Kim Kaphwan

Kim Kaphwan

Kap-hwan Kim (キム・カッファン Kimu Kaffan, sometimes written as 김갑환 Kim Kap-hwan), usually written surname first as Kim Kap-hwan, is a character in both the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series created by SNK Playmore (formerly SNK). He is credited as the first ever fictional Korean character to appear in a fighting game. Kim is first introduced in Fatal Fury 2 as a playable character. In the series Kim is a master of taekwondo, and also considers himself a fighter of justice. Since Kim was young and during his taekwondo training sessions, he was always reminded to fight for justice, and use the martial art as a way to accomplish this. He is also a regular character from The King of Fighters, in which he is the leader of the Korea Team and spends the time trying to rehabilitate his two team mates, Chang Koehan and Choi Bounge, out from their criminal lives. He also appears in the Fatal Fury animated films and comics adaptations from the video games.

Although appearing in most The King of Fighters games, Kim was not originally meant to appear on its first game and was removed from the first Maximum Impact game due to complaints from designers. However, Kim's character has been well received by gamers, who commonly vote him in popularity polls developed by video games journals and websites. He has also received comments from video games publications, which praised his development in the SNK games, but criticized his absence in KOF: Maximum Impact.