Burn To Fight!
The King of Fighters has become a major business, generating huge profits and numerous spin-off tournaments worldwide. However, this led to a lowering of the overall quality, and voices began to rise across the globe demanding the formation of one unique, worldwide KOF competition.
A billionaire self-proclaimed “first champion” bought out all the rights for the KOF Tournament. The announcement of a new KOF Tournament created unprecedented enthusiasm around the world. This excitement reached many of the classic participants of the legendary tournament directly in the form of an official invitation...
The King of Fighters: A New Beginning (ザ・キング・オブ・ファイターズ/ア・ニュ一・どヂニンク) is an official manga adaptation of The King of Fighters XIV released by SNK and published bi-weekly on Pocket Shonen Magazine
online started in January 1st, 2018, and finished serialization on August 8th, 2020. A printed version was published on Monthly Shonen Sirius Magazine.
The series is illustrated by Kyoutarou Azuma with scripts from SNK themselves and marks the first Japanese King of Fighters manga done in more than 20 years. The series is published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment.
Examples
- Adaptation Expansion: The manga elaborates on the story of the game, fleshing out characters' backstories and tying up loose ends of the series' previous entries.
- Adapted Out:
- Mui Mui, Love Heart, and all the DLC characters are missing from the story. note
- K9999 is completely erased from Angel's backstory due to being
Exiled from Continuity. This becomes Hilariou In Hindsight in XV seeing as he returns under the name Krohnen, still friends with Angel.
- Alternative Continuity: According to SNK themselves, the manga is only loosely based on the original game's plotline and is otherwise entirely self-contained, with no bearing on the actual series or future installments. This means that Azuma has relative freedom to deviate from the games' canon as he sees fit. However, SNK still requested him to change the plot when he went too far by King of Dinosaurs going back to his Tizoc persona after facing Clark, whereas in the game he keeps using the Dinosaur one and his true identity as Tizoc continues to be secret. In the final volume Tizoc is back to his Dinosaur persona with a hasty explanation for the change That said, the series' producer, Yasuyuki Oda, says the manga can influence future games in the series.
- Ambiguously Bi: Angel shows a pretty blatant interest in Leona after their match.
- Animal Motifs: Team Mexico's distinctive characteristic. To wit: Angel is associated with cats, Ramon with Tigers, and King of Dinosaurs with...dinosaurs.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: What Angel is reduced to during her fight with Leona thanks to NESTS interference.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Antonov is adamant that all the superhuman feats happening in the tournament are just tricks set by Yakov to "spice" the fights and raise viewership.
- Big Bad: Surprisingly, Geese turns out to be the real threat of the series.
- Back from the Dead: Wraith versions of Goenitz, Shermie, Yashiro, Chris, Krizalid, and Original Zero manifest in the physical world and start attacking everyone after Geese manages to rip Verse apart
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when the resurrected wraiths have all the teams against the ropes, the spirits of the Samurai Shodown cast are called forth by Nakoruru to tip the scales on our heroes' favor.
- Big Eater: The cover for chapter 17-1 reveals Angel like one.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: NESTS' remnants' favorite tactic to advance its agenda. Angel, Kula, Nelson, and Sylvie all have fallen victim to it.
- Thanks to Vice and Mature, Iori falls to the Riot of Blood during his fight with Kyo.
- Brain Uploading: Is revealed that Igniz uploaded a copy of his mind in a secret NESTS' server before the events of KOF 2001, just in case he was defeated. Then he tries to use one of the Robot Kyos to get a physical body again but this attempt is foiled by Kyo who destroys not only the robot but also the server. This forces Igniz' digital copy to upload itself to Nelson's cybernetic arm, from where he tries to pull a Grand Theft Me on the boxer.
- Berserk Button: The matches have revealed a few:
- Never call Angel, disposable.
- Having been raised as a human weapon, Kula doesn't take kindly to hear others talk about their dreams.
- Talking about using others as mere disposable tools in Athena's vicinity is a really bad idea.
- Understandably, Kyo doesn't take kindly to the news about NESTS returning.
- Bloodier and Gorier: A curious example since the games themselves have never shown actual physical damage on the character models or cutscenes, with Gory Discretion Shot being the farthest they go; yet the backstories and expanded material don't shy up about the gory details of the fights. A New Beginning falls in the latter category, showing in all its bloody detail how intense the fights can get.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: According to Ryo, this is Yuri's fatal flaw. To elaborate, she's incredibly talented and can copy any technique after seeing them in action once, but due to this, she lacks the needed discipline and experience to use them to their full potential.
- The Bus Came Back: NESTS' survivors make a surprise appearance from Chapter 13 onwards, trying to hijack the strange phenomena surrounding the tournament to bring their leader, Igniz, back.
- Cast from Hit Points: Thanks to NESTS mind control, Angel forces her body to its utmost limits, severely hurting herself on each attack.
- The Cameo: The Samurai Shodown cast in their 2019 appearances appear as Nakoruru summons during the final battle.
- Canon Foreigner: Antonov Girl is an original character created by Azuma to serve as the Tournament's Announcer.
- Clothing Damage: Related to Bloodier and Gorier, most matches end with the fighters' clothing torn to shreds.
- Combat Commentator: Antonov Girl's role in the story.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Par for the course for the series, where the series past major arcs are mentioned by the characters multiple times. Or those elements returning, like in NESTS' case
- This trope goes into overdrive in the final chapters where pretty much all the major players from previous sagas(and some from other series) are present in some shape or form during the final battle.
- Curbstomp Battle: Nearly every match has at least one of these:
- Tung Fu Rue and Meiten-Kun easily defeat Robert and Yuri, respectively.
