Okay, so we all know Kairi got a new outfit in KH2, and I personally loved it just like many other fans! What I knew, but didn't really think about for a long time is that in KH1's secret ending Kairi has a TOTALLY DIFFERENT outfit from the one we see her with in KH2.

 

Here are some screenshots of it:

 

 

She seems to have a smaller purple top with a red skirt, but long hair like in KH2.

 

Now KH1 had just been finished when this scene was made so I'm thinking that KH2 was in very early development, which means Square could have changed their minds about Kairi's outfit before revealing more on KH2.

 

The less likely possibility is that between KH1 and KH2 kairi had ANOTHER outfit somewhere between Sora going to sleep for a year, and waking up. An outfit that we didn't see in any of the games. If this is the case, I want to see it in a flashback cutscene from KH3, or another game someday. Either way this outfit looks really good and I hope we get a better look at it someday.

 

I think that was just a concept.

 

Since the Secret Endings are mostly concepts for future games in the series, they don't end in up appearing in the final version.

Edited April 28, 20169 yr by MarieltheKeybasHGirl

I think that was just a concept.

 

Since the Secret Endings are mostly concepts for future games in the series, they don't end in up appearing in the final version.

Terra, Ventus, Aqua, Xehanort, and Vanitas all looked the same in KH2's secret ending. Well, apart from the capes, but that's only cause they couldn't program them.

I don't know why, but her hair kinda reminds me of Tifa.

I don't know why, but her hair kinda reminds me of Tifa.

Agreed! Especially in this secret ending!

Agreed! Especially in this secret ending!

I mean, this unused version. Her real version doesn't remind me of Tifa.

I mean, this unused version. Her real version doesn't remind me of Tifa.

I agree it's definitely more so in this version. But even her KH2 face and attitude reminds me of Tifa. Lol.

That outfit in that picture gives off some island girl vibe. I think it would been nice to see Kairi wearing some island clothes.

Edited April 28, 20169 yr by Movies798

That outfit in that picture gives off some island girl vibe. I think it would been nice to see Kairi wearing island clothes.

I know! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE her KH2 outfit, but this one may be more fitting since she's an Island girl.

Edited April 28, 20169 yr by soravids

I don't know why, but her hair kinda reminds me of Tifa.

 Her outfit looks like Tifa's too.

I know! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE her KH2 outfit, but this one may be more fitting since she's an Island girl.

Totally agree. It actually fits her very well. Maybe Nomura would make Kairi's new clothes half island clothes and half modern clothes. That would be awesome. 

 Her outfit looks like Tifa's too.

IT DOES. Same artist after all.

 Her outfit looks like Tifa's too.

 

 

I agree it's definitely more so in this version. But even her KH2 face and attitude reminds me of Tifa. Lol.

They probably scrapped that outfit design BECAUSE it looked to similar to Tifa. Thats what I think after all this anyway.

New fan theory: Kairi is Tifa's long lost little sister.

I'm ashamed that I am not aware of this until now...

 

That's awesome!

It just reminds me of her KH outfit maybe with just a different color shade or could be the way it looked in the CGI scenes of KH as well

Totally agree. It actually fits her very well. Maybe Nomura would make Kairi's new clothes half island clothes and half modern clothes. That would be awesome. 

Maybe, but i hope it's more islander focused lol. Although her KH2 outfit is modern and it is awesome.

 

New fan theory: Kairi is Tifa's long lost little sister.

Lol, that would actually be cool, but thanks to Disney it can't happen. -_-

 

I'm ashamed that I am not aware of this until now...

 

That's awesome!

Isn't it though?

Eh, this outfit's too plain. Makes sense why it would go under a redesign.

 

Also, there's no reason to have a random flashback to Kairi in this outfit just to connect the dots. This is obviously just an early draft of the Kingdom Hearts II ending and nothing more.

Eh, this outfit's too plain. Makes sense why it would go under a redesign.

 

Also, there's no reason to have a random flashback to Kairi in this outfit just to connect the dots. This is obviously just an early draft of the Kingdom Hearts II ending and nothing more.

Early drafts don't get shown in completed games. It was her first KH2 outfit, and then Nomura changed his mind.

Early drafts don't get shown in completed games. It was her first KH2 outfit, and then Nomura changed his mind.

 

It does when its for a secret movie full of nothing but early drafts for ideas that haven't officially happened yet.

 

Nothing is set in stone at that stage in development. We don't call Lion-Kid-With-A-Chainsaw Sora his "first KH1 outfit", it was a prototype.

