Blue Mary

Blue Mary in The King of Fighters XI

Blue Mary, whose real name isMary Ryan, is a video game character from both the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series of fighting games developed by SNK Playmore (formerly "SNK"). Blue Mary's first appearance was in Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory which introduced her as an agent who investigates two criminals known as the Jin brothers. Through the series, Mary meets Terry Bogard to whom she develops a strong relationship. She is also featured in The King of Fighters in which she enters into different King of Fighters tournaments constantly changing of teams. Blue Mary has also been featured in the a twenty-minute featurette Memories of Stray Wolves from the Fatal Fury series.

Android 18, a character from the Dragon Ball manga was Blue Mary's model during development of the series. Her appearances in The King of Fighters have been made due to three popularity polls developed by three video games journals. Mary was first in the Gamest's poll allowed to her to star in The King of Fighters '97. Video games publications have commented on Blue Mary's character, praising her introduction in Fatal Fury 3 and her development through various games.

Character design

Blue Mary is modelled after Android #18, a character from the Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama. She is noted for having blonde hair and light blue eyes. In Fatal Fury 3 and Real Bout Fatal Fury, Mary wears a small sleeveless red shirt and light jeans, with the sign of a star. She also wears a brown belt around the jeans, which is noted to be longer in the following games. Additionally, she has two blue gloves which do not cover her fingers, and a green leather jacket that she takes off before fighting. In Real Bout Fatal Fury Special Mary now wears her green jacket in battles and now has her small t-shirt replaced with a blue brassiere. In contrast to this, her "EX" form as well as her character in the PlayStation port from this game have the same appearance, but with the jacket red and a black brassiere. Although Blue Mary had already two designs in the Fatal Fury series, her designer wanted to use her Fatal Fury 3 design as he liked it more. However, she appears in KOF: Maximum Impact Regulation A with her Real Bout Fatal Fury Special design. Although Mary does not appear in the latest game from Fatal Fury, Garou: Mark of the Wolves (situated ten years after Real Bout Fatal Fury), she appears in the short Memories of Stray Wolves from the same game. During the featurette, Mary now has long hair and wears a red and white jacket with the number "8" on her shoulder. She also sports a white blouse under the jacket and now has brown jeans.

Attributes

According to her background story in Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory, Mary is the granddaughter of Tatsumi Suoh, the Japanese Kobujutsu master who trained Geese Howard and has been trained in the martial arts since childhood, with her specialty being Combat Sambo. In her 20th birthday, she was introduced to her father's Secret Service partner Butch, who gave her the leather jacket she wears as a birthday present. Mary and Butch began dating, and Butch began training her in Combat Sambo. However, Butch and Mary's father were one day assigned to guard the President during a parade. After the parade was over, a group of assassins tried to killed the President, and both, Mary's father and Butch, lost their lives protecting him. Since then, Mary became a regular customer in a bar to take her mind out of her sorrow. The bartender of the place created an original blue cocktail named after her. She began to travel the world, and in one case, she meets Terry Bogard, to whom she developes a strong bond. She has a pet dog named Anton which normally accompanies her in every fight she has. Blue Mary is very friendly towards everyone, but she knows that her job must come first before everything else. She employs the fighting art of Commando Sambo. This Martial art uses striking and grappling techniques.

Appearances

Blue Mary as seen in Memories of Stray Wolves

In the Fatal Fury series, Blue Mary has different jobs as an agent which take her to confront criminals from the Southtown city. She makes her first appearance in Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory, investigating Secret Scrolls of the Jin brothers, which are able to give immortality to its users. Real Bout Fatal Fury shows Mary allying with Terry Bogard and his friends into fighting the crime lord from Southtown Geese Howard. The two following games, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers, also feature Blue Mary as a playable character but none of them contain a storyline. Real Bout Fatal Fury Special also features an "EX" version from Mary with her movesets from Fatal Fury 3. The PlayStation version of Real Bout Fatal Fury Special also contains a video clip featuring the song "Blue Mary's Blues" by Harumi Ikoma, Mary's voice actress.

Following her appearance in the Fatal Fury series, Blue Mary becomes a regular character of shifting teams in The King of Fighters series beginning as a member of the '97 Special Team in The King of Fighters '97 along with Billy Kane and Ryuji Yamazaki. A mysterious benefactor (Geese Howard) requests her services to enter the King of Fighters tournament, along with Billy and Yamazaki, who starts becoming insane due to the power from the demon Orochi. However, after discovering that Geese was her client, Mary leaves the team. The team is also featured in The King of Fighters '98, The King of Fighters 2002, and The King of Fighters Neowave, which do not contain a storyline. In The King of Fighters '99, she joins up with King, Li Xiangfei, and Kasumi Todoh as the new Women Fighters Team, but leaves and becomes the fourth member of the Fatal Fury Team (composed by Terry, Andy Bogard and Joe Higashi) in The King of Fighters 2000 and The King of Fighters 2001. She would join forces with King again as member of the Women Fighters Team in The King of Fighters 2003, this time with Mai Shiranui as their third member. In The King of Fighters XI, she joins Vanessa and Ramon as a member of the Agents Team in order investigate the host from The King of Fighters tournaments, an organization named Those from the Past. She also appears in the 3D game KOF: Maximum Impact Regulation A, which does not feature official teams. In the spin-off game The King of Fighters Kyo, Blue Mary appears investigating the actions from Geese along with Kyo Kusanagi and King.

Blue Mary also makes an appearance in Memories of Stray Wolves a twenty-minute featurette which serves as a retrospective of the Fatal Fury series, with Terry narrating the events of the games ten years after Real Bout Fatal Fury. She also stars in manhua from the video games which retells his actions from the games.

Reception

Blue Mary has been well-received by gamers, having appeared in several popularity polls from video games journals. In the character popularity poll on Neo Geo Freak's website, her character was voted as the fifteenth favorite character with a total of 857 votes. To decide what character will appear in The King of Fighters '97 as part of the Special team, the three journals also made popularity polls. Blue Mary was first in the poll from Gamest. For the special endings in The King of Fighters '97, three video games journals, Gamest, Famitsu and Neo Geo Freak, had to create a team composed of three characters from the game so that they would be featured in an image after passing the arcade mode. The Gamest's team created a team composed of Terry Bogard, Blue Mary and Joe. The special ending only appears in Japanese versions of the game. A Blue Mary action figure was released by SNK Playmore with her Fatal Fury 3 outfit.

The character of Blue Mary has received praise and criticism from video game publication, who noted her fighting style and traits. Kurt Kalata from Armchairempire.com commented that Mary was one of the best new characters from Fatal Fury 3, noting her to be a good replacement for the characters who were removed from the game. Gamezone writer Eduardo Zacarias noted Mary to be similar to other female assasains from video games such as Tekken's Nina Williams or Christie from Dead or Alive. Nick Valentino from the same website praised Mary's development in the Real Bout Fatal Fury games as her techniques became more straightforward, relying now more on strength. Harumi Ikoma, Blue Mary's voice actress, has been criticized for her role with Mary in the first game she appeared by Robert Workman from GameDaily who commented that "Blue Mary should take a few vocal lessons and work on that high-pitched squeak of hers".

External links

• Fatal Fury 15th Anniversary Official Website
• The King of Fighters 10th Anniversary Official Website