| “ | I'll show you the divide in our class! | „ |
| ~ Karin in Street Fighter V |
Karin Kanzuki (神月かりん, Kanzuki Karin) is a video game character from the Street Fighter fighting game series. She was originally a character from the Street Fighter manga Sakura Ganbaru!, but her character would be integrated into the video game series starting in Street Fighter Alpha 3 where she appears as a playable character.
Physical Appearance[]
As a self-styled rival of Sakura, Karin naturally has a similar outfit, complete with sailor fuku, except hers is predominantly red and white with a blue bola tie. She stylizes her blonde hair into long, oversized Victorian Europe-style ringlets, with two small forelocks and braids encircling her head, and occasionally wears a blue bow in the back. She wears black shorts and completes her outfit with matching black socks and short, red boots. She also wears brown fingerless gloves. Her Alpha appearance became her "Nostalgia" costume in Street Fighter V. Her appearance is atypical of most Japanese characters in Street Fighter, most of whom have black and/or brown hair and eyes (with the exception of R. Mika).
In Street Fighter V, her outfit appearance has been altered from her original school uniform into a business suit-esque outfit but has still a resemblance to the original in palette and design. She wears a red long sleeve jacket with a blue frill shirt and white frill folded sleeves underneath and a white ascot tie at the center of her collar, a red frill skirt, and black tights.
Personality[]
Karin's laugh and mannerisms are derived from the unpleasant "ojou" stereotypes common in anime and manga and "rich person"/"popular schoolgirl"/"spoiled brat" stereotypes of Western animated cartoons and movies; while she typically remains snobbish and haughty as per the standard, other aspects of her personality can vary wildly in other media. This is very much evidenced in the Sakura Ganbaru manga series in which she made her debut. The rest of her high school class appear to do exactly as she tells them, referring to her as Miss Karin, despite being the same age. Karin, on the other hand, refers to them as "commoners."
Since she was young, Karin's father has demanded that she never be second-best at anything, as victory is the Kanzuki family creed. This led her to obsessively pursue Sakura, who handed Karin her first definitive defeat. In Alpha 3, she ran into Ken Masters, who told her that improvement and the thrill of fighting was more important than merely winning. After finally defeating Sakura again, Karin realizes that it was a fluke victory that could have gone either way and comes to understand Ken's advice. Upon her return in V, Karin has sincerely mellowed out and has made friends with both Sakura and many other top-class fighters. She often challenges them to test both her skills and theirs, but never out of raw anger or contempt.
Karin developed a kinder, enough to shelter someone like Birdie, whom she would probably consider as lower than a commoner in her teenage years (even though, ostensibly, her reason is to prove she can be a master good enough that no underling of hers would betray her). She ends up being the driving logistical force behind most of the fighters getting together to combat Bison. She retains a rather haughty attitude, though.
Abilities[]
In Street Fighter V, Karin displays her martial arts skills to defeat März, one of the Shadaloo elite assassins.
Karin is an exceptional fighter and businesswoman despite her young age. The sum of all her accomplishments in martial arts is equivalent to 100 dan and 8 kyu in the Japanese ranking system. With all her knowledge, she created and mastered the Kanzuki-ryu fighting style, which is based on an array of strikes, throws and reversals, keeping the opponent guessing by varying the speed of the attacks and make them second-guess their own choices. Karin is also specialized in the esoteric arts and secret moves of the Kanzuki household, mastering secret techniques such as the "Kanzuki-ryu kata of unyielding resistance" and the "Ruler's Staying Hand". Her skill and strength allowed her to overwhelm skilled fighters such as R. Mika, Rashid, Ibuki and the Shadaloo elite assassins März and Enero. She can also fight evenly with martial arts masters such as Ken, F.A.N.G, Zangief, Dhalsim, Zeku and Sakura, and she even went fist to fist with M. Bison. She overthrew her father Kanzuki Daigenjuro from the lead of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu, stealing his stock and still preventing him from taking his role back.
Karin now runs a global super corporation, which is even wealthier than the Masters family. Likewise, she is a firm and capable leader, who can take quick but efficient decisions, as she has demonstrated in Street Fighter V, when she devised a way to investigate the intrusion of Shadaloo in her satellite and a plan to stand against the entire criminal organization and ultimately vanquish it by guiding the world's best fighters.
Biography[]
Background[]
Karin is the daughter of Daigenjuro Kanzuki and his wife Nadeshiko Kanzuki; their butler is Ishizaki, and Shibazaki is the family steward. Karin's father Daigenjuro is a rather strict man as he constantly pushes his daughter into becoming a better heir to the Kanzuki family fortune, as he wanted a son.
The wealthy Kanzuki family's mottos are "All you need is victory" (also interpreted as "Be the winner in everything") and, alternately, "The worst we'll ever be is the best" (a bonus short in the Street Fighter III: Ryu Final manga takes this further with "Victorious, therefore Supreme! Supreme, she is Karin Kanzuki!"). Her family's private estate covers 200 miles of land, and not only has its own geographical features but its own climate. The Kanzukis are even wealthier than the Masters, so rich that they have their own satellite called "Red Spider-Lily". Karin was given a son's upbringing because her father always wanted a male heir to his conglomerate.
