Characters / The King of Fighters XI

The King of Fighters | Main Index
Main Series
Protagonists | Deuteragonists
The King Of Fighters: The Rugal Saga
The King of Fighters: The Orochi Saga: KOF '95 | KOF '96 | KOF '97
The King of Fighters: The NESTS Chronicles: KOF '99 | KOF 2000 | KOF 2001
The King of Fighters: The Tales of Ash: KOF 2003 | KOF XI
The King of Fighters: The New Age: KOF XIV | KOF XV
Spin Offs
The King of Fighters EX | Maximum Impact
Related Series
Athena | Psycho Soldier | Fatal Fury | Art of Fighting | Samurai Shodown | Metal Slug | Fu'un Series | Buriki One

Characters in The King of Fighters debuting in The King of Fighters XI.

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Ash Team

Oswald

"Karnoffel would be satisfied with me. Your hand, sir?"

Origin: Ireland

Fighting style: Karnöffel

Voiced by: ^note Toshihiro Shigetsuka

Playable in: ^note XI, XIV (as DLC)

Ash's newest partner in XI. Oswald is a suave Irish assassin who uses razor-sharp cards to attack his opponents through his fighting style known as "Karnöffel", a form of poker. Coincidentally, it's how he joined Ash's team: by a game of poker. He is searching for a rare drug known as the "Dragon Pills", suggesting that Oswald may have a terminal disease.

He returned as DLC character for XIV, seemingly cured of his disease.

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• Badass in a Nice Suit: He wears just a regular old suit, but he makes it look real classy. In XIV, his suit gains pinstripes, which also look very classy on him.
• The Bus Came Back: He has been announced as a DLC character for XIV, making it his second playable appearance in the entire series, 13 years after his debut.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Literally. He'll happily take jobs from the likes of Ash Crimson no less.
• Cool Old Guy: Though he is described as a "middle-aged gentleman". He is still an agile fighter who oozes class with his moves and outfit.
• Cool Shades: With a red tint. He was specifically designed to be the "good-looking glasses" character in the series.
• Counter-Attack: K has him hold his card out before he warps behind the opponent.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Allegedly. His past is listed as one of his dislikes, while he values trust.
• Death Dealer: His fighting style, Karnöffel, revolves around this. Not to mention his JOKER LDM/Climax DM even inflicts fifty-two hits. Unlike most examples though, only 2-to-3 of his attacks in total (including JOKER) actually involves card-throwing; Oswald's style involves more bladed-close-combat with the cards as knives.
• Everyone Has Standards: While he was originally someone who wasn't tied down by morality (possibly because of his aforementioned disease and/or his shady past), he seems to reveal/develop more of this ever since the said disease seemingly disappeared due to Ash's Cosmic Retcon (despite still being a bit of Combat Pragmatist with nothing personal against anyone). As a result, he even decides to give other specific characters advice in his win quotes against them and expresses awkward disbelief towards Blue Mary's usage of a stun gun.
  Oswald (to Blue Mary about Shen Woo): From Shanghai? I have no further business with him. Besides that, an old man shouldn't take away a youngster's future.
  Oswald (A bit annoyed): Your skills bear some resemblance, but that stun gun... If your grandfather saw that, what would he say?
  • There's also his unique intro against Xanadu of all people, despite his win quote against him stating that Oswald has decided to spare him, albeit only because they're in plain sight and killing him then and there would leave witnesses:
  Oswald: Truly, this is good fortune. You don't know who I am, but... I'll have to ask you to die.
• Handicapped Badass: Is implied to be suffering from some sort of terminal disease, hence his search for the aforementioned Dragon Pills. His pre-match dialogue against Blue Mary on XIV implies he got cured of his disease between XI and XIV.
  Blue Mary: But those... Dragon Pills? You don't need them?
  Oswald: You're well informed. But they're no longer necessary. I'm very lucky. It makes an old man want to believe in fate.
• Hat Damage: He throws off and cuts his own hat with one of his cards in his intro...until it ends up as a magically reproduced and put on in one of his win poses.
• Hidden Depths: Shown more in detail in his characterization in XIV, where he's shown to be an observant individual who is willing to converse quite reasonably while being a good sport, which could also be due to the turning point in his life of him no longer needing the Dragon Pills. Despite this, he'll at least state his pragmatism in some of his dialogue without trying to make it too personal to his opponent. Also in regards to this, he outright says to Xanadu for unknown reasons, that he must die.
• Improbable Weapon User: His cards, which are somehow sharp enough to slit people's throats.
• It's a Small World, After All: Ralf and Clark appear to recognize him. This may become an Aborted Arc. Silber also is somehow acquainted with Oswald, which results in one of the few times Silber will say more than one word in his win quote.
  • This gets expanded in XIV however, where he's shown to actually be associated with Ralf and Clark through Heidern beforehand, along with knowing about Takuma and Blue Mary's grandfather in the past. Thus, to those said fellow veterans, Oswald also associates himself with their respective successors. He also seems knowledgable about Tung Fu Rue, Chin and Gang Il going by his victory quotes against them.
• Let's You and Him Fight: In his team's ending in XI, Oswald is set up to fight Shen Woo by Ash, as the organization supplying the Dragon Pills has a bounty on Shen's head. During Oswald's apparition in XIV is implied he threw the fight, unwilling to bring any permanent harm on Shen Woo
• Playing Card Motifs: His attacks have playing card themes. Spade, Club, Diamond, and Heart can be canceled into each other up to 3 times, while Ace is an attack that can either deal minor or massive damage, similar to the value of the card. King and Queen are Counter-Attack and projectile moves respectively. His super move Four Suits, via its C version, does 21 hits (Blackjack) while JOKER has him unload his 52 (53 in XIV) cards at his victim. Furthermore, his color scheme is one of the playing cards: Black suit, red shirt and glasses, white hair, and yellow tie for the details in the figure cards.
• Professional Killer: He's said to be a professional hitman.
• Retired Badass: In his team story, Ash states that he is a retired Karnöffel master. In fact, his goal was to bring Oswald out of retirement.
• Round Hippie Shades: In a vivid shade of red, no less. He pulls off the look very well though, even managing to make him look intimidating when the Scary Shiny Glasses are in effect.
• Rule of Cool: Under normal circumstances, playing cards are liable to give you a papercut at best. Oswald outright weaponizes them to the degree that they're able to pierce through his opponents' skulls! Karnöffel is truly something else.
• Shaped Like Itself: On the note of his official movesets, his move names use actual playing card icons (e.g.: ♠♥♦♣ = Four Suits, 10・J・Q・K・A = Royal Flush, etc).
• Silver Fox: In a nice suit!
• Slasher Smile: Has one plastered on his face while running. It is freaking creepy, especially since his running animation is so odd, to begin with.
• Shoryuken: While it makes him rise into the air with a rapid-hitting serial spin, his Ace counts as this somewhat despite only being able to be followed-up from his Heart special move. If it connects on the opponent at a certain sweet spot, Oswald at the peak of the Ace move will perform a version of his j.C that will slash down the foe for quite a notable amount of raw damage.
• Sunglasses at Night: They just never come off. Best seen in his team ending, which literally takes place at night.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate.
• You Remind Me of X: B. Jenet says that he reminds her of her father. Only Jennie and her mother truly know what Mr. Behrn is like.

