Honoka

**Honoka**
 **Japanese voice actor(s)** | Ai Nonaka

**Honoka** (Kanji: 穂香, Hiragana: ほのか, Rōmaji: *Honoka*) is a high school student and martial artist who made her debut in the 2015 title *Dead or Alive 5 Last Round*.

## Character

### Appearance

Owing to her status as a Japanese schoolgirl, she constantly wears a school uniform including the blazer, as well as a glove that has a winking skull and crossbones logo on the back of the hand.

She possesses shoulder length hot pink hair that is tied into a ponytail on the side (which is always represented as a ball with the same markings as the winking skull and crossbones motif or some variation thereof, save for her Last Getaway New Challengers outfit, which uses a flower instead) as well as reddish eyes and somewhat tanned skin. Her face and overall build (namely her height) is similar to that of Marie Rose, although unlike her, she possesses a significantly large bust. Honoka currently possesses the largest bust out of all the female characters in the series, a direct contrast to her friend and rival, Marie Rose who possesses the smallest bust, which was even the subject of a pun for their Japanese tag team intro.

Besides her swimwear, she dresses relatively modestly, which could be due to her innocent nature and grandmother's influence. Some of her outfits also contain a cow motif, such as a cow face print on a t-shirt with "milk" written under it, as well as clothes with a cow marking-print and an attached stuffed cow.

### Personality

Having been raised all her life by her gentle and loving grandmother, she is 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.

Her victory quotes indicate she doesn't even know the origin of her powers and seeks to find out about it. In some victory quotes, she also gets apologetic and asks if they can stand up while rushing towards them, implying that while she does want to test her powers out, she doesn't want to injure or cripple people with them. Her victory quote "Promise me.... You won't tell anyone.", it seems that she doesn't want many people to know about her powers.

Although she is very eager for a challenge and a fight to the extent that she can't help herself, even she has her limits, as her losing quote has her whining that her opponent is too strong.

### Etymology

Little known about Honoka's name came from, her name matches a fire motif, which explain the source of her power cause her heating up for some reasons if she keeps fighting.

## Relationships

### Marie Rose

Although none of the details have been released yet - such as how long they've been friends, how they met, or how they interact with each other - Honoka is friends with Marie Rose, even sharing a special interaction as well as being Tag Battle partners where Honoka requests to Marie Rose for a practice round. In addition, when winning a tag battle with Marie Rose, she does Marie Rose's signature pose with her.

### Ayane

As seen in during Tag Mode, they seem to know or at least are familiar with each other. Although Ayane herself seems unaware that Honoka might have a connection with the kunoichi's evil father, Raidou. Their win scene has Honoka asking if Ayane is "some kind of ninja," with Ayane apparently getting irritated, saying "Are you serious?"

## Appearances

### *Dead or Alive* Series

* *Dead or Alive Xtreme 3* (Playable, 2016)

## Also known as

* Super Secret Fighter Chick - *Dead or Alive 5 Last Round*

## 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. 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 bath houses/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."
* Being the latest character, it seems Honoka knows some *Dead or Alive* characters such as Eliot, Zack, Tina, Leifang, Bass, and Mila by calling their name even though she doesn't have any intros, outros, and tag throws with any of these characters.
* The cow-related apparel in several of Honoka's costumes are an unsubtle reference to her significantly large bust, owing to cows being well known for constantly producing milk.
* According to Tom Lee, Honoka was created to fulfill the Japanese audiences' desires for more of the girls.
* 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 in the West.
* Honoka also bears a strong resemblance to Super Sonico.
* Honoka also bears a strong resemblance to Kousaka Honoka from the anime series "Love Live".