Honoka (Dead or Alive)

Honoka, also known as Super Secret Fighter Chick and Princess Honoka, is a character from the Dead or Alive series.
== Charactah Account ==
Honoka is described as a "schoolgirl with a mysterious power". Her self-made style, and her idle stance, suggest she's not actually a trained combatant.
Having been raised all her life by her gentle and loving grandmother, she is, in contrast to her father and half-sister, a sweet, easygoing kind of girl, but when she sees a fight, she cannot contain her excitement or the mysterious power surging within her. Honoka has a strange knack for instantly learning any fighting move she sees. She has kept this power hush-hush, but has been itching to test it out in secret.
Honoka studies her favorite moves and fighting styles, and combines them into a unique style which she calls "Honoka Fu" (Honoka-ryuu, lit. "Honoka style"). Since her build is that of an average teenage girl, her moves, while skilled, may not always pack the same punch as the fighter she learned them from. In her Hissatsu-no-Kamae ("Fighting Position of Annihilation") stance, however, she is imbued with an unbelievable strength and becomes capable of techniques she has never seen from any other fighter.
== Appearance ==
=== Video Games ===
* Azur Lane
* Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
* Dead or Alive 6
* Dead or Alive Xtreme 3
* Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation
* Destiny Child
* Senran Kagura: New Link
* Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash
* The King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match Online
* The King of Fighters All Stars
* Warriors All-Stars
== Trivia ==
* Some of the Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate concept artwork for Marie Rose had various similarities to Honoka, barring that she was blonde instead of pink-haired as well as having a noticeably smaller bust. This suggests that Honoka's overall design was reused from an unused concept for Marie Rose.
* In her Japanese bio, it was mentioned under her hobbies that she enjoys partaking in onsens (Japanese bathhouses/hot springs). This was localized outside Japan as simply being "taking hot baths" due to there not being a word in English that accurately translates the Japanese term "furo."
* Aside from her vested interest in fighting, she's also implied in Xtreme Venus Vacation to be an avid video gamer, to the extent that the Owner once tried to pull an all-nighter just in an attempt to beat her in a round of video games, and also stayed up trying to find a particular treasure in an RPG game, only to fail to do so. Similarly, she was shown to be knowledgeable enough about RPG elements that during an RPG enactment, she stated several archetypes and clichés from them to Misaki.
* The cow-related apparel in several of Honoka's costumes, including her stuffed doll Mister Moo, are an unsubtle reference to her significantly large bust, owing to cows being well known for constantly producing milk.
** On a similar note, when meeting the Owner while wearing her Aries swimwear, she refers to herself as Sheep Honoka to help the Owner get to sleep, and beforehand was also heard counting, which is a pun on both the Aries swimwear's obvious resemblance to a sheep and the mental exercise of going to sleep, counting sheep.
* It seems Honoka knows some Dead or Alive characters such as Eliot, Zack, Tina, Bass, and Mila even though she doesn't have any intros, outros or tag throws with any of these characters in Last Round. Since her hobbies include watching pro-wrestling shows and martial arts matches, it's likely she heard of them from those sources.
* Honoka has a special taunt where she'll perform a rock paper scissors action, which the player can use to hit their opponent if they don't block them correctly, with rock aiming low, scissors aiming high and paper being the middle.
* In the Japanese version of Honoka and Marie Rose's tag team intro, Honoka asks if she could borrow Marie Rose's chest, acting as a pun on their radically different bust sizes and on a typical Japanese request for a sparring round derived from Sumo Wrestling, where it is believed that a wrestler's power lies in their chest due to their heart being located there. This was toned down in localization to Honoka directly requesting for a practice round, since the pun was untranslatable and inappropriate in the West. Instead, she asks Marie Rose for a simple practice round, and Marie Rose's reaction when using the English voices makes it seem like she's jealous of Honoka's bust size.
* Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 was released on Honoka's birthday (March 24th).
* Honoka acted as the basis for Fukua's 21st color palette from Skullgirls.
* When Honoka performs the moves of other fighters, she'll also mimick the sound they make.
* Technically, Honoka has the second-biggest bust in the series after SPARTAN-458, although the latter's bust measurements probably refer to her when in her Mjolnir armor.