Additionally, Karin was given several tests by her father to complete or else she would be disqualified from inheriting the family fortune. Her first test was when she was nine years old, where she was taken to the woods with meager food and water; she had to come home safely or else she'd be disowned (her father struggled two weeks to accomplish this when he was her age, but Karin polished the trial off in four days). Another test, based solely on her gender, was that if she didn't charm at minimum 5,000 of the world's gentlemen, she cannot inherit the family fortune (she passed this test too, and her mother Nadeshiko is said to have charmed 50,046 gentlemen, including her husband, to see if Nadeshiko would qualify to be Daikenjuro's wife). Yet another test required her to stop a stampede of fifty wild bulls, single-handedly stopping a running of the bulls at age fourteen. Karin subdued fifty bulls in all, beating her father's record by one.
Street Fighter Alpha 3[]
Karin considers herself a rival of Sakura, who defeated her when challenged at some early point.
During the timeline of SFA3, the Kanzuki corporation is threatened by Shadaloo, which then makes demands of the dynasty. Karin uses the family fortune when attempting to track down Shadaloo as well as a roving Sakura to challenge her again. Along the way, she encounters Blanka and defeats him in a friendly match, musing that "the world is so vast" for such a beast to exist. She also encounters R. Mika and battles her, and is so impressed by Mika's ability that she offers the wrestler her sponsorship. Karin eventually finds and defeats Sakura, but realizes the victory was a fluke, and that the fight itself is more important, not winning or losing (Ken Masters told her this previously). She lives by her motto more than the rest of her family, as she takes majority control of her father's company from under his nose in a hostile takeover (ironic since he was the one to drive that philosophy into her). Her family's estate covers 200 miles of land, and not only has its own geographical features, but its own climate.
Karin's butler, Ishizaki, appears in her win poses. Ishizaki is a pudgy but engaging middle-aged Japanese man with burly arms and a warm, welcoming smile. He is always willing to do what Karin wishes of him, though sometimes he wants to get in on the action and do battle. In addition, Ishizaki was assigned the job of baby-sitting/watching over Karin while she traveled the world, in search of a rematch with Sakura. Since he and her have such a close albeit rocky bond, he can be considered to be her closest friend in the Kanzuki mansion, as he is very proud of her and takes such good care of her.
Street Fighter V[]
Karin makes a return in Street Fighter V. She's ditched her school uniform for a new, fancier ensemble that still retains the feel of her classic outfit. She's taken in former Shadaloo soldier Birdie as a house guest, and gone on a quest to find a Senjutsu master, best known as Oro, who fought her grandfather many years ago. She's also evidently holding her own tournament in New York.
A Shadow Falls[]
Karin punches her palm, sending a message to the one(s) responsible for the Black Moon.
In the game's main story, Karin was seen talking to other business officials during her party and also watches the tag team battle between R. Mika and Zangief against Alex and Laura. When one of the Black Moons created an electromagnetic pulse in New York on its activation, the signals soon jam. Karin looked at one of the seven Black Moons, seeing that it was responsible, she finally decides to go investigate in New York.
The next day after the investigation, Shibazaki informs her about the solution to stop the Black Moons, when Rashid arrives to get the chess piece from her. They do battle as Karin appears triumphant. Rashid admits that he is not the enemy, persuading Karin to allow him to keep the chess piece, he then escapes with Azam. Karin then orders Shibazaki to gather all the top fighters and bring them to the estate.
Karin's leadership is also shown to gather all the fighters to stop Shadaloo by collecting the chess pieces to stop their plan and she meets up with Cammy who informs her about the seven Black Moons and the connection of the missing hackers. When März and Decapre infiltrate her estate, Karin states that she will teach her uninvited guests in manners by fighting them. Karin eventually takes down März while trying to break her arm and warns both Ibuki and R. Mika while they have to argue that she will join their argument if she beats them in satisfactory which makes both disagree and they are satisfied. She makes a mission to all fighters to get the chess piece from Alex and the other is Laura from Brazil. Dhalsim takes his mission in New York, while Ken takes his mission to Brazil with Chun-Li and Cammy. Therefore, Zangief takes his mission with Guile and Karin, Ibuki and R. Mika to infiltrate Shadaloo's main base.
As they successfully infiltrate the base and Rashid returns the chess piece back to her, she and Chun-Li manages to stop the plan by completing the six-chess piece. Before that F.A.N.G arrives to confront them making Karin fights him. Karin knocks back F.A.N.G long enough for Chun Li to halt his plans. F.A.N.G then warns them that he has a backup plan that will never be stopped until he escapes using poison clouds. Since the backup plan was activated and has a time limit, Karin decided to regroup back in her estate while waiting for the helicopter until Guile arrives to take them back including Rashid and a revived Charlie Nash who are chased by Necalli.
Karin leads the other fighters out of the helicopter and descends toward the Shadaloo base.