Rival Team

Elisabeth Blanctorche

See her character page along with the other Deuteragonists here.

Fatal Fury Team

Duck King

"Yes! I am the Duck King!"

Origin: USA

Fighting style: Breakdancing

Voiced by: ^note Kong Kuwata

Playable in: ^note XI

A friend of Terry Bogard who's been around since the first installment of Fatal Fury but only made his playable appearance in KOF in The King of Fighters XI. He's a notable DJ in Southtown.

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See Fatal Fury: King of Fighters for tropes on him.

Mark of the Wolves Team

B. Jenet

"At the very least, you got to to fight with me. A dream come true, am I right?"

Origin: England

Fighting style: LK Arts

Voiced by: ^note Rei Saitō, Mikako Komatsu (XV), Gina Rose (Maximum Impact 2, English)

Playable in: ^note XI, XV (as DLC), MI2, MI:RA

B. Jenet is the captain of a group of pirates calling themselves the Lilien Knights. Although she's rich herself, Jenet doesn't like mooching off of her parents, so she pretty much founded the Knights out of boredom. She enters the KOF tournament for the prize money. She returns as part of Team Garou in XV, having witnessed the events of the previous tournament and hoping something exciting will happen through participating in the upcoming one. To that end, she contacts Rock Howard and Gato, enticing them with a chance to fight against Terry for the former and information about the whereabouts of the latter's father.

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See Garou: Mark of the Wolves for tropes on her

Psycho Soldier Team

Momoko

"Momoko's no kiddly-diddly-doo!"

