Kat (Gravity Rush)

Kat, birth name Alua, is the main protagonist of Gravity Rushand Gravity Rush 2, also appearing in Another Story - Raven's Choice.

Having started out as a lost girl with no memory, Kat quickly embraces a superhero role within the city of Hekseville as a gravity shifter. Her adventures eventually take her to the ends of the world, where she is allowed glimpses of her clouded past. ''

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Kat is a member of the Heroes Coalitions and is part of the Full Force Guerilla.

Appearance
Kat is a young girl with dark-tan skin, medium blonde hair, red eyes, and light defined lips. In Gravity Rush, her main outfit is a sleeveless, black romper/playsuit with golden decorations/accessories along with two golden rings each wrapping around her hips, two around her legs, and one in the shape of the sun on her stomach. She wears a matching headband and a long scarf that reaches past her waist. She also dons a pair of black detached sleeves with golden rings at the ends, and detached socks with golden rings at the ends and black and gold heels.

In Gravity Rush 2 and Gravity Rush - Overture: the Animation, Kat's main outfit is slightly changed. It has a hole/cut under her cleavage as well as two in the back, and two golden rings wrapped around her upper thighs, making it slightly more shorts-like. And she now wears whole black socks with the rings at the top ends, replacing the previous detached socks.

In Gravity Rush 2s DLC—Another Story: The Ark of Time- Raven's Choice—her attire is the same as it is in Gravity Rush.

Personality
Kat is a down-to-earth, intelligent, selfless girl who is willing to make personal sacrifices in order to save people in need. Despite having no memories prior to her fall to Hekseville, she is mostly very upbeat and welcomes the attention and praise of being a superhero. At times, she expresses the desire to have a romantic partner, but she demonstrates great emotional strength when confronting danger. Kat is outspoken and sensitive to the feelings and attitudes of others as can be seen in her relationship with Raven and Yunica. Kat is not very fond of sarcasm, injustice, nor receiving cryptic advice.

In Boutoume, the Dream Guardian described Kat's former self as "weak" and "vulnerable," and implied that she was not a strong leader. However, after her fall to Hekseville, Kat embraces the hero role and demonstrates leadership during her missions with the police and her time in Boutoume.

In Gravity Rush: The Animation - Overture, Kat is also pretty gourmand. This was shown as she spent all her money buying various snacks in the plaza of Lei Colmosna, capable of fighting an entire horde of Nevi just for a meat skewer, and crying over said skewer after she failed to save it. In the second episode, while hanging out with Raven, the two shifters indulged in numerous snacks inside the Pipe House.

During her life as Queen Alua, Kat was roughly the same person; selfless, kind, and wanting nothing more than to help people, even going against her servants' wishes of bringing people from the below world to Eto in an effort to save them from the impending doomsday.

Abilities
Kat is a shifter, a person who is able to able to manipulate and produce gravity, at will. When doing this, her body glows red and a strange luminous heart-like object can be seen inside her chest. She can't actually fly, but because she shifts gravity, she's instead in a levitating state; when she moves through the air, she's technically "falling" in the desired direction.

Kat can perform the Gravity Kick from the air by shifting gravity in the direction she aims at.

She is also able to emit a Stasis Field that allows her to lift objects around her and throw them. She uses it primarily to carry people to designated areas as opposed to for combative purposes. Gravity Rush 2 expands on her Stasis Field with a charged version called Piercing Throw which surrounded stasis objects in vortexes that allows it to pierce through multiple weak enemies or inflict multiple hits on stronger enemies. Its secondary "seeking effect" is what allows it to hit multiple targets or do multiple hits. It can even gain some defensive properties when levelled up enough.

Similar to the Gravity Kick, Kat can use another technique by shifting gravity called Gravity Slide, which lets her "slide" across a surface at high speeds.

In Gravity Rush, Kat would learn special attacks from Power Trees in the Rift Planes that are the Spiraling Claw, the Gravity Typhoon, and the Micro Black Hole. The Spiraling Claw, as it sounds, is a technique that involves Kat spin-diving into her enemies with shape-shifted claws. Depending on the size of the target will determine if Kat crushes or strikes them. The Gravity Typhoon involves Kat creating gravitational energy and hailing it at a target. In Gravity Rush 2, the Gravity Typhoon performs differently; Kat now uses objects from the environment and hurls them at her target. The Micro Black Hole has Kat summon a black hole that engulfs and destroys most things within its center, in Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush 2.

In Gravity Rush 2, Kat gains the ability to use the Lunar Style and Jupiter Style, which change how her gravity manipulation works. While using Lunar Style, she is noticeably more lightweight and much swifter in movement, and she can use a Wormhole Kick, which teleports her a short distance when used freely and long distance when used on an enemy within striking parameter. While using Jupiter Style, she becomes extremely heavy, can block physical attacks, and can use a Surge Kick to create a powerful shock-wave that repels enemies on whatever surface it lands on.

Also in Gravity Rush 2, Kat received a transformation called "Panther Mode," a fusion type form with Dusty that greatly increase Kat's physical attack damage and speed and gives her auto-health regeneration.

In Gravity Rush: The Animation - Overture, Kat displays impressive speed and physical strength, especially after she is angered by the Nevi when they destroy her meat skewer. This is shown when she rushes through a crowd of Nevi while punching them rapidly, and also when she punches one of them with enough force to break the ground.

With Dusty at her side, Kat displays a degree of invulnerability, frequently surviving falls from heights that would greatly harm or kill a normal person. When Dusty returns to her in Gravity Rush 2, Kat is shown to be rendered immune to the intense pressure of gravity storms, and does not require the pressurized suits used by other gravity miners.

Weaknesses
Her gravity-shifting abilities are entirely dependent on Dusty; if they are separated, or if Dusty is weakened by "Nevidelic" (Nevi killer food), she will be unable to use any of her powers, or their efficiency will be weakened severely, respectively. Kat appears to be incapable of fighting when hungry, as she complains about an empty stomach in Gravity Rush: The Animation - Overture.

Trivia

 * Kat's name in the original Japanese version is "Kitten."
 * Incidentally, "Kitten" is one of her many nicknames in the English version.
 * Kat's voice actress, Sanae Kobayashi, has had major voice roles in both anime and film; notably, she was the voice of Alexis Rhodes in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, and Chris Thorndyke in Sonic X. Among her video game roles, she voices Seong Mi-Na from Soