Fukua (Canon...?)

**Fukua** (JP: フクア) is a physical clone of Filia (with her Parasite Shamone being a clone of Samson) who contains two souls: one who was the strongest at close combat, and another who was the strongest at ranged attacks. She was created by Brain Drain. However, she is a joke character and her existence is non-canonical.

## General Information

Fukua is one of the playable characters in *Skullgirls Encore*. She was created as a test for Robo-Fortune and initially implemented as a joke character on April Fool's Day, 2014. She became a permanent fixture of the *Skullgirls Encore* roster on May 13th after polishing and balance tweaks due to large fan demand. Her homestage is Nightmare Crest.

Her fighting style re-uses bits of script from "Zoner Filia" and "Grappler Filia", who were alternate green and red-skinned versions of Filia Mike Z had made for the first public EVO demo of Skullgirls before a second character had been completed. The two warriors that inhabit Fukua's body are a reference to these alternate versions of Filia.

### Personality

Unlike the other characters, Fukua smiles when she is finished with a Blockbuster, suggesting she has some masochistic inclinations. Some of her lines suggest that she enjoys fighting and likes to taunt her opponents.

## Backstory

> "Movies? When, Saturday? Nah, can't. Yeah, I'm busy. Cloning. YES, really! Sorry, maybe next week."
>
>

One of Brain Drain's less-socially-acceptable hobbies is cloning, and often he forces the souls of dead warriors to inhabit these clones. Fukua is the result of a fortunate - or unfortunate - Lab Zero accident: a union of two souls. One, a once-proud warrior known for her brute strength in close combat; the other a silent assassin who specialized in ranged weapons for her kills. Together as one, Fukua possesses the best of both specialties ... but relationships formed under intense circumstances often don't last.

## Character Basis

### Origin

While also based on the Template:W like Filia, Fukua's true origins are as a parody of the numerous "clone" (re-colored) characters that exist in fighting games.

### Name

*Fukua* is an erratum of *Filia*; one's right hand being one key too far to the left while spelling Filia's name will result in spelling "Fukua" instead.

*Shamone* comes from the 1987 Michael Jackson song *Template:W*, being a deliberate mispronunciation of the phrase "come on". This works in tangent with Fukua's name, as both are grammatical aberrations.

### Design

Her appearance is nearly identical to that of Filia's since she is a direct clone of her, but is of a completely different color palette as to differentiate between them. As such, she also has her own version of Samson named Shamone. Her shirt and shoes are black, and her hair is dark green with her necktie, skirt and thighhighs being the same color except slightly less saturated in intensity. She also wears light blue-ish green lipstick and hot pink eye shadow.

Her color scheme is based on a glitch found in several games wherein characters turned green abnormally; the glitch tending to occur more often on older game systems. Direct inspirations for Fukua’s coloration include Glitch Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and a glitch from the first Mortal Kombat game where all characters would turn green on the character select screen temporarily.

Fukua's eye color is inconstant in her portrayals. Her action shot has green eyes in the character select screen, and black eyes during her reveal trailer. In gameplay, her eyes appear dark greenish-brown when highlighted in the character select screen and during the fight. The same can be said for the shading on her nose, which while shown to be her normal skin color in her action shot, appears a light color during gameplay. Originally her character select icon had a slightly tanned nose, but this has since been changed to be light like during gameplay.

## Story

After a scene showing Filia asleep (in similar vein to Fukua's reveal trailer) the setting transcends to the contents of her nightmare. Starring Fukua, she battles every playable character (regardless of whether or not the consumer has purchased the DLC) in the games roster, excluding herself, in reverse order from when they were implemented into the game; beginning her quest against Robo-Fortune up until achieving her goal of besting Filia, the final boss.

### Ending

With Filia beaten, Fukua dons a look-alike mask (implied to actually be Filia's skinned head, Samson and all), claiming she is now the true physical embodiment of Filia. The story ends with Filia waking up, spooked by her replacement, and traversing to her bathroom only to find her reflection suddenly transform into Fukua's. Shortly after the credits, Umbrella and Annie appear to the left and right of Fukua in the reflection, with the mirror cracking afterwards.

