Kasumi (Dead or Alive)

Kasumi is the main protagonist of the Dead or Alive franchise.

Originally second-in-line for the title of clan master within the Mugen Tenshin, Kasumi became nukenin, after she ran away from home in order to avenge her older brother, Hayate. She is also the half-sister and cousin of Ayane.

Appearance
Kasumi is a slender, physically-fit and petite young woman. She was designed to appear "soft" (based on the idea that Dead or Alive is softer in concept compared to Ninja Gaiden, thus making her symbolic of the series) so she was originally designed with a childlike and youthful appearance, with a round face, small facial features and wide, amber eyes. For Dead or Alive 5, her design was slightly altered to appear more mature, so she now has an oval-shaped face and narrower eyes. Her hair is also seen noticeably shorter, as it only reaches to her lower shoulders, rather than her hips.

Originally, her long hair appeared to be a chestnut brunette. However, since Dead or Alive 2, it has lightened over the years to a ginger or copper shade. To date, she has had the following different hairstyle options: a low or high side ponytail,french braid, (with two different ribbon options), or her hair down.

Her trademark outfit is a blue, side-tie dress with short puffy sleeves, white trim, her name (written in Japanese) stitched in gold on the back, and a light-colored phoenix pattern on the skirt, complete with stockings, low heeled sandals, blue & white leg guards and arm-guards. As well as this outfit - and variations of said outfit - Kasumi sports other shinobi costumes as well as modern casual clothes and Japanese school uniforms, suited for average, everyday girls.

In Dead or Alive 5 when she was under Muramasa's care, she was seen wearing a blue short sleeved traditional kimono dress with a red rope tied on her back and white flower designs on her baggy sleeves. She also wears a black obi with two white leaf designs and a white tabi.

As she infiltrates MIST, saving her older brother Hayate and fighting against Alpha-152 during Phase 4, she wears a black sleeveless v-neck skin-tight ninja suit with a blue bra underneath and four holes in each side on her top, a matching black leg guards and boots. She also wears a matching black long leather gloves and wears a blue choker on her neck. Kasumi's ribbon is now blue instead of yellow when she is tied in a high ponytail until she removes it in the end as her wakizashi sword on her back is tied in a blue rope instead of red. Her ninja suit resembles a catsuit as opposed to her trademark outfit.

In Dead or Alive 6, Kasumi receives a brand new default costume in the form of a predominantly black ninja bodysuit with white gloves and what looks like tabi with heeled kunoichi shoes, as well as sections with blue accents. Her suit is detailed with her name in gold japanese Kanji on the back like her various ninja attire, armored pads on her arms and shins, and she wears her sword on her lower back. She once again dons her blue ribbon in this outfit, and she has a small Sakura flower symbol on the front of the bodysuit as well. Like the other characters, she has other recolors of this outfit that the player will freely be able to choose.

Like the other fighters, if she is hit with a break blow, her ponytail will come undone letting her hair down. Her loose hair is noticeably somewhat thicker and longer than before as well, no longer being as thin as before.

Personality
Kasumi is portrayed throughout the Dead or Alive series as a more compassionate character than many of the other fighters. She is an honorable and kind spirit, and although a highly skilled kunoichi with deadly abilities, she does not enjoy or wish to fight. Many of the statements she makes in the game series before a round begins reflect her desire to avoid confrontation. Much of the reasoning behind this comes from the fact that in all appearances in the tournaments (with the exception of the first) her motive was not to fight or win, but to meet Hayate.

Kasumi is shown to be a "soft" character; she is not afraid to speak her mind, but as a soft person, she is emotional, honest, and always helps people. She is a highly intelligent, caring and gentle person. She is demonstrably family orientated and would like nothing more than to return home in peace. There were instances where she refused to show mercy, though, such as when she willingly goes to take revenge upon Raidou and subsequently kills him in the first game, and fighting her clone in the second game.

However, in Dead or Alive 5, in the last chapter of story mode, Kasumi's personality has changed drastically. She's still the caring person that she is, however, Kasumi is shown to be mentally stronger. She is shown to engage in battle when she needs to instead of avoiding it. An example of this is when she fights Christie, who was in her way. She also has a much stronger will as she was ready to destroy the Phase 4 project and defeat Victor Donovan at any cost. She is seen to be much happier as well and is finally at peace with both Hayate and Ayane. She also seems to have great maturity for someone her age.

