Kasumi (Dead or Alive)

Kasumi, also known as The Kunoichi of Destiny, Female Ninja in Captive, A Kunoichi's Destiny, Super Hot Ninja! and The Eternal Heroine, is the main protagonist from the Dead or Alive series.
== Charactah Account ==
Kasumi is the sister of Hayate and half-sister to Ayane, and a practitioner of the Tenshinmon Style of Mugen-Tenshin Ninjutsu. They lived happily together until one day Raidou came for revenge and snapped Hayate's spine. That sends him into a coma that everyone thought to be permanent, so he's left for dead. Kasumi ran away from her village to avenge her brother, knowing full well the consequences of becoming a runaway shinobi: death.
After defeating Raidou, she enters the second tournament after hearing that her brother is alive and has been taken by DOATEC for use in Project Epsilon. She finds him suffering from amnesia and going by the name of Ein, and helps him recover his memory. In the 3rd tournament she remains on the run but encounters and fights her brother. By the time of the 4th tournaments she realizes that no assassins have been sent her way as of late, and discovers that they have gone to assault DOATEC and put an end to their evil schemes. She enters the 4th tournament to investigate and prevent her brother to enter in what she believes will be a bloodbath.
In the 5th game, Kasumi becomes Helena's 'ally'/'messenger' in order to hunt down the remaining Alpha-152, in a slightly reckless degree. This is because this Kasumi is actually a perfect Alpha clone that acts perfectly like the original. Hayate caught wind of this and along with Ayane, killed this clone. When Hayate gets into trouble, Hayabusa summons the real Kasumi to come and help. Once she rescued Hayate and destroyed the clones, Kasumi swore to take down and defeat Donovan.
== Appearance ==
=== Manga ===
* Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball Comic Anthology
=== Video Games ===
* Alice Gear Aegis
* Azur Lane
* Beauty Clock
* Dead or Alive
* Dead or Alive 2
* Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate
* Dead or Alive 3
* Dead or Alive 4
* Dead or Alive 5
* Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
* Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate
* Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Arcade
* Dead or Alive 6
* Dead or Alive Dimensions
* Dead or Alive M
* Dead or Alive Paradise
* Dead or Alive Ultimate
* Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
* Dead or Alive Xtreme 3
* Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
* Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation
* Destiny Child
* DOA2: Hardcore
* Girls of DOA BlackJack
* Hyakuman-nin no Ninja Gaiden
* Idle Huntress
* Monster Rancher 2
* Monster Rancher 4
* My Monster Rancher
* Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
* Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2
* Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos
* Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV
* Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash
* Shinobi Master Senran Kagura: New Link
* The King of Fighters All Stars
* Warriors All-Stars
* Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate
=== Web-Animations ===
* Dead Fantasy
== Trivia ==
* Kasumi is Tomonobu Itagaki's favorite character in the series.
* Kasumi's biggest trademarks are the sakura petals that blow in the wind around her, her wakizashi sword, and her blue ninja outfit.
* In the Japanese versions of the Dead or Alive Xtreme games, Kasumi's favorite color is cherry blossom pink (sakura iro, lit. "cherry blossom color"). However, in the English versions of the games, the color has been translated as either milky pink (Xtreme Beach Volleyball and Xtreme 2) or cherry pink (Xtreme 3).
* Kasumi has been ranked numerous times in many countdown lists created by game-based publications:
** Ranked #3 on TeamXbox's "Top Ten Xbox Babes" list in 2004.
** In the 2005 TV show Video Game Vixens, Kasumi won in the category "Dressed to Kill."
** IGN featured her in their "Videogame Babe of the Day" series in 2006.
** Ranked #38 on The Age newspapers' "The Top 50 Xbox Characters of All Time" list in 2008.
** Ranked #8 on GameDaily's "Top 50 Hottest Game Babes" list in 2008.
** Ranked #1 on VG Chartz's "Hottest Videogame Babes" list in 2009.
** Ranked #3 on UGO Networks's "Top 50 Videogame Hotties" list in 2010.
* Kasumi is seen in the 2002 film Run Ronnie Run. The character, Jerry Trellis, is shown playing DOA2: Hardcore as Kasumi in two different scenes. At the end of the film, Jerry uses some of her moves in a fight.
* The reason Kasumi, Ayane, Eliot, and Kokoro do not have listed ages in western versions of the Dead or Alive games from the original Dead or Alive to Dead or Alive 4 is because they were under 18 years old. Tecmo decided to give them undefined ages to avoid the risk of a moral backlash from western countries.
