Altar of Kintaro
Kintaro. His very name was supposed to strike fear into the hearts of any Outworlder or enemy to Shao Kahn who dared try to oppose his master's tyrannical rule. Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about him. We do know that he comes from a long line of tiger-Shokan known for their brutality, and had served as a mighty general and bodyguard to Shao Kan for centuries. He participated in the false Outworld tournament held by his Emperor in MKII, mostly to avenge his fallen prince Goro, but after that...Speculation is a cruel mistress, especially when he continues to pop up with no explanation as to where he was or why he showed up. Countless rumors persist about who actually defeated him in the fake tournament, and what his fate was upon defeat; some say he lived to lick his wounds, while others say he died and was sent to Netherealm. Nothing can be confirmed either way, and just as we think we've figured out the truth (like when he showed up in the Netherealm opposing the fallen Elder God Shinnok in MK Armageddon alongside fellow Shokan Sheeva, who was known to be deceased), we get thrown a curveball that renders our speculation moot (his appearance in MKA's Konquest mode may or may not have been real, as the circumstances behind his appearance were nothing but a test for the mode's protagonist using illusions). It gets worse in Armageddon, with no biography to tell us what happened to him, in the interim, and his ending telling us nothing, either; it just has him stealing the souls of Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Havik, and Hotaru to empower four swords.
We finally, FINALLY get some backstory to him in Mortal Kombat 9, a retelling of the first three games. Here, he's listed as a member of the working-class "Tigrar" lineage of Shokan, as opposed to the upper-crust "Draco" Shokan that Sheeva and Goro hail from. Taking a page (no pun intended) from the comics he was featured in, mentioned below, he is extremely arrogant, with a chip on his shoulder and a lust for glory. Not that he doesn't have the chops to back up his ambition; in his bio, he's said to have slaughtered dozens of Centaur in a gratuitous show of power right after beating his first opponent to prove his worth to Shao Kahn, and it was this gravitas in brutality that netted him a spot as the Emperor's personal bodyguard. Interestingly, he seems to work well with Goro, unlike the comics, working together to guard a bunch of prisoners during one part of story mode, and he gets no less than three fights there - one during the aforementioned team-up, one during his regular "boss" fight in the MK2 segment, and one in between, during the first part of the MK3 segment. Sadly, his story comes to a rather stupid end in his arcade ending, which was made despite him not yet being a playable character; in it, his ambition grows so high that, knowing he won't gain any more infamy from his time as Kahn's bodyguard, slaughters the Emperor, only to get hounded by everyone in Outworld as a traitor. Compare this to his fellow Shokans' endings, both of which end with them being the supreme rulers of their race. How pathetic is that?
Curiously, he started out as something similar but quite different from what he eventually became. In the beginning, he was going to be a normal, playable anthro-tiger character, big to be sure, but not the four-armed kitty we know today. Unfortunately, this version was scrapped for one reason and one reason only: he was too damn hard and expensive to make. Since Midway was planning on using a real-life actor to play him, and not a clay model like Goro and Motaro were, Kintaro would've been brought to life with what was essentially a giant tiger fursuit, specialty made for the game. The cost for such a costume, though, would've been massive - too massive to stay, and besides that, there was the added difficulty of getting the intricate details of the fur right on camera, so ultimately, it never came to be. Remnants of the original idea can still be plainly seen in the official character (like the tiger markings and, in MKA, his more tigrine feet and nose and claws), and now that MK has gone completely digital, his original concept may yet return as a new character (in fact, it IS a new character in one of my upcoming MK stories). In a bit of irony, though, he's the only Shokan character that has fire breath, either in the form of fireballs or - in the case of MK9 - a flamethrower-like breath attack. For the record, the other Shokan launch their fire attacks from their hands. Yeah, that makes so much sense.Much like in the games, Kintaro is nearly absent in the now-defunct Malibu Comics MK series, though there is a little bit more known about him there. In this rendition, he enters Shao Kahn's fake tournament not to avenge Goro's defeat, but to prove himself, having a slight grudge against the Prince of Pain (as Goro calls himself) for overshadowing his services to the Emperor. In fact, this enmity between them eventually led to a short but vicious battle between them, which served to finally put their rivalry to rest. Beyond that, his only notable appearances in the comics was to kidnap Sonya on Shang Tsung's island, and - in the official MK2 comic written by John Vogel himself - fight Jax in a movie studio.
To be honest, I had never really thought about Kintaro in a sexy way, until I saw his MKA render. Before, he was simply a bulkier Goro with tiger stripes, but now he's a true tiger-Shokan, complete with pawfeet and fur. Now, I can't help but find him majorly erotic. Ironically, despite his big, bad disposition and dominant frame, I can't help but see him as a cum and cock-loving sub, ever-willing to bend over and present his ass to anyone with a big enough phallus to fill his ass with (like the draconic Onaga, or ironically, the feisty Centaur Motaro). Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but really, who WOULDN'T want to pound his ass into the mattress?
