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.

 

That outfit of hers was really cute. Wish we could've seen more of it. Also, i would LOVE to wear something like that. Of course, to the beach at least.

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.

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.

Events are a bit different than designs. The purple heart was probably just there to symbolize heartless, or maybe it was an early clue that Roxas had no heart. But still with KH1 you made the same point I did. They decided on something, and then it changed. And no, that stuff didn't happen in BbS, but pretty much everything else in the cinematic remained unchanged. And while you're in the Keyblade Graveyard you can still see those keyblades in the large groups of others. Anyway what you're saying is that they changed their minds which is what I said so you pretty much made no point there. They decided on that outfit, and then they later changed it.

 

That outfit of hers was really cute. Wish we could've seen more of it. Also, i would LOVE to wear something like that. Of course, to the beach at least.

I know, it would have been great. I bet it would have looked super cute on her. You would, huh? That's interesting. Lol.

When I first saw it I thought it was an entirely different character. But eh, with Square Enix, doing as subtle of foretelling as dandelions and such, I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone we haven't met yet. Maybe it's Sora's mom? Or maybe Sora secretly has an older sister? Or maybe it's Kairi in the future? Maybe she can time travel as well.... I dunno, but it's interesting to think about it.

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.

You know... except for them having KK, Mickey's KK and Way to Dawn... but yeah, their design was really similar, unless you mean their desing in KH2FM+ secret ending which is identical!

 

 

On topic, I spotted this long ago, but since I prefer by quite a lot her KH2 design, I never said a thing about it

Another reason why everyone says she looks like Tifa is because she has the same pose Tifa does for her victory pose. Where they both hold their hands together behind their back

 

Events are a bit different than designs. The purple heart was probably just there to symbolize heartless, or maybe it was an early clue that Roxas had no heart. But still with KH1 you made the same point I did. They decided on something, and then it changed. And no, that stuff didn't happen in BbS, but pretty much everything else in the cinematic remained unchanged. And while you're in the Keyblade Graveyard you can still see those keyblades in the large groups of others. Anyway what you're saying is that they changed their minds which is what I said so you pretty much made no point there. They decided on that outfit, and then they later changed it.

 

I know, it would have been great. I bet it would have looked super cute on her. You would, huh? That's interesting. Lol.

My point is that A) They never had the events of Birth By Sleep's secret ending fully figured out and settled like you suggested they did, they still changed it in Birth by Sleep. I'm not saying that they didn't decide to keep a lot of what happened unchanged, but I am still saying that they were still thinking up how to go about this even after the secret ending was completed. B) My point with Kairi's outfit is that it is unlikely that they "decided" on the outfit, it screams placeholder, meaning they had to come up with something generically "Kairi-ish" since she didn't have much of a role in the secret ending but they still wanted her in there anyway. I doubt it was something that they went through pages of concept art to think of like they have done with so many other outfits that had more thought put into them. You were asking about it as if it were a costume that she may have canonically wore between events, but I'm telling you from the way I see it, just because the secret ending shows her wearing it doesn't mean that she was actually wearing it in the actual events of the story. C) If that's how you're interpreting the heart symbol...well, good for you I guess, but it seems more like just an extension of Riku challenging Roxas, like keeping the Heartless at bay just so he can fight him one on one.

When I first saw it I thought it was an entirely different character. But eh, with Square Enix, doing as subtle of foretelling as dandelions and such, I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone we haven't met yet. Maybe it's Sora's mom? Or maybe Sora secretly has an older sister? Or maybe it's Kairi in the future? Maybe she can time travel as well.... I dunno, but it's interesting to think about it.

I sorta doubt the first 2. It's an early render of KH2's secret ending. The time-traveling Kairi bit may be right though!

It looks like this might've been a basic concept that they had for Kairi's KHII outfit, but then decided against it for some reason and went with the new one.  That, or they were just displaying Kairi older and hadn't really thought of what her new clothes would be like but had to give her something.  It looks like only a slight variant of her KH1 outfit, so they probably just went with something similar to play it safe.  Either way, it's pretty neat to see, and I had never noticed this before, either!

Yeah, the secret endings tend to be just concepts and not canon. I think it'd be pretty cool if this outfit and hairstyle was canon though. Who knows, maybe it actually is. Maybe Kairi had that haircut and wore those clothes for a while, then changed to the look she has now.

Another reason why everyone says she looks like Tifa is because she has the same pose Tifa does for her victory pose. Where they both hold their hands together behind their back

 

I agree. I noticed it too.

 

Yeah, the secret endings tend to be just concepts and not canon. I think it'd be pretty cool if this outfit and hairstyle was canon though. Who knows, maybe it actually is. Maybe Kairi had that haircut and wore those clothes for a while, then changed to the look she has now.

That's what I thought!

I agree. I noticed it too.

 

That's what I thought!

Yeah but, you see, here's the thing. See that shooting star in the sky? That's Sora and Riku returning to DI. This is a concept for the finale of KH2 from Kairi's perspective. Since Kari is wearing her KH2 outfit in that scene, that renders this outfit non-canon. It's just something they haphazardly threw on her because they couldn't have her standing around in the nude.