It does when its for a secret movie full of nothing but early drafts for ideas that haven't officially happened yet.

 

Nothing is set in stone at that stage in development. We don't call Lion-Kid-With-A-Chainsaw Sora his "first KH1 outfit", it was a prototype.

"Lion-Kid-With-A-Chainsaw" wasn't in a CGI scene in a completed game either. Look at KH2's secret ending for BBS. Pretty much nothing changed from that. Things like this don't go into CGI unless the director has decided it's concrete. That doesn't mean they can't change their mind because they did, but it at lest means that when that secret movie was made the plan was to use this outfit.

"Lion-Kid-With-A-Chainsaw" wasn't in a CGI scene in a completed game either. Look at KH2's secret ending for BBS. Pretty much nothing changed from that. Things like this don't go into CGI unless the director has decided it's concrete. That doesn't mean they can't change their mind because they did, but it at lest means that when that secret movie was made the plan was to use this outfit.

 

All of the aesthetics are meaningless without proper indication. Nomura may think ahead of the story with each new iteration but I sincerely doubt he has the entire script floating around in his head by that point. It takes years to develop the game just by the story alone and KH2 and the Final Mix came out in 2006 while BBS was released in 2010. Drastic changes could have been made in that process. In fact, drastic changes were already being made when the game was first coming out. Go back to the original trailers for BBS and you'll see that a plethora of scenes have notable dialogue done in different locations.

 

Bottom line: Kairi's outift was part of an early draft and there's no reason to use it again when Kairi already has a default outfit for II and there might even be plans for a new one in III.

Edited April 29, 20169 yr by Firaga Sensei

Oh wow, you know, I never actually had noticed that outfit when I saw the secret ending!  Hmm, most interesting!  It seems as though the design for Kairi's KHII outfit must have originally been planned to be a slightly different version of her KHI getup!  But hey, I'm happy with her current outfit, so I dunno, I don't really need this alternate outfit.  Although, if you could change a character's clothing in Kingdom Hearts III, then it'd be cool for this early KHII concept getup of Kairi's to make the cut!

Terra, Ventus, Aqua, Xehanort, and Vanitas all looked the same in KH2's secret ending. Well, apart from the capes, but that's only cause they couldn't program them.

Yeah but this is just a concept. Actually it just looks like Kairi's old KH outfit without belts and just a slightly different color scheme.

I forgot about this but hell im glad that's what it was it looks worse than the outfit she ended up with, just a bit more grateful now.

It was literally just a design choice. If you recall Roxas didn't keep the yellow eyes in KH2 or Days, and Riku never made some huge purple heart of dawn emblem thingy around Roxas either. Those were all just early experimental ideas that they ultimately scrapped for their in-game recreations. As far as we know Kairi may have never had that outfit. Honestly it just looks like a generic outfit that looked Kairi-ish just so they could fit her in there last second, there's nothing really notable about it compared to the other two.

"Lion-Kid-With-A-Chainsaw" wasn't in a CGI scene in a completed game either. Look at KH2's secret ending for BBS. Pretty much nothing changed from that. Things like this don't go into CGI unless the director has decided it's concrete. That doesn't mean they can't change their mind because they did, but it at lest means that when that secret movie was made the plan was to use this outfit.

Actually that just means that they didn't change their minds that much when they recreated the scene in Birth by Sleep. It doesn't necessarily suggest that they ironed things out early on. If anything, it's the same story as KH1's secret ending, they originally had Terra stepping off a fallen metal-looking monster of some kind that soon faded away (suggesting that he just beat it) and all three of them pick up Sora, Riku, and Mickey's Keyblades. Remember THAT happening in BbS? No, me neither, so it shows that even then they still scrapped a lot of ideas with BbS. The secret endings literally are more of an elevator pitch for the next big game that's coming, they don't necessarily promise to show everything that you are going to see in the future, but they do tease a good idea of what the experience is going to be like. Though another reason is that it's also played up more for dramatic flare (with symbolic images and the like), but in order to make their jobs easier and simpler when it comes to recreating the scene, they heavily edit and shorten it out when it comes to the in-engine version, which is possibly another reason why KH2/Day's version of Another Side/Deep Drive and BbS's version of Sunset Horizons/Birth by Sleep are slightly shorter and have a few key moments or details taken away from them, like Roxas' fight against the Heartless being cut short (unless you count the brief gameplay fight right before Riku as a recreation), that brief skirmish Terra has with Xehanort resulting in his arm being frozen being cut out entirely, etc. So it's both a conceptual choice and an aesthetic one.

Edited April 29, 20169 yr by Hero of Light XIV