fighter character. In 2011, Complex.com ranked her as the 11th top "sideline chick" of gaming, adding they have "made sure to put her front and center on our squad" in Capcom vs. SNK 2. GamesRadar included her in their wishlist of the "reject" characters that should have been added to the roster of Street Fighter X Tekken, adding that "Maki and Ibuki would get along like ninja peas in a pod." In the official poll by Namco, Maki has been the seventh most requested Street Fighter side character to be added to the roster of Tekken X Street Fighter, as of August 2012 raking up 11.95% of votes.

GameSpy's Hardcore Gaming 101 called Maki from Final Fight 2 a "sexy Mai Shiranui ripoff". Comparisons to Mai have been made by other sources, including CNET and IGN.