Leon Galvani

"*Lauren, are you watching?*"
—*Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate*

**Leon Galvani** is a mercenary and close quarters combat (CQC) martial artist from the *Dead or Alive* series. He first debuted in *Dead or Alive 2*, and shares many similarities and a history with Bayman.

Leon entered the Dead or Alive Tournaments to prove that he was the strongest man in the world, to live up to the final words of his deceased lover, Lauren. He stopped entering the tournaments after *Dead or Alive 3*.

## History

### Early life

As a mercenary, Leon traveled all over the world, wherever he could find work. While he was on the Silk Road, he met Lauren, a young thief, and fell in love with her. The two were in a loving relationship, until Lauren's sudden, tragic death in the desert. As Lauren died in Leon's arms, she said her final words: "The man I love, is the strongest man in the world."

It's unknown if she said it as a final sign of affection for her lover or for any other reason, but whatever she meant, Leon felt that he had to fulfill the last words of his lost love, and prove to her, himself, and everyone else that he was the strongest man on Earth.

### The Second Tournament

In order to prove himself, Leon intended to win the second Dead or Alive Tournament for Lauren. During his time in the tournament, he had to fight Zack - who he seemed to have recognised from the past, although Zack didn't seem to remember, or actually know him - and Gen Fu. Although he lost in the end, Leon was still determined to live up to Lauren's words.

### The Third Tournament

Leon set out to develop his strength further by entering the third tournament, during which he was constantly haunted by remorse for losing Lauren to the desert. During the tournament, Jann Lee caught up to him to challenge his strength.

After the fight, Leon returned to the desert, and the oasis where he had buried Lauren, and was greeted by a hallucination, or possibly the ghost, of his lover. This vision of Lauren gave Leon a desert flower, before disappearing again, maybe in a way of telling him that he had proved himself, and he could move on with his life.

## Character

### Appearance

*See also: Leon's costumes*
He is a tall muscular man with close shaved facial hair. His hair appears to be grey. He has a few wrinkles on his face due to his age. His eyes are dark blue.

His recurring attire includes a desert camouflage shirt which is kept open to reveal his torso, black fingerless gloves, a pair of grey pants tucked into boots with green laces. There is a red bandanna or cloth wrapped around his left knee. He also wears a turban on his head that is tan colored with red and green stripes.

### Personality

Leon is a driven individual, a veteran soldier who is torn over the loss of his lover. He appears cruel and both merciless with his combat style and his personality, as he always insults and threatens his opponents by saying phrases like "Do you want to die?" or "Insolent whelp". He has some small measure of honor and seems to have a sense of humor, though he does not allow it to interfere with his desire to crush all opponents, and he is not unwilling to speak down to his opponents, especially those younger than him. Another recurring quote from him - especially before facing an opponent for the second time - is "I am sick and tired of your face".

However, although a tough fighter, Leon also has a softer side, shown through his devotion to his lover Lauren, and his need to fulfill his promise to her. The death of his lover, her last words, and his commitment to her are just about all he thinks about.

### Etymology

Leon takes his name from the protagonist in the film

"*Léon (film)*"
—Léon
*, as both characters share similar backgrounds and personalities. One of his comments during a battle, "I am a professional", is also a reference to the film, as the movie title* The Professional *in some countries.*

## Relationships

### Lauren

Leon met Lauren along the Silk Road in Asia and the two fell in love. Whilst traveling together in a desert, Lauren died of unknown reasons. As Leon held her during her final moments, Lauren mumbled her final words to him: *"The man I love is the strongest man in the world."* Leon is so devoted to his lover that he sets out to prove that he really is the strongest man in the world.

### Bayman

Bayman and Leon's rivalries are hinted at through banter at the beginning and end of matches between them. When they meet in *Dead or Alive 3*, Leon expresses disbelief that Bayman is still alive. After winning matches against Leon in *Dead or Alive 2*, Bayman quips that Leon has aged or tells him to "go back to the desert", suggesting they have a history.

While no specific relation is stated, Leon is closely associated with Bayman, largely due to their similar body types, and the fact that they both use forms of Combat Sambo to fight.

### Zack

Leon also appears to have connections to Zack, saying "we meet again" at the start of their fight in *Dead or Alive 2*. Zack claims not to know Leon, but it is unknown whether he was simply denying it, whether he forgot or if Leon mistook him for someone else.

