Katana

## Tatsu Yamashiro

* Katana
* Tatsu Yamashiro
* Doll

**Tatsu Yamashiro** (山城 タツ, *Yamashiro Tatsu*), also known as **Katana,** is a recurring character on series *DC Super Hero Girls.* Katana first appeared in the episode "Soul Sisters" and in the short "Soul Taken."

## Depiction

### Cartoon

#### Soul Sisters

Tatsu is introduced in the episode *Soul Sisters*. In the episode's first sequence, after a mugger takes the purse of an old woman, a figure stands in a dark alley and confronts him. Very briefly her masked face flashes with the sound of metal scraping, and the mugger falls to the ground with his eyes glazed. The figure appears on the rooftop above the alley and speeds away.

In the next sequence, a masked swordfighter silently confronts Diana at the fencing club. The two speak, and after the swordfighter beats Diana, she introduces herself as Tatsu Yamashiro and says she just moved from Japan. She instructs Diana in fencing until nightfall, and then the two train together in other activities in a montage sequence. After the montage, Diana introduces Tatsu to the team. When Tatsu spars with Diana later, she tells her she doesn't feel like she's fitting in. Diana tells her she feels they understand each other, and they're both glad to be friends.

##### Soul Taker

After the team collects several villains who were found lying motionless with glazed eyes across Metropolis, they go out in search of the perpetrator. Katana stands on a rooftop and calls out to them "Villains! Your souls are tainted, and now they will be mine." Katana swings bursts of light out of her sword, each hitting a member or two of the team and separating out of them a ghostly apparition that gets drawn into the sword, leaving their bodies lying on the ground with glazed eyes. Only Wonder Woman manages to escape unharmed, and she drags her friends away tied in her lasso. The next sequence, Diana reads a book of ancient weaponry myths in the library, and finds information about the Soul Taker: A sword forged in the 14th century by "the legendary swordsman Urasawa Sengo", which is rumored to steal the souls of its enemies, which can only be freed if the wielder says a certain Japanese incantation.

Tatsu and Diana realize they've faced each other as Wonder Woman and Katana, and start fighting. Tatsu says Diana can't release the souls of her friends without releasing the souls of "hundreds of evildoers" along with them. She says "heroes" like Wonder Woman allow villains to return again and again, while *her* methods of trapping souls actually work. Katana sees a person trying to break into a car, and when she fires her sword at him, Wonder Woman gets in the way and has her soul taken by the sword. The person apologizes and says he just locked his keys in the car. The scene fades to Tatsu chanting an incantation that releases the souls from the sword and returns its victims to life. Tatsu tells Diana that she inspired her and that she will catch criminals without taking their souls.

### Soul Taken

Katana appears again in the short *Soul Taken* where Harley Quinn takes her sword and runs around with it at the Metropolis pier. Harley eventually throws away the sword in favor of a mallet.

### Merchandise

Katana is depicted in a 10.5-inch tall doll and in online promotional material on the DC Super Hero Girls website. The back of the doll packaging says she has "her own way of seeking justice—using her special sword to drain the spirits of her enemies."