is a fictional character originally from the former SNK's 1987 video game Psycho Soldier. An esper, Athena is a descendant of Princess Athena from the earlier Athena game. She later appears in The King of Fighters series of fighting games as a member of the Psycho Soldier Team alongside her friend Sie Kensou and her teacher Chin Gentsai. While there have been changes to the team, Athena has been consistently playable in the main series. She was also given her own video game Athena: Awakening from the Ordinary Life, which was only released in Japanese regions for the PlayStation in 1999. Athena was designed with idea of having an appealing main character in Psycho Soldier following the staff's negative reaction to the Athena video game. The use of a character song and multiple outfits resulted in major praise by publications for video games. Nevertheless, the character also received negative criticism. Creation and design Athena Asamiya is based on the title character from SNK's video game Athena. The staff did not like the title character and thus wanted to create an improved sequel, Psycho Soldier. Athena has long pink hair and wears a black Japanese school uniform. In order to generate contrast between the two Athenas, Psycho Soldiers was designed to look more mature. In retrospective, character designer Ogura felt Athena's marketing as an idol was ahead of its time, citing things such as her songs and anime-like illustrations. The fact that Athena changed outfits in every game felt like something that Ogura believed would appeal to the demographic. For The King of Fighters '94 series, there was pressure within staff about including the character. The staff worked so much on her that other developers accused them of favoritism. One of the designers tried to explain Athena's poses but the developers found it funny. Feeling pressure with how Western players would react to her high school look, SNK instead decided to design her wearing a different outfit which is first seen in her character's introduction when removing her high school look. Athena wears new outfits in every game, some with little changes. Her hair, however, is purple and becomes short from The King of Fighters '99 to The King of Fighters 2001, and regardless of her outfit, one item that remains relatively unchanged is the tiara she wears on her hair, with accompanying star-shaped hairpins. The staff from the series has