She is implied in the Xtreme series to not be particularly fond of having to expose much of her body (although not quite to the extent of Misaki) or undergoing fairly risqué dance routines, as in Xtreme 2 and Paradise if she undergoes a pole dance, she admits to feeling a little embarrassed at having to do so. Likewise, in Xtreme Venus Vacation, when she is made to wear the Margarita outfit for the Mermaid story on Venus Island as part of her role as cover girl, she is clearly shown to be embarrassed at having to wear it due to its extremely revealing nature, even more so when she alongside Marie Rose end up having to do an extremely suggestive "prayer pose" for the resulting photo op.

Abilities
Kasumi is considered a top tier character due to her balanced character traits. Her most significant strength is her excellent speed; she is one of the fastest striking characters in the game. Her range is average despite being one of the shorter fighters and she has an extremely large and varied move set, but with fairly simplistic input commands, which can be delayed to increase her deception. Together with her speed, these traits allow her to easily keep enemies on the defensive and dominate slow characters like Bass Armstrong and Bayman. However, her single strikes do little damage and thus she must rely on long combos and throws to effectively deal damage. She is bad at long range and is a very unsafe character as she can be throw punished easily after completing many of her strings, but she has her mix-up game and capacity for delaying combos to compensate for this. Her guard breaks are also quite unreliable to use.

As of Dead or Alive 5, Kasumi possesses more teleportation abilities and can teleport after certain moves. This slight change in her style allows Kasumi to utilize stronger mix ups and longer overall combos.

She is fairly easy to pick up due to her simple moves and balanced stats, and is a deadly weapon in the hands of experts who can utilize her deadly combos and air juggles. However, she is not easy to master and players should avoid mashing with her due to the amount of unsafe moves she has that could be throw punished.

Trivia

 * Kasumi is Tomonobu Itagaki's favorite character in the series.
 * Kasumi's biggest trademarks are the sakura petals that blow in the wind around her, her wakizashi sword, and her blue ninja outfit.
 * In the Japanese versions of the Dead or Alive Xtreme games, Kasumi's favorite color is cherry blossom pink(sakura iro, lit. "cherry blossom color"). However, in the English versions of the games, the color has been translated as either milky pink (Xtreme Beach Volleyball and Xtreme 2) or cherry pink (Xtreme 3).
 * Kasumi has been ranked numerous times in many countdown lists created by game-based publications:
 * Ranked #3 on TeamXbox's "Top Ten Xbox Babes" list in 2004.
 * In the 2005 TV show Video Game Vixens, Kasumi won in the category "Dressed to Kill."
 * IGN featured her in their "Videogame Babe of the Day" series in 2006.
 * Ranked #38 on The Age newspapers's "The Top 50 Xbox Characters of All Time" list in 2008.
 * Ranked #8 on GameDaily's "Top 50 Hottest Game Babes" list in 2008.
 * Ranked #1 on VG Chartz's "Hottest Videogame Babes" list in 2009.
 * Ranked #3 on UGO Networks's "Top 50 Videogame Hotties" list in 2010.
 * The reason Kasumi, Ayane, Eliot, and Kokoro do not have listed ages in western versions of the Dead or Alivegames from the original Dead or Alive to Dead or Alive 4 is because they were under 18 years old. Tecmo decided to give them undefined ages to avoid the risk of a moral backlash from western countries.
 * Kasumi is the only character in the series to still retain two of her default costumes since the first game. Her blue ninja costume and white ninja costume have appeared in all of the Dead or Alive games in the main series.
 * Interestingly, in Dead or Alive 5 Kasumi's loose hair is thinner and shorter than when worn in her ponytail since realistically her hair down would be about bottom length. Her braid also is shorter but possibly as a throwback to her Dead or Alive original appearance, and her sideponytail is also shorter possibly to prevent clipping.
 * Kasumi's Dead or Alive 4 ending caused some confusion due to it being considered out of place (depicting Kasumi having a dream about being a mermaid). Itagaki eventually explained that the idea behind the ending was that, since Dead or Alive 4 was intended to be the last game in the franchise, at least while he was in control of the series, he wanted to give an abstract allegory that she had been freed of the Mugen Tenshin Law mandating her execution for being a Runaway Shinobi, especially when he regretted how he ended up permanently dooming her in the ending of Dead or Alive 3.
 * In the original treatment of Dead or Alive 5 by Itagaki, Kasumi was to reunite with Ayane in a Snowy field shortly after the events of the fourth tournament. Kasumi initially believed Ayane was coming to try and kill her, and protested that they just stopped DOATEC and that everything was over, only for Ayane to reveal the face of a soldier she had killed and revealed that she was actually coming to warn Kasumi that DOATEC's still around, and that their village was destroyed by the DOATEC-Asia group. Ayane then collapsed into Kasumi's arms, although not before telling her that Ayane will kill Miyako. However, this story treatment got rejected when Dead or Alive 5 changed hands.