Neo Politan

**Neo Politan** (**Right-Hand Illusionist**) is one of the recurring antagonists of the anime-styled cartoon web series ***RWBY***.

She made her first video game appearance in ***BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle***, where she is one of the downloadable characters for Season 2.

## Bio

The right-hand woman of Vale crime boss Roman Torchwick, much of Neo Politan's past is shrouded in mystery, none of which is helped by the fact that she's mute. First encountered by Team RWBY as they pursued Roman and the Faunus extremist group known as the White Fang, Neo's illusions facilitated a clean escape for her boss. A disasterous attempt from Yang to battle Neo later nearly ended fatally for and put on display just how out of RWBY's league Neo was. Outwitted by Ruby during the Battle of Beacon, Neo was powerless to save Roman from being killed, leaving her with an intense hatred and a craving for vengeance against everyone she felt was responsible for his death, with Cinder, and possibly Ruby, at the top of the list.

In battle Neo is something of a dancer that twirls, spins, and flips all about as she weaves in attacks. In addition with her semblance capable of producing illusions so convincing one can physically clash with them makes Neo is almost impossible to pin down. Finally her parasol, Hush, is capable of serving as a shield and contains a hidden blade in the tip making Neo more than capable of throwing down with your average Huntress even without Dust.

## Trivia

* Neo is the second person to fight with an umbrella, the first character being Rachel Alucard due to Nago shapeshifting into an umbrella.
* Neo is mostly a silent character. However, Gray G. Haddock, Roman’s English voice actor confirms she is not as silent as she looks and has an English voice actor, but she has never been heard speaking.
	+ *Cross Tag Battle* marks the first time to officially announce her English voice, albeit still grunts only.
	+ Casey Lee Williams, who voices Neo, sings most of the Songs for RWBY, including 'One Thing', which was played in the trailer announcing Neo.
	+ According to the book "The *World of RWBY: the Official Companion*", Neo was supposed to have been voiced by Sarah Silverman. However, money disagreements caused these plans to fall through and Neo was made mute. Later, in 2021, the novel *Roman Holiday* revealed that Neo's muteness is a congenital defect in-universe.
	+ In chapter fourteen, when asked why Neo is silent, Elizabeth suggests Neo is a foreigner who speaks another language, however she was possibly joking.
	+ She is sometimes heard chuckling in interactions.
* In Japanese version, Neo's full name was "Neopolitan"/"ネオポリタンク" instead of being spaced away between "Neo" and "Politan" as "ネオ・ポリタンク". However, the announcer calls her "Neo" during a victory in all versions, while the original. This was fixed in finalized version.
	+ Unlike Aegis, whose original Japanese name being used globally while somehow mispronounced as “Eijis” as of Season 1.5, rather than having West ver. change to her official Western name “Aigis” and remained being pronounced as “Aigis” like in the story mode, Neo was being given a late-official text name “Neopolitan” at the release of “The World of RWBY: The Official Companion“, sometimes after her Cross Tag announcement, where her text name remained “Neo Politan” to likely fit her lifebar name by using her short name “Neo”, affecting both Vs., Win and Victory texts.
	+ After Neo's release as a DLC character, Rooster Teeth officially confirmed "Neopolitan" to be the correct spelling of her name, via *The World of RWBY: the Official Companion*.
* Neo is the first known non-main character in RWBY to be featured in *BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle*.
	+ She´s also the first character in the game who did not debut in a Trailer short of RWBY or even the first volume.
* Neo has both incarnations between Beacon Academy Trilogy (Vol. 1 - 3) and Post-Beacon Infested (since Vol. 4), with the future incarnation outfit, which has the hat belonged to Roman, who died in Vol. 3 as part of her Distortion Skill. Due to this, Roman’s potential inclusion is questionable, whether Roman will be added as one of the DLCs after the starting Special Edition, or remained excluded, despite having a placeholder announcer of him.
* Neo’s cover artwork is also used as her in-game portrait.
* Neo has palette swaps based on these following characters: Millia Rage (Guilty Gear), Es Mitsurugi, Aegis, Vatista, Roman Torchwick (RWBY), and Cheshire Cat (Disney version of Alice in Wonderland).
	+ Neo also has a palette swap resembling her Vytal Tournament disguise.
	+ Her Cheshire Cat costume may be a reference to a common misconception that she is based on the character, something which Rooster Teeth has debunked.
* Most of Neo's attacks are directly based off of ones she performs in RWBY.
	+ Neo's Astral finish takes place on the airship she fought Ruby on in Vol 3, however Neo's blade attack is actually based on her fight with Yang.
* During the time, announcement, and release of Version 2.0, Neo’s song “One Thing” was added while RWBY Volume 6 (In which the song originated from) had not yet received a Japanese Dub. This makes “One Thing” the first RWBY song in BBTAG to be exposed to the rest of the world, including Japan.
	+ Volume 6 eventually did receive a Japanese dub in September 2021.
* Neo is the only RWBY character to have an entire song as their theme as opposed to the other RWBY characters who have their associated songs in a mix, such as Ruby having This Will be the Day, and several versions of Red Like Roses in her theme.
* In 2019, Neo's English VA, Casey Lee Williams, dyed her hair to resemble Neo's.