## Gameplay

*See also: Leon's command lists*
In reference to their fighting styles, Leon is very similar to Bayman, save for Leon's slight advantage in power and Bayman's small edge in speed. Also, Leon incorporates an air grapple in his move list, as well as a few different combos.
His fighting style is very straight-forward compared to most characters, relying on a few high damage attacks instead of a long string of moves to form a chain combo. This makes him a very easy character to use, but has the downside of making him less suitable for getting a high score in Arcade mode.

While Leon started out with an enhanced copy of Bayman's move set from the original *Dead or Alive* game, his appearances in the more recent games have drifted further and further away from Bayman's Russian martial arts style.

In *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate* and *Last Round*, Leon's fighting style is changed to "close quarters combat", although the change appears to be in name only, as most of his moves remain the same from DOA4, with slight adjustment to a few commands and the addition of the ability to charge a lot more of his attacks for extra damage as well as to pick the direction of his air throw.

Compared to Bayman, Leon is more of an aggressive character as he has more throws rather than offensive holds, his strikes have more knockback, and he has the strongest environmental game in the cast, mostly due to the fact that he can select the direction of his air throw. He has plenty of guard breaks and a variety of moves that cause the opponent to land hard on the ground for guaranteed ground throws, such as those when he is mounted on his opponent.

He also has the longest combo throw in the game, the *Dervish Throw*, being a breakable four part throw that does a total of 115 points of base damage, and it also has a ground throw variant that does 35 points of damage. If his throws and offensive holds do not exploit nearby wall, almost all of them will exploit the ground environment. He also has a special critical burst that can be charged up, and can be performed without the opponent having to be in the highest stun threshold; without charging it, the move itself is much faster than the critical burst moves other characters possess. His air throw is also not to be underestimated; it deals 35 points of base damage, breaks objects, and the recovery time is relatively fast, making it very deadly in the *Home* stage, where there are a lot of breakable objects and walls that are not that far apart from each other.

### Stats

The following are Leon's official stats as listed in the games.

### Unlocking Leon

Leon is an unlockable character in *Dead or Alive 4*, in which he can be used in every gameplay mode except Story Mode. To unlock him, the player must complete Story Mode with Zack.

## Appearances

### *Dead or Alive* series

* *Dead or Alive 2* games (playable, 1999-2000)
* *DOA2: Hardcore* games (playable, 2000)
* *Dead or Alive 3* (playable, 2001-02)
* *Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate* (playable, 2004-05)
* *Dead or Alive 4* (unlockable, 2005-06)
* *Dead or Alive Dimensions* (playable, 2011)
* *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate* (playable, 2013)
* *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Arcade* (playable, 2013)
* *Dead or Alive 5 Last Round* (playable, 2015)

### *DOA: Dead or Alive*

 File:DOA Movie Leon.jpg
Leon is portrayed by Silvio Simac in the non-canonical 2006 movie, *DOA: Dead or Alive*. He appears as a tournament fighter. Donovan tells Kasumi that Leon killed her brother, Hayate. Kasumi and Leon fight in the first round of the tournament with Kasumi emerging victorious. After this Kasumi states that if Leon couldn't defeat her, he couldn't have killed Hayate. His costume is based on his first costume in *Dead or Alive 2*. Simac's portrayal has been praised by fans of the games who stated that he portrayed Leon exactly as they wanted.

## Fighting quotes

* *Dead or Alive 2/DOA2: Hardcore*
* *Dead or Alive 3*
* *Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate*
* *Dead or Alive 4*
* *Dead or Alive Dimensions*
* *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate*
* *Dead or Alive 5 Last Round*

## Music themes

The following are the music themes used for Leon throughout the series.

 "**Red Moon**"
 "**Sorrow**"

## Trivia

* Leon is the only regular fighter that has been cut in original *Dead or Alive 5*, until he made his return in *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate*.
	+ It was stated in the official *Dead or Alive 5* gameplay guide that he, alongside others like Ein and Tengu, was cut because of time constraints, but they wanted him to return in the future.
* Leon is the only character so far to have two different fighting styles, switching from Combat Sambo to close quarters combat, although the difference appears to be in name only.
* Although he is added to *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate*, it is unknown if he participated in the tournament or not.
* In the early version of *Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate*, Leon is able to air throw an opponent into the bouncing walls and the flammable fuel tanks in 'The Show' and 'Fuel' stages, respectively, an infinite number of times, making him overpowered in these stages. This was patched in a later version.

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