I think you're supposing those hard lines more than they actually (still) exist.
KOF especially, it's extremely difficult to claim that anyone but Orochi, the big bosses of the NESTS saga, and guys like Verse have any explicit scaling to them. And even then threats like Orochi and Verse are ultimately countered by mystical stuff, not overt overpowering.
And with FF, like I said, though the earliest days of the series were pretty shounen as the series went on they slowly stopped doing the "Terry is the big powerful hero and everyone else is his sidekicks" thing - Terry endings slowly stopped being "Terry does something OP" and started becoming "Terry wanders the world trying to figure out who he is" (both in FF and in KOF) - to the point where that earlier depiction of Terry arguably isn't present at all in Mark of the Wolves.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 7th 2025 at 12:24:45 PM
Considering that the big bosses have been dropped by the Three Sacred Treasures team and 'K's group, we can make a reasonable guesstimate from there.
It's like saying we can't gauge Cloud and Sephiroth, despite Cloud defeating him twice in single combat and Sephiroth admitting that Cloud is the only one who can defeat himnote .
Also:
It's also worth noting that even back then, Capcom and SNK always traditionally depicted Mai in rival position to Chun-Li whenever they did crossovers, so even before we get into how depiction of the characters has changed over time this "Mai is too weak to be considered up to the strongest SF women" supposition never held any water in the first place.
Mai's always been depicted as strong enough to tussle with Capcom's best. No matter what fanmade power rankings we can debate back and forth for Mai, we're going on thirty years or so of both SNK and Capcom not taking such things seriously.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 7th 2025 at 12:29:38 PM
Power isn't the only way to beat someone (see: Weak, but Skilled, Supernatural Martial Arts, Black Magician Girl, etc.). That's why SNK separates their characters according to skill level, not just raw power alone.
Case in point: In my original post about Mai, I specifically said Andy was chosen as successor to the Shiranui school because his skill level (not just his power) is greater than hers. Hence the reason she hasn't been able to defeat yet.
Garou's canon ending is Rock defeats Terry- he is always Rock's semifinal fight-, Grant and Kain. and we know Rock left with Kain cause the after story is Terry pondering his life now
Geese comes back stronger then Krauser
you going on about that Andy is the Clan chosen successor due to superior skill by Hanzo. That isn't said anywhere outside of dubious entry on the HEROES wiki
Mai always has her title of Heiress of the Shiranui clan... which is direct statement that if grandpa dies She's clan head
and reference to the Dojo says Mai and Andy are in charge of it
so I'm gonna need you to cite me a source here
Also your "Fun fact" is a straight up lie unless you are misremembering one of the billion jokey KOF endings
The only people Mai "Fights" with over the Women's team is Kasumi Todoh and Alice 'and Alice is stated to only get a lucky hit' but you specified before 99' so its only Kasumi
Yuri does have exhibition match against Hinako in 2000
Her and Yuri never fight each other to make the team to King's annoyance... cause King just rolls with everything
94: The Women's team is MAI's Idea and King joins
95: King's the one who wants to reform the team and she specifically ask mai and Yuri
96: King has Kasumi spare with Mai and herself... and is Impressed with Kasumi's ability cause Yuri's on team AOF
97: Considering that Chizuru was the Sub Boss of the last game speaks kinda well she'd consider Mai and King for teammates
Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Feb 7th 2025 at 5:38:58 AM
This is an outrage against Luminara!This is starting to turn into something akin to the debate about Ingrid earlier.
To try to change the topic, Elena's ETA is around Spring this year so the Year 3 roster should be announced before Summer. Did Capcom release the results of the character poll they made before Year 2?
Set! Avenge! "Henshin." Black General! Bujin Sword! Ready, Fight!The topic is too open to interpretations anyway.
Do Terry and Mai come from the FF timeline or the KOF one? How further into each? If this is, say, set between Real Bout and City of Wolves, no way to say how strong Mai becomes by the latter until the latter debuts, and even then it'd be a question of how this relates in proximity to either point.
Please remember that, ultimately, fictional works of entertainment are just that.I've seen speculation the reason why Capcom didn't go with Mai and Chun is because the latter's the guest for City of the Wolves, so SNK might be handling that in their game.
Also as a general fighter, the lady is fucking scary. Playing Juri, I have no idea how to get into her defenses, her keepaway and rushdown tools are amazing.
Huh. Now that I think about it, deliberately not having Mai or Chun Li face each other in Street Fighter 6 might be Capcom (and possibly SNK)'s way of not putting one over the other and angering fans of either.
Or, since City of Wolves isn't out yet, maybe that will have a Chun Li beats Mai in her story mode scenario and then they'd add a similar one to Mai's Story Mode in Street Fighter.
But it's probably the former.
One Strip! One Strip!
This was my pet theory. Everything seems to be lining up for Cv S 3 or Sv C Chaos 2 to happen at some point in the near future, and it'd make more sense to blow off the big Chun/Mai fight there than as a one off guest appearance. though it does beg the question why they'd have Terry and Ken fight in 6 if they weren't gonna do Chun and Mai but w/e anything to feed into the hopium of a new Cv S
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They didn't have an issue with Terry beating Ken and telling him to his face - albeit out of genuine concern - that he's washed up and needs to pull himself together.
My guess was that they might be intending to push a different SNK Rival for Chun Li in future, so they had Mai instead face off against SF's current lady ninja (Kimberly) and bad girl biker (Juri) instead.
Or it could just simply be that they thought it would be more respectful to the character to give her a wacky arcade mode story than a "meeting of the legends!" arcade mode story, since Mai has always been a staunchly humor character.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 7th 2025 at 11:21:07 AM
I could buy that, though I don’t think the two ideas are necessarily contradictory.
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.
One Strip! One Strip!Juri and Mai have the same Birthday...
Its Bratty Birthday girl nonsense
Probably cause Street Fighter VI doesn't have the specialized intros
Like if you can't do the Mai in chun's outfit change... whats the point XD
Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Feb 7th 2025 at 1:20:08 AM
This is an outrage against Luminara!On that day, two waifus were born to meet.
One bewitching, pretty and sweet,
The other bitchy, prissy, and feet.
To dance with fang and fan,
The proud Shiranui, and stubborn Han.
In search of love in the cafe Pao,
As the other blanched at her passe tao.
The two did come to blows,
By fist, foot, and many a throw.
While the victor left in the name of love,
The loser fell, in shame of a shove.
And thus, the waifus left that gathering place,
The spider squashed by the butterface.

SNK tends to be clearer and more consistent with their power scaling. In Fatal Fury's canon, it's basically:
Terry is firmly established as top dog because he's canonically defeated every major villain, except Kain (defeated by Rock). The tier 2 group is close enough in skill level to the top tier group to rival them. The gap widens from tier 3 downwards. Mai would somewhere in the 4th tier. She's had no notable victories and Andy's skill is canonically stated to be superior to hers.
It only gets worse for her once you add the KOF roster, 'cuz then we'd have to add Ash, Chizuru, Goenitz, Kyo, Iori, 'K, Kula, Takuma, Ryo, Robert, Saisyu, Heidern, etc. to the mix. At that point, Mai gets buried.
Edited by MiinU on Feb 6th 2025 at 10:58:41 AM