Fans and even companies have responded en masse to his absence. Sakurai says that Smash Ultimate is “for good girls and boys” and that is why he is not there.
During the presentation of Terry Borgard In yesterday's Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Masahiro Sakurai showed that one of the qualities of the King of Fighters tournament setting is that numerous characters from the franchise appear. A score of fighters appear on stage, but many noted that Mai Shiranui was missing, including Masahiro Sakurai himself.
Mai is not there, probably because of the age rating
The answer that the creative gave in the presentation was that Super Smash Bros Ultimate «it's a game for people of all ages", and in some translations it says that"it's a game for good girls and boys"This is a very subtle way of saying that, if included, its design would cause the age rating to go up in some territories, something that Nintendo does not want since that would affect sales.
Many fans have said that Bayonetta or Palutena have a much more suggestive design than Mai Shiranui. But her appearance in the Wii U version did not cause the age to rise, although in some versions they had to remove or modify trophies of female characters for the same reason that Mai Shuranui does not appear. It can be said that Smash Ultimate was already touching what age ratification bodies could consider admissible for a game that in Europe is recommended from 12 years old, or in the United States it is from 10 years old and they did not want to risk it.
The response of many artists on social media to the absence of Mai Shiranui was to flood social networks with fanarts of her so that people do not forget the character, despite the fact that she already appears in all the installments of The King of Fighters, such as the installment that will be released next year. Team Ninja, creators of Dead or Alive 6, even promoted the character who is a DLC under the message of "Welcome to the world of adults«.
Source: Twinfinite