### Strategy

The Boss fight against Filia is always set to Nightmare difficulty and she has 300% more health than usual regardless of the difficulty setting chosen at the beginning. These buffs make her a very tricky opponent, especially for players who struggle with the higher difficulty settings. Despite this Filia still has some major weaknesses that can be exploited for the user's benefit:

1. Filia tends to block low very consistently, but she forgets to block high while the opponent is on the ground. This makes her vulnerable to overhead attacks, such as Fukua's HK version of Forever a Clone.
2. While she almost always techs (escapes) normal grabs, she is easily susceptible to command grabs to the point that the player can continuously command grab her over and over again.
3. Filia doesn't react quickly after being hit with the HK version of Platonic Drillationship. While she can successfully block the move, it leaves her "stunned" for a brief amount of time allowing players to keep repeating that same move in succession before she has the chance to recover. This method causes chip damage, which while not the most effective way of cutting her health down quickly can be used to secure a safe keep away game preventing her from closing in and attacking the player.

## Abilities & Fighting Style

Since she is a clone of Filia, Fukua has most of her fighting moves as well as new ones and different properties on old ones. However, she has a rather different playstyle from Filia. In addition to that, Fukua herself attacks with basic punches, chops, and kicks while Shamone is capable of spitting out energy balls, shapeshifting, and biting. Unlike Filia, Fukua is unable to air dash, but she is able to perform a double jump. In addition to having normal throw like Filia's, Fukua has two variations of her command grab: one that is slow, but has armor and does not throw the opponent very far and one that is fast and throws the opponent further way. Another move involves Fukua and Shamone grabbing the opponent and flinging them in the air, which causes the damage scaling to increase to 200%.

One important element of Fukua is the ability to send her shadow clones at her opponents. Along with the energy balls, Fukua's shadow clones are dangerous assets for her zoning abilities. With them, she is able to overwhelm her opponents with projectiles and perform mix-ups.

## Color Palettes

 File:Fukua20ColorPalettes.png
1. Default colors
2. Original colors
3. Original colors
4. Decapre *(Ultra Street Fighter IV)*
5. Ermac *(Mortal Kombat series)*
6. Shadow Lady *(Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes)*
7. Akuma *(Street Fighter series)*
8. Mech-Zangief *(Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter)*
9. Original colors
10. Sean Matsuda *(Street Fighter III: New Generation)*
11. Rain *(Mortal Kombat series)*
12. Reptile *(Mortal Kombat series)*
13. Maeruto Suezumaeki *(Joke character created by Lab Zero Games)*
14. Falco Lombardi *(Star Fox series)*
15. Alpha-152 *(Dead or Alive series)*
16. Violent Ken *(SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos)*
17. Shadow the Hedgehog *(Sonic Adventure 2)*
18. Eva Earlong's HARs *(Template:W)*
19. Allen Snider *(Street Fighter EX series)*
20. Red Venom *(Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes)*
21. Honoka *(Dead or Alive 5 Last Round)*
22. War Machine *(Marvel Comics)*
23. Robo-Ky Mk. II *(Guilty Gear Isuka)*
24. Mind Controlled Ryūko *(Kill La Kill)*
25. Orochi Shermie *(King of Fighters series)*

## Trivia

* Fukua's trailer is a parody of Ultra Street Fighter IV's Decapre reveal trailer.
* According to Mike Z, Fukua's Forever A Clone move is a reference to the Shadow HAR's Shadow Kick, Shadow Punch and Shadow Grab moves from One Must Fall 2097.
* The majority of scenes where Filia is seen sleeping in Fukua's story mode is very similar to, if not a direct reference of that of Mario in the ending of Super Mario Bros. 2.
* The ending to Fukua's story mode is a reference to the final scene during the finale of the Twin Peaks television series.
* Umbrella and Annie appearing at the end of Fukua's story mode is a reference to a reoccurring joke among the Skullgirls' staff/community, where they are pictured as resentful in several images due to Umbrella being replaced by Big Band as a playable character, and due to Annie not being voted as a playable character despite how close she was to winning the vote twice.
* All of Fukua's named attacks make various references to relationships. This is most likely referencing the fact that Fukua is inhabited by two souls bonded together.
* An unused character select graphic of Fukua in the game's files depicts her with Caucasian skin and no makeup.
* In Fukua's Tutorial stage, the description for "Drill Of My Dreams" reads: "When performed on the ground, Fukua rises up towards the heavens with a piercing leg drill". This is a reference to Gurren Lagann, with the mention of a heaven-piercing drill.
* Fukua's appearance in Skullgirls is heavily similar to Luigi's appearance in the Super Smash Bros. Series (Examples being used the same models and attacks from another character along with the same voice clips though toned up or down).