Origin: Japan

Fighting style: Psychic powers + Capoeira

Voiced by: ^note Kazuyo Inosako

Playable in: ^note XI

The newest addition to the Psycho Soldiers. She mixes her Capoeira with Psychic Powers

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• A-Cup Angst: If you have her fighting ladies with generous bosoms (Mai, Mary, Bonne Jenet, Elisabeth and/or Vanessa), she'll go googly-eyed and then shake her hips in an attempt to reassure herself.
• Ass Kicks You: Three times in a row.
• Badass Adorable: A tiny, cheerful bundle of Psychic Powers and kicks.
• The Cameo: Hasn't been playable since XI, but showed up in the Psycho Soldier Team's endings in XIII and XIV.
• Dance Battler: Her fighting style is part Capoeira, part Psychic Power.
• Kamehame Hadoken: The first character in the series to use it.
• Kiddie Kid: A high school student who looks and behaves like an elementary schooler. She'll even start crying if you beat her.
• Older Than They Look: No official ages were included in any of the profiles for the cast of XI, but one of the cell phone date sims put out by the company (where the ages of the girls are already shuffled around between games as it is) claims 16.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Should she win, Momoko expresses no problem about any injury she may have received in the fight... unless it's against Kensou, in which case she'll start crying and complaining about how Kensou hit her.

Bonus characters

Hotaru Futaba

"I won't lose! I've got someone to protect too!"

Origin: Japan

Fighting style: Neijia, Taijiquan, Baguazhang

Voiced by: ^note Yuki Horie

Playable in: ^note XI

Originally making her debut in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Hotaru is the daughter of a family of martial artists. Unfortunately, she isn't fond of violence. When her mother dies, both her father and older brother, Gato, simultaneously disappear. Hotaru enters Kain R. Heinlen's King of Fighters: Maximum Mayhem tournament after hearing rumors that her brother might be there, fervently hoping to reconnect with her family. She appears in XI for a similar reason.

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See Garou: Mark of the Wolves for tropes on her

Sho Hayate

"The name's Sho Hayate! People call me the Funky Fu'un Kid!"

Origin: Japan

Fighting style: Fu'un Ken

Voiced by: ^note Hiroyuki Inoue

Playable in: ^note XI

The Hero of Savage Reign, Hayate is an old-fashioned warrior and the sole practitioner of his self-taught combat form, Fu'un Ken. He trains non-stop, vigorously hoping to become a true master and show the world the power of his fighting style.

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See Fu'un Series for tropes on him

Jyazu

"Does it hurt? Hoo hoo hoo..."

Origin: Unknown

Fighting style: Jaguar Bujutsu

Voiced by: ^note Enma Itō

Playable in: ^note XI

Leader of the terrorist group known as Jaguar, Jyazu is the True Final Boss of Kizuna Encounter, the sequel to Savage Reign. An enigma, not much is known about his past or motives. To date, he is one of two people to have ever bested King Leo, the tyrannical host of the Battle of the Beast God Tournament.

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See Fu'un Series for tropes on him

Silber

"Idiots..."

Origin: Germany

Fighting style: Karate

Voiced by: ^note Hiroyuki Arita

Playable in: ^note XI

The main antagonist of Buriki One, Silber is a powerful martial artist who constantly travels in search of new challenges. He enters Buriki One tournament, intrigued by the gathering of numerous martial artists and their various disciplines.

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See Buriki One for tropes on him

Gai Tendo

"The reason for victory doesn't matter. The strong win, and that's it!"

Origin: Japan

Fighting style: MMA

Voiced by: ^note Nobuyuki Hiyama

Playable in: ^note XI

The very brash and noisy protagonist of Buriki One, Gai utilizes a free-form style known as "Total Fighting". Deciding to test his skills, Gai enters the Buriki One tournament and becomes a rival to the American boxing champion and protegé of Silber, Rob Python.

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See Buriki One for tropes on him

Tung Fu Rue

"The whole wisdom of age thing isn't so minor, you see?"

Origin: China

Fighting style: Hakkyokuseiken

Voiced by: ^note Shigefumi Nakai (XI), Hajime Shikase (XIV)

Playable in: ^note XI, XIV

Master of the legendary fighting art known as Hakkyokuseiken, Tung was the former sensei of Jeff Bogard and Geese Howard who made a vow not to train any more disciples after the latter killed Jeff out of jealousy. He competed in the first King of Fighters tournament held by Geese, but lost. Living his current days in retirement, Tung occasionally enters a competition to keep his body and mind in shape. In KOF XIV, he joins the King of Fighters tournament as part of the China team alongside Shun'ei and Meitenkun.

