Josie Rizal

“	Yes! Yeah, I did it!	„
	~ Josie Rizal

Josie Rizal is a heroine introduced in Tekken 7.

She was voiced by Ananda Jacobs.

Story[]

Josie Rizal hails from a poor family in the Philippines who were enthusiastic fans of various martial arts. Josie’s parents insisted that she learn martial arts, as she had been a crybaby from childhood. Reluctantly trying to live up to her parents' expectations, a brave Josie began learning martial arts, eventually becoming a first class kickboxer. However, the underlying problem of being a crybaby had not been cured…

Josie made a living by working as a model and a kickboxer, and in this way was able to help out her family’s income. One day, when work was finally starting to get on track, a huge typhoon hit The Philippines, causing catastrophic damage in various places. Lifelines were cut off and helping hands were unable to cross during the typhoon. The first to rush to the disaster area was the Mishima Zaibatsu's special forces, the Tekken Force.

Josie came to admire the dedication of the Tekken Force. She is going to participate in a recruitment exam herself in order to become a member of Tekken Force.

Josie defeats Kuma and drops to her knees in tears, telling Kuma that he scared her. Kuma weakly raises his paw to Josie, and she sees that he is holding her missing earring. Josie realizes that Kuma was only chasing her to return her earring. Before she can thank Kuma, he collapses back to the ground. Josie begins shaking him, telling him, "Stay with me!"

Personality[]

Josie has a cheerful personality even though she has a tendency to cry. To cry a lot, in fact. She scares easily even if her martial arts training has improved her confidence. Josie suffers from arkoudaphobia, that is, she is afraid of bears or anything that resembles a bear. Although she is a very skilled fighter she sometimes has a hard time believing that she is able to defeat much larger opponents.

However, despite being very sensitive, Josie seems to be trying to be brave, and wants to help people, as shown by her desire to join Tekken Force after seeing the typhoon relief they provided to the Philippines.

Physical Appearance[]

Josie is an extremely beautiful young woman with a slim but athletic build. She has short, dark brown hair and brown eyes.

Her attire consists of a loose, midriff-baring yellow blouse, sandals, a blue miniskirt, and a belt with a red floral motif.

Fighting Style[]

Josie fights using Eskrima-based Kickboxing (エスクリマをベースとしたキックボクシング Esukurima wo Bēsu to shita Kikkubokushingu^?). Eskrima is a style of combat that emphasizes on weapon-based combat that generally involves sticks and knives. Eskrima is officially called Arnis, the formalized umbrella name of the style in the Philippines, though this name and Kali are also used. Josie uses the unarmed variant of the style that focuses more on defensive techniques, grappling and weapon disarming as opposed to the more offensive armed variant.

Unarmed Eskrima focuses much more on reacting to and countering an attack rather than offensive striking. However, vicious strikes and kicks are still used. Her take of Eskrima with boxing makes her style more similar to a real-life Eskrima variant called Yaw-Yan also known as the Dance of Death or Sayaw ng Kamatayan in Filipino. She also uses various elbow and knee techniques along with various combinations that are reminiscent of Muay Thai.

Trivia[]

She is the first Filipino fighter in the Tekken series, predated by the sister series Soulcalibur's Talim. However, unlike other characters that speak in their native tongue, she speaks English with a local accent rather than Filipino. Both English and Filipino (Tagalog) are listed as the official languages of the Philippines.
Her name is inspired by the Filipino national hero, Jose Rizal.