- Leona nearly finds herself in the receiving side of one, courtesy of Angel. However, once Leona enters the Riot of Blood state, it is Angel who ends up on the receiving side.
- Kula's display of sheer power was enough to make Zarina throw the fight out of fear.
- Kyo defeats the newly revived Igniz in one move.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: This is revealed to be the case for Angel and Sylvie after NESTS' fall. Thankfully, both of them found a new meaning in their lives by becoming a wrestler and an idol respectively.
- Dramatic Unmask: Clark removes King of Dinosaurs' mask during their match (revealing Tizoc under it), willingly disqualifying himself from the tournament in the process.
- Evil Hand: Nelson's cybernetic arm.
- Fanboy: Clark is revealed to be a massive Tizoc fan, able to identify the luchador by the shape of his muscles.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Sylvie is similarly a huge Athena fan and in fact, she became an idol herself to be more like the Chinese fighter.
- Fanservice: Kyoutaro Azuma's art style doesn't shy of showing off the characters' well-toned bodies, and includes a few eye-pleasing shots of and for both males and females.
- Final Battle: Thanks to Geese's machinations, all the participants in the tournament have to face the wraiths of previous sagas' bosses in a massive battle.
- Fun Size: Due to her nature as a spirit, Nakoruru is able to become a smaller version of herself at will.
- Heel–Face Turn: Angel's character arc in a nutshell.
- Grand Theft Me: Vice's and Mature's goal is to turn Iori into Orochi's new vessel.
- Hijacked by Ganon: While Verse is initially introduced as the reason for all the problems in the tournament, is revealed in chapter 26 that thanks to the Jin scrolls Geese is perfectly aware of Verse and its nature, leading to him manipulating the events of the tournament to summon Verse and steal its power, becoming the series final enemy in the process.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Leona is able to take down a mosquito-shaped transmitter placed hundreds of meters away from her, using one of her explosive earrings.
- Friend to All Children: How Team Mexico present themselves, much to Angel's chagrin She gets around this pretty fast, though.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: How Angel breaks free from NESTS' control thanks to a combination of her fans' support and NESTS' Remnants calling her disposable.
- Kid-Appeal Character: Hilariously, how Ramon is marketing Angel, on her new stint as Luchadora.
- Angel comes to fully embrace this after her fight against Leona
- The Leader: The manga gives us a better look at the team dynamics, allowing us to identify the leaders of each team:
- Kyo for Team Japan
- Ryo for Team Art Of Fighting
- Tung Fu Rue for Team China
- Ralf for Team Ikari
- Ramon for Team Mexico
- Chin for Team Psycho Soldiers
- Terry for Team Fatal Fury
- Geese for Team South Town
- Xanadu for Team Villains
- Gang Il for Team Kim
- Made of Iron: The fighters receive some ludicrous damage during the fights that look pretty lethal, yet they don't let it slow them down.
- Dented Iron: That said, they're often shown receiving medical attention afterward.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Curiously, while the fights can get pretty brutal with the fighters bleeding fountains of blood, they are no worse to wear once the fight ends.
- Mythology Gag:
- During Team Psycho Soldiers' raid on NESTS' Remnants' secret base, Kyo's clones are brought again, mentioning that 9999 were made. This is a reference to K9999, a character infamous for being removed from continuity and outright banned by the company itself from ever being mentioned. Until the next game, that is.
- Azuma lovingly depicts actual moves and attacks from the game on each fight. This is taken further in the volume releases, where informative pages showing every special attack used during the chapter, with their respective command input and mention of what games are available are included at the end of each chapter.
- No Name Given: Antonov Girl.
- Power Copying: In this version, Yuri is able to perfectly mimic any technique she sees but since she lacks the proper discipline and experience to use them, her versions are weaker than the originals.
- Power Incontinence: Happens to K' as he exerts too much power destroying the device that was controlling Kula. Also, as the final battle goes on, it becomes clear that Geese is slowly losing control over the powers he gained by absorbing Verse.
- Power Limiter: This manga reveals that Shun'Ei's bandages and headphones are actually this.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Since a full-blown tournament between 45 fighters grouped on 15 teams of three people would take far too long, the Tournament uses simple eliminations where the Team that wins two out of three fights moves ahead to the next round. Each team member also fights only once, instead of remaining until being defeated like in the games.
- Redemption Failure: Ends up happening to Tizoc - despite being unmasked by Clark and initially reverting back to his Face persona, he still wants his grudge match against Nelson, and thus re-dons the King of Dinosaurs suit for the final volume.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: What the new batch of Kyo clones is revealed to be.
- Smug Snake: NESTS' Remanants are confident that nobody will be able to stop Igniz's return. Kyo quickly proves them otherwise.
- Split-Personality Merge: Leona is able to tap into her Orochi powers without losing her sanity.
- Squash Match: The Zarina vs Kula match. Zarina outright throws the match minutes after realizing how out of her league Kula is.
- Played for laughs with the Gang Il/Xanadu match, where Xanadu goes down after a single kick from Gang Il.
- Summon Magic: Nakoruru is revealed to be able to call the spirits of the Samurai Shodown cast from the past in chapter 28.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Ikari's Team reaction when they're notified that Heidern is en route to their position to chew them out by failing to follow his orders and getting Team Mexico out of the Tournament.
- Tsundere: Angel is depicted as a Harsh type, claiming to hate the attention she gets from the kids and the "Angel of Justice" gimmick that Ramon came up with for her. But as her fight against Leona shows, she actually likes them both.
- Too Much Information: Ralf and Leona's reaction to Clark's admiration for Tizoc
- Vampiric Draining: Orochi's powers allow Leona to boost her strength while reducing her opponent's by absorbing their blood.