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See Fatal Fury: King of Fighters for tropes on him

Villains

Magaki

"You craved a strong opponent, right? You can die satisfied then."

Origin: Unknown

Fighting style: Spatial manipulation

Voiced by: ^note Spicy Yagi

Playable in: ^note XI

Boss character in: ^note XI

One of the members of Those from the Past. Unlike Mukai, Magaki shows no caution when fighting humans, considering them to be insignificant trash. He traps Shion in another dimension for his failure, and fights the winning team. After his defeat, he tries to escape, but he ends up impaled by Shion's spear and dies. His body ends up in the jurisdiction of Heidern, but two children from the group (Rimelo and Shroom, who have their own section in the NPC folder on the Tales of Ash page) manage to take his body back.

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• Achilles' Heel: Downplayed compared to some other examples in the series. Despite being an infamously difficult boss, Magaki has a weakness zoners often have, which is he has much weaker reversal options if enemies get close to him, not having a Shoryuken of any sort. He does have an annoying wall of spheres he can summon that will push opponents away, and his LDM is fast with invincible startup, so he is not defenseless, especially with meter.
• Adaptational Context Change: In both XI and the XII manhua, Magaki meets his end by being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice through the chest by Shion, but why he's killed differs: in the former, Shion kills him for being sealed in another dimension, while in the latter, Magaki is executed for his second attempt to fulfil Those from the Past's agenda going down in flames.
• Alien Blood: His blood is blue, which is very prominently displayed when he is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
• Arc Villain: Of KOF XI. His superiors in Those from the Past send him to handle the tournament and to wake Orochi after Mukai broke his seal in the previous game.
• Bad Boss: To Shion, who he traps in another dimension when he loses to the team that won the tournament.
• Bring It: His taunt, complete with a beckoning finger.
• Bullet Hell: Due to Beam Spam, this is essentially what your fight against him will digress into. It's like Touhou Project in fighting game form.
• Came Back Strong: In the XII manhua, Shroom and Rimelo decide to save him from Shion's attempt on his life and imbue him with more power. He's supercharged enough to tear his way effortlessly through a whole group of fighters — by the time he's taken down for good, out of the 30+ that fought him, only 4 (Kyo, Mature, K' and Nameless) are still standing.
• Cold Ham: He never shouts, but his dialogue is very theatrical, often mocking his enemies.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Mukai. Both are monstrous members of Those from the Past that are very tall, fight shirtless, have full screen ultimate supers and are killed by one of their teammates (Saiki for Mukai and Shion for Magaki). But in other ways they are extremely different.
  • Mukai is an honorable Noble Demon who sees the potential of humans, gets along well with his partner Botan, is heavily built and muscular, is smarter than he looks, fights in a slow moving stationary manner, and is associated with the color brown relating to his Earth Powers. Magaki is a jerkass who sees no potential in humans, constantly threatens Shion and punishes him for underperforming, is Lean and Mean, is a Smug Snake that underestimates everyone around him, fights using Beam Spam and Teleport Spam, and is associated with the color pink to fit his otherworldly portal and space powers.
• Copycat Mockery: Before facing the team, Magaki briefly emulates Mukai's refined manner of speech, mocking his comrade shortly after.
• Depending on the Artist: The cutscene art's human-form Magaki looks significantly different from his select art and official art, who is a handsome Silver Fox with a healthy tan. The cutscene version of Magaki wears lipstick, has more sickly pale skin, and more extreme features (larger more unhinged eyes, and a wider mouth), looking generally a lot less attractive.
• Dirty Coward: He tries to run away from the team after losing to them.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: In a series where most villains die in bloodless ways, Magaki gets impaled through the chest, High-Pressure Blood gushing out, and he dies screaming.
• Fan Disservice: His true form is that of a pink-skinned creature with blue forearms, porcupine-like hair, and giant blue eyes.
• Flash Step: Borderline example, as he also uses dimensional portals to teleport.
• Foregone Conclusion: Like most of the other bosses in the series, Magaki dies after you fight him.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His extremely creepy eyes, when he's fully powered up.
• Gonk: As freaking-looking as Mukai was, he was still quite the Hunk. Magaki, while quite handsome when disguised as a human, is hideous in his real form: A lanky, pink thing with bright blue forearms and giant blue eyes that are bulging out of his skull. It doesn't help that you gain a horrific close-up of his face in the cutscene before you fight him, either. The art for his winpose, however, dials this back to something vaguely more tolerable by making his skin a ligher hue of pink and his blue makings appear like tattos on his skin similar to Orochi's.