* Kasumi is the only character in the series to still retain two of her default costumes since the first game. Her blue ninja costume and white ninja costume have appeared in all of the Dead or Alive games in the main series.
* Interestingly, in Dead or Alive 5 Kasumi's loose hair is thinner and shorter than when worn in her ponytail since realistically her hair down would be about bottom length. Her braid also is shorter but possibly as a throwback to her Dead or Alive original appearance, and her side ponytail is also shorter possibly to prevent clipping.
* Kasumi's Dead or Alive 4 ending caused some confusion due to it being considered out of place (depicting Kasumi having a dream about being a mermaid). Itagaki eventually explained that the idea behind the ending was that, since Dead or Alive 4 was intended to be the last game in the franchise, at least while he was in control of the series, he wanted to give an abstract allegory that she had been freed of the Mugen Tenshin law mandating her execution for being a Runaway Shinobi, especially when he regretted how he ended up permanently dooming her in the ending of Dead or Alive 3.
** This was eventually given an in-universe acknowledgement in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation, more specifically after her photoshoot in her year 2 birthday episode "Keep Watching Over Me", where she explains that she always had a dream of being a mermaid and how she longed for her freedom.
* In the original treatment of Dead or Alive 5 by Itagaki, Kasumi was to reunite with Ayane in a snowy field shortly after the events of the fourth tournament. Kasumi initially believed Ayane was coming to try and kill her and protested that they just stopped DOATEC and that everything was over, but Ayane revealed that she was actually coming to warn Kasumi that DOATEC was still around and that their village was destroyed by the DOATEC-Asia group. Ayane then collapsed into Kasumi's arms, although not before telling her that she will kill Miyako. However, this story treatment got rejected when Dead or Alive 5 changed hands.
* In Dead or Alive 2 Kasumi is the only character whose ending cutscene comes after the credits.
* Kasumi was originally supposed to be a male shinobi before being changed to a female during development.
* Despite Kasumi being highly representative of the main fighting series and leading the marketing in most of the entries, the Xtreme games have not focused on her nearly as much, to the point that she has not appeared in the front and center of any of the games' box art other than a special edition for Dead or Alive Paradise.
* Owing to Kasumi's fortune telling hobby, she is shown to be well-versed in identifying the origin of various tropical zodiac signs in Xtreme Venus Vacation, as she explains the origin of her personal zodiac Pisces when the Owner asked her zodiac sign on her birthday. She also told Nyotengu the origin of Scorpio around the time of the latter's special day, and it is implied that she may have told Hitomi about the origin behind Gemini around the time of the latter's birthday.
* The North American box art of Dead or Alive for the Playstation features Kasumi with white hair for unknown reasons.
* For years all the entries where Kasumi was the focus of the box art in the Japanese versions were altered to remove the focus from her in the North American releases, with the first Dead or Alive shifting the focus to Leifang, the Dreamcast version of Dead or Alive 2 to Ein and the PS2 and Ultimate version of the same game having a generic cover with the logo of the game. Dead or Alive Dimensions was the first game that didn't remove the focus from her.
* Kasumi was one of if not the first female character to star in and represent a long running fighting game series with both male and female characters. Morrigan Aensland from Darkstalkers came first but she shares this role with Demitri Maximoff.
* Kasumi is the only character that has been present in every entry of the series, being the only one that appeared in the spin off Girls of DOA BlackJack, but even outside of that out of the original 9 playable characters she is the only one that has appeared in every entry in both the main and Xtreme series, because Leifang was absent in Xtreme 3 Venus, Tina was absent in all standard versions of Xtreme 3 and Zack is absent in Venus Vacation (not counting his statues).
* On the English page for Tecmo's old official site for the first game, it was mentioned that Kasumi's hobbies included, among other things, "playing Angel Eyes", referencing an arcade game Tecmo had released around the time Dead or Alive was made, titled Tōkidenshō Angel Eyes. The game is not mentioned on her original Japanese page. Interestingly, the English page mentioned the game despite Angel Eyes never seeing a release outside Japan.
== Gallery ==
File:Kasumi (Dead or Alive) Render 01.png
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File:Kasumi (Dead or Alive) 01.png
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File:Kasumi (Dead or Alive) Fan Art 01.png
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== External Links ==
* Kasumi at Dead or Alive Wiki
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:Dead or Alive