movie, Kyo is played by Sean Faris and is portrayed as Japanese-American. During the story, Kyo joins forces with Iori and Mai Shiranui to defeat Rugal. In the CGI web series The King of Fighters: Destiny, Kyo goes to his first team tournament with Benimaru and Daimon. While he is first interested in fighting Terry Bogard, he becomes concerned when he senses the power of the Orochi within the fighters and seeks to stop the mastermind behind this. The web series has an extra episode that shows Kyo befriending Benimaru during a fight against multiple yakuza. After saving the tournament's fighters from Orochi's power, which causes them to go berserk, Kyo, Terry and Heidern meet Rugal, the person using them, and fight him. With help from his partners, Kyo defeats his enemy. He also appears in the trailer of the upcoming film The King of Fighters: Awaken challenging Goenitz. Cultural impact Critical response Kyo Kusanagi received major praise ever since his introduction. In a retrospective review of the series' debut, VideoGamer.com called Kyo one of the most popular video game characters from Japan during his 1994 debut. Similarly, although the first King of Fighters game promoted the possibility of fights between Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters, Nintendo Life and Hobby Consolas regarded Kyo as the most popular character from the game, calling him the "best star" in the franchise. The sites also named him and Iori as among the best characters in the series. Damien McFerran of Virtual Console Reviews considered Kyo one of the best creations from The King of Fighters series, as well as the most original one. On the other hand, Den of Geek noted that while Kyo was introduced as a weak main character, as a result of the pressure of the series also using Terry Bogard and Ryo Sakazaki—heroes from other SNK's series—by the climax of the Orochi arc he becomes more appealing due to his role in this part and his new movesets. Critics also liked the rivalry between Kyo and Iori. The Daily Star noted that although Kyo and Iori begin as enemies, they become allies in later games, leading to their popularity. When joining with Chizuru Kagura and most notably Iori, the formation of the new Sacred Treasure Team in KOF '96 and KOF '97 for serving as a proper conclusion to the Orochi story arc during these two games.