Malin

Malin is a character who debuts in The King of Fighters 2003 as a member of the High School Girls Team (alongside Athena Asamiya and Hinako Shijou). Her addition to the KOF series was made due to Choi Bounge's absence in the game of her debut. The game producers state that her name should be spelled as Malin and not Marin, adding that "this is the humble preference of the supervising designer and a mystery to us all".

Story
Malin is an enigmatic girl from an unknown organization that specializes in gathering intelligence. Since Athena and Hinako refuse to team with someone they hardly met, she expertly steals the ribbons from their hair and leaves a calling card around Hinako's ribbon. She apparently orchestrates the Anti-Kyokugenryu Team with her teammates Kasumi Todoh and Eiji Kisaragi in The King of Fighters XI due to her animosity towards one of the style's practitioners, Yuri Sakazaki, who called Malin's fighting style "cowardly". Thanks to her expertise in espionage, she usually leads the effort to spy on the Kyokugenryu Karate practitioners. In their team's ending in XI, Malin has arranged for a fight against the Kyokugen practitioners, only to be knocked out by an enraged King later on.

She, or at least someone with her name, has been previously mentioned in the series as a member of Athena's fan club. She was on good terms with the White Tiger. Supposedly, members of her organization also assault Mai, King, and Mary in 2003 for an unexplained reason. Malin covered the bill for their replacement hot dogs since their last ones were ruined during the attack.

Personality
Malin is a spoiled girl always trying to get what she wants. Aside from the assumption that she is usually on some sort of mission, her real motives for being in the tournament remain unclear. She is prideful of her abilities and easily upset when she's underestimated.

She also seems to enjoy being sneaky and mischievous and easily offended by petty comments, such as how she easily and for long developed a grudge against Yuri Sakazaki for calling her fighting style "cowardly".