Rera wears an outfit similar to Nakoruru's but its outlines are purple instead of read. She also has a purple lacey on top of her head, but does not have a ribbon on the back of her hair. Reception and cultural impact As an iconic Samurai Shodown and SNK character, Nakoruru has been well received worldwide, becoming especially popular in Japan. According to The King of Fighters XIV producer Yasuyuki Oda, this surprised even the company as no one at SNK had "expected that Nakoruru would become a popular character to that extent." Her great popularity has made many in Japan interested in the modern Ainu people. Japanese arcade gaming magazine Gamest named her as the best character of 1993, later also placing her sixth in 1995 and 1996, 13th in 1997, and tenth in 1998. Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine ranked her as the eight best female character on the Sega Saturn in 1997, with her sister Rimururu placing 31st. Japanese magazine Neo Geo Freak ranked her as the fifth best character on the Neo Geo in 1998, where Rimururu was eight; Nakoruru and Rimururu have been also voted as respectively first and third most popular female characters by the male readers of Neo Geo Freak in 1997. Retrospectively, Japanese magazine Famitsu declared Nakoruru as overally the 37th top video game heroine of the 1990s, with her being one of the only three non-Capcom fighting game characters on this list. Nakoruru was added to 2016's KOF XIV due to her enduring popularity. In a 2018 Famitsu poll for the most popular Neo Geo character, Nakoruru was voted third in general and first among the female ones (noted as ahead of the likes of Mai Shiranui or Athena Asamiya). Authors of the many (often erotic) Nakoruru-themed dōjin manga include Aoi Nanase, whose original take on a resurrected Nakoruru was praised by many as arguably better than official illustrations and was even later used for the creation of the series' anime adaptation. Similar to Capcom's Chun-Li, Nakoruru became particularly popular among cosplaying girls in Japan, as well as even some males, especially at Tokyo Game Show events during the 1990s. A cosplayer dressed as her is featured in Honobu Yonezawa's novel Hyōka and in its anime adaptation. In the West, GamePro reviewers criticized the original Samurai Shodown for its perceived unbalancing of characters, singling out Nakoruru as "too weak", but Electronic Gaming