* Although Honoka and Misaki are technically the same age, the former is older than the latter by a couple of months, which is implied by Honoka referring to the latter by "Misaki-Chan", as "chan" is a Japanese pronoun reserved for addressing those younger than the speaker.
* According to the first episode of the First Cover Girls event, Honoka had previously acted as a support leader for a sports day event.
** Similarly, she implied in her gift-giving episode of the Xmas 2018 event that she frequently dressed up as Santa Claus in the Shopping District of Japan during Christmastime.
** Based on several comments by her in the Main and Event episodes, she lives in one of Japan's Shopping Districts.
* In Xtreme 3 and Xtreme Venus Vacation, Honoka is the one of only three girls who appeared in both games where her character intro scene is completely different in each game (in the former, Honoka simply plays on the beach and then stops to ponder about what to get for her grandma, while in the latter, she was seen riding an inflatable Orca in the middle of the ocean before falling into the water due to losing her balance and being implied to have lost her top from the fall into the water), the only other being Misaki and Leifang (the latter two being included in Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet).
* In Xtreme 3 and Xtreme 3: Scarlet, Honoka is the only character in the game that has an ending where she is inside her bedroom instead of the beach like the rest of the girls.
* Oddly enough, the TGS 2018 demo has Honoka referring to herself in the third person similar to Marie Rose, despite her not doing so in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation. Likewise, the same demo has Marie Rose notably forgoing the same trait.
* In Xtreme Venus Vacation, a chibi version of Honoka is used as the wait icon for transitional scenes, where she is seen bouncing on a volleyball with excitement.
* Kasumi and Honoka's interactions with each other in Warriors All-Stars implied that Raidou was Honoka's father, and thus Ayane her half-sister.
** A subtle hint towards Ayane and Honoka's status as half-sisters was included in Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, where they shared the bonus costume from DOAFES in 2016.
** This is confirmed to be true in Dead or Alive 6, so Honoka is technically related to Kasumi, Hayate and Shiden as well, thus sort of making her a part of the Mugen Tenshin Clan as well due to her bloodline.
** On a related note, Honoka's interactions with Ayane in the same game had Honoka, while mostly oblivious to the situation she's in, indicating that Ayane was akin to a big sister (with Ayane mentioning that she's glad Honoka's not her sister), and also has Honoka admitting she wants to fight alongside Ayane since she wouldn't want to have Ayane be in danger and not know of it, which not only foreshadowed Ayane and Honoka's blood relation, but also the fact that Ayane would end up captured by MIST while trying to rescue Honoka in Dead or Alive 6.
* When first meeting Marie Rose in Dead or Alive 6 by literally bumping into her, her actions and remark to Marie were reminiscent of one of her victory poses in Last Round.
** When Honoka lost to Tina in the Story, her action and remark is a reference to her losing pose in Last Round.
* In the DOA6 trivia entry, "STOP!", Honoka despite being impressed by Brad Wong's creation of a bloody mary cocktail refused it because she alongside Marie Rose were underage and thus not legally allowed to drink alcohol. This was also referenced later in Xtreme Venus Vacation, where she was exempt from the soy cocktails that Sayuri and Tamaki had in their newly-formed adult women's nightlife club due to her underage status. In Japan, the legal age for drinking alcohol is 20.
* Honoka's mimicry of various fighters' attacks is given a brief nod in her character introduction episode in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation, where she mentions she's very good at mimicry. The same game also implies this talent can be utilized for more mundane tasks, such as dancing and swimming. One event episode even indicates that her using her mimicry abilities while watching martial arts films is the closest she's got to actually exercising to maintain her beauty.
* Honoka is one of only eight characters in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation who has a pre-determined outfit for her first episode (ie, the player cannot have her wear whatever outfit the player chose for her in the episode), the others being her half-sister Ayane, Patty, Misaki, Tsukushi, Lobelia, and Nanami.
* Honoka's age was explicitly given outside of bios in the event episode arc "My Name Is... Follow the Light", where she, when trying to draw out an alien she encountered, stated that she was, among other things, 18 years old.
== Gallery ==
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) Render 01.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) Render 02.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) Render 03.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) Render 04.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) Render 05.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 01.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 02.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 03.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 04.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 05.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 06.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 07.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 08.png
File:Honoka (Dead or Alive) 09.png
== External Links ==
* Honoka at Dead or Alive Wiki
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:Dead or Alive