• Hate Sink: According to SNK, he was meant to "disgust and disturb" players with his movements. He also lacks redeeming qualities, being a Bad Boss who mocks humanity and his noble teammate Mukai for believing in their potential.
• Ironic Echo: During his fight intro, he sarcastically asks his opponent to show him humanity's potential, yet again mocking Mukai's philosophy.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His dimensional portals. He throws Shion into one for failing against the winning team. When he too is beaten and tries to escape through a portal, Shion's spear flies through it and fatally through his chest.
• Humanoid Abomination: What he truly is under that Bishōnen disguise.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He intends to retreat through a portal after the fight, but before he can do so, he is speared by Shion as a revenge for Magaki's banishing Shion after the latter's defeat.
• Invisibility: By snapping his fingers, Magaki can disappear from sight, although he's still perfectly visible.
• Lean and Mean: Magaki is very thin and light weight for his height, in contrast to the extremely muscular Mukai.
• Mystical White Hair: He's a supernatural being associated with a mystical clan, with snow-white hair to match.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His name translates to Calamity or Apocalypse.
• Never Found the Body: His body was stolen after his death. No one knows why.
• Nightmare Face: A particularly infamous example happens in the cutscene right before his boss battle. It's not pretty◊.
• Puny Earthlings: Considers humans to be insignificant, unlike Mukai.
• Real Men Are Pink
• Sad Battle Music: His battle theme, "An Improvised Concerto" is the softest and most gentle boss track in the series and carries a somber tone. Despite this, the fight with Magaki is not tragic at all, since he is a Hate Sink.
• Shirtless Scene: Once he loses that elegant suit. Ick...
• Slasher Smile: He sports a very nasty one in his art and sprites.
• Smug Snake: He thinks he is very smart and assumes he will get away after the battle like Mukai did, until Shion impales him through a portal.
• SNK Boss: Magaki was a return to form for this trope since 2001's Igniz (after the respectable but not infamous bosses of 2002 and 2003). Magaki is commonly considered one of the hardest bosses in the series.
  • Most of his threat comes from extreme zoning capabilities, with nigh-absolute priority projectiles that teleport or home-in on the enemy. He also deals massive damage, since his projectiles or normal attacks can do about 15-25% of one character's health per hit.
  • Magaki's LDM is a full screen super that is very fast and invincible on startup. He can combo his normal throw or any projectile into it. He also uses it as a reversal against aggression if he has the meter.
  • Unique among the SNK Bosses in this series, Magaki's offensive capabilities also carry into KOF XI's mechanics. Magaki's attacks (especially his exploding spheres special that he uses to push his enemies back) are very quick to fill up the stun bar so it takes only a few hits in a row to dizzy your character. His attacks also quickly activate guard break, which makes it dangerous to block his attacks for more than a couple seconds. And finally, Magaki has a lopsided advantage in the game's Time Over mechanic ^note In XI, there is a Gameplay Grading mechanic for determining time over winners, rather than the team with more health. There is a bar at the top that judges both player's performance based on the attacks they land, which overwhelmingly gives him Time Over wins because he can move the Gameplay Grading to a much greater degree with his attacks. Though this rarely comes up due to neither Magaki nor the player's team really having that much health for a full 99 second battle.
• Teleport Spam: One of his special moves has him teleport. He incorporates this a lot in his fighting style.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Magaki's fighting style amounts to little more than filling the screen with massive explosions and balls of energy and lashing at his opponent with his long limbs. That said, he is VERY hard to take down, and by the time you get him to half health, you'll most likely be reduced to one teammate with less than a quarter health.
• Useless Useful Spell: He has a super called "Vanish" where he will become quite transparent but still very visible. Whenever he uses it, the player should just be glad he wasted the meter so he is less likely to have his LDM.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Subverted. He winds up getting speared from the back by Shion the very person he sent away when he tried to escape after being beaten by the heroes.
• Villain Respect: In his winquotes, he mocks almost all his enemies, but if he defeats Adelheid, Magaki will note that he has "amazing, innate ability".
• White Hair, Black Heart: He's one of the nastiest members of Those from the Past, and establishes how much of a jerkass he is by revealing that he thinks of humans as nothing but dirt and also mocking Mukai for daring to have any respect or consideration for the potential and strength of humanity.
• You Have Failed Me: Pulls Shion through a dimensional gap when he is unable to defeat the winning team. And gets speared In the Back for his trouble.

Shion

"Warfare is deception. The deceived are at fault, dolt!"

Origin: China

Fighting style: Wushu

Voiced by: ^note Tokiyo Ogawa

Playable in: ^note XI

Boss character in: ^note XI

Magaki's servant. He challenges the winning team but gets thrown into another dimension by his master, and later kills him in revenge.

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• Ambiguous Gender: He was originally intended to be female and is voiced by a woman, but the decision to make Shion male was a last-minute one deliberately anticipated to shock players.
• Animation Bump: Shion's attacks are extremely◊ well animated, some◊ look like they were rotoscoped from Wushu performances◊.
• Art Evolution: Art of Shion after XI make him less petite and his features slightly more masculine for the most part. He often has more visible pecs and a stronger jawline than in XI.
• Boring, but Practical: In contrast to most of his moves, he has one super where he thrusts his spear three times. Not exactly flashy, but it has decent range and hurts a lot.
• Braids of Action: Not entirely; only a few locks of hair in the front are tied into braids.
• Cultured Badass: Knows Sun Tzu like the back of his hand.
• The Dragon: To Magaki. Shion doesn't seem to enjoy his status.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Easily mistaken for a lady when he first debuted. Though this was a last minute change and he has a feminine voice.
• Enigmatic Minion: Not very much is known about him and his goals, other than the fact that he and Magaki don't like each other, and he is willing to kill him, even though they are on the same team.
• Flechette Storm: He can summon a barrage of throwing darts from off-screen.
• Gender-Blender Name: As if the confusion invoked wasn't already abundant.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: From Hammerspace, he can produce a Qiang spear, a rope dart, and short staves. The spear is even stored in some sort of interdimensional portal.
• Leitmotif: This usually plays when he's around, including in XIII's stinger.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: His hair is long, he is very pretty and easily mistaken for a woman.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Shion is the only boss character who has a Stance System, and thus has a massive number of special moves in his movelist ^note This includes a unique projectile that uses the taunt button, where Shion shouts at the target and arrows fly towards them. This is perhaps the only dangerous taunt in the series. Because of this, Shion plays in a more complex manner than almost any of the other bosses in the series, who tend to be pretty simple. Stances are a mechanic that is fun for players and generally is a waste of effort to give to a character that would only be used by the computer.
• Not Quite Dead: It'd be reasonable to assume that Magaki killed Shion due to how... ahem, violently he was dragged through Magaki's portal, but he's apparently alive enough to exact revenge on him. He also comes back in the last scene of XIII's story mode.
• Out of Focus: Hasn't been playable since his debut, despite being hinted that he would return after XIII.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Many of his hand-to-hand moves are rapid combos.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: Quite literally. Two moves of his cause a chunk of the ceiling above (even if you're fighting outside) to drop upon his opponent's head. In the first, he throws his spear into the air; the second (his LDM) is a flying kick. In fact, with the right timing, you can follow-up the former with the latter.
• SNK Boss: Shion is to Magaki as Saisyu and Chizuru were to Omega Rugal and Goenitz. He is not quite as litigiously cheap, but he will give you a run for your money if you do not constantly apply pressure on him.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: By twirling his shěng biāo (rope dart), Shion can deflect all but the most powerful of ranged attacks (anything at the strength of a DM or higher will do the trick).
• Stance System: By default, Shion starts the round with his spear, but will revert to using Wushu if he's either hit or discards the spear manually. He can switch between the two styles throughout the battle.
• The Stinger: He returns in the last scene of the Story Mode in XIII, suddenly showing up in front of Rimelo and Shroom.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's clear Shion can barely stand to be around Magaki, whereas Magaki is happy to bully him and threaten him. Why they were assigned to this task together by their leaders is anyone's guess.
• Torture Technician: The other half of his win quotes consists of musings on what brand of torture he should apply to his opponent, ranging from eye-gouging to the breaking wheel.
• Turned Against Their Masters: He's the one who kills Magaki.
  • This arguably is an example of The Dog Bites Back, as Magaki was the one who imprisoned Shion (and presumably killed him) in another dimension for losing his fight. Retreating as he states that The Battle Didn't Count, Magaki is then speared by his own underling.
• Whip Sword: Notable for being one of the only fighting game characters to wield a traditional Chinese rope dart with proper technique (sorry, Scorpion's "Get Over Here!" doesn't count), albeit only for a handful of moves.

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