Karin finally decides to make a final assault back in Shadaloo and she was impressed to see Ryu for a long time. She already made preparations to infiltrate the base using her family ninjas by her side. During the final assault, she allows Chun-Li, Guile, and Ryu to get inside the base while fending off the Shadaloo soldiers and the Dolls. Karin was confronted by Enero who is the leader of the Dolls and both shares the same laugh before she manages to takes her down. To her surprise, Enero was controlled by Psycho Power while she screams in pain making the fight into a more serious one until they are now free from its control due to F.A.N.G's device is destroyed by Rashid during the confrontation.
After Bison was defeated by Ryu, Karin is last seen relieved to see Chun-Li, Ryu and Guile safe upon reuniting with the other fighters.
Relationships[]
Although initially portrayed to be elitist and an obnoxious ojou-type character, Karin ultimately reveals herself to be a well-rounded elite personality with an open mind, enabling her to mingle with those lower than her social stature. This has enabled her to gather many sincere allies and friends to thwart a common enemy. Her most impactful and meaningful relationships are with Sakura and R. Mika, which led her to open herself up more.
Friends/Allies[]
Sakura Kasugano: Karin and Sakura are good friends and good rivals. Sakura first defeated Karin, making Karin lose her long winning streak. Shortly after, Karin defeated Sakura, but learned that there were more important things in a fight than winning. Since then, the two have become close friends akin to Ryu and Ken, regularly sparring with her and remaining in constant contact with each other. In Street Fighter V, after hearing Sakura's concerns about her life's path, Karin helps arrange a meeting between Sakura and Ryu, having known about Sakura's feelings for him.
Ken Masters: Karin is good friends with Ken and his family. Karin holds Ken in high regard, due to his superior fighting ability, especially after losing to him during the events of Street Fighter Alpha 3. Ken told her that there’s more to a fight than just winning, and that the fight itself is more important. In Street Fighter V they're shown to be on good terms, as Karin invited Ken to her party and Ken decided to go even though it was his only day off. They take part in the takedown of Shadaloo.
Ryu: Although Ryu hasn't interacted with Karin much, she respects Ryu due to his fighting ability, just like with Ken. In A Shadow Falls, Karin showed slight annoyance when Ken returned without Ryu, but was delighted when he showed up after defeating Necalli. She also seems to keep tabs on his location as she was able to send Laura to Ryu when she wanted to fight a strong opponent, and then managed to contact Ryu in Sakura's character story.
Birdie: Birdie and Karin first met while Birdie was attempting to escape from Shadaloo. After she defeated him, and he told her why he escaped, she hired him as a bodyguard.
Guy: Karin first confronted him in Street Fighter Alpha 3 to test out his skills. After being defeated, she sent him to Shadaloo with the intention of defeating M. Bison.
R. Mika: They first met also in Street Fighter Alpha 3, in which Karin underestimated her. Karin soon became Mika's sponsor and has remained so to this day. In Street Fighter V, she, along with others, helped take down Shadaloo.
Family[]
Karin is the daughter of Daigenjuro; their butler is Ishizaki, and Shibazaki is the family steward. Karin's father Daigenjuro is a rather strict man as he constantly pushes his daughter into becoming a better heir to the Kanzuki family fortune, as he wanted a son.
Other Media[]
Super Smash Bros.[]
Karin appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a advanced-ranked primary grab-type spirit that gives the user a strong throw who can be obtained by completing a challenge by defeating 3 advanced spirits without a spirit team. Her spirit battle is a stamina battle against Lucario with increased move speed and reduced weight on Wuhu Island with decreased jump power.
Quotes[]
| “ | You had your chance...but it's time to pay up! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | Would you like to be my servant? You may start right now! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | To defeat an opponent is to get to know them intimately... | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | How rude! You lack both manners and fighting ability! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | All you need is victory! That is the motto of my family! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | It went as I expected. Thank you for making it nice and quick! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | Ho, Ho, Ho... All right! I'll fight you, if that is your wish... You'll fall prey to my fist! For they are the King of Beasts! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | Ho, Ho! It's not the win or loss, but the moment of the fight... That is what is important to me right now! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki to her friend and rival Sakura |
| “ | How rude! Who are you?! | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | Don't bother trying to explain. There is no excuse for such a disgustful loss. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | There's more to fighting than strength. You can't win until you figure that out. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | For all your bragging, you sure turned out to be a pushover. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | I can't get to excited about an easy victory. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | That was easier than I thought! Is that really all you got? | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | That has to be the most dullest most boring fight I have ever been in... | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | I've had enough of third-rate fighters like you. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | Maybe if you'd kept your eyes off my body for a second, you'd have won. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
| “ | I'll admit you have some skill. | „ |
| ~ Karin Kanzuki |
Gallery[]
Pictures[]
Outfits[]
.png "Karin Kanzuki (nostalgia).png (200 KB)")
.png "Karin Kanzuki (default).png (214 KB)")
.png "Karin Kanzuki (story).png (166 KB)")
.png "Karin Kanzuki (sporty).png (200 KB)")
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Final Fight Universe Street Fighter Universe Rival Schools Universe Street Fighter EX Universe Asura's Wrath Universe 1994 Movie Other Media Guest Characters Crossover Characters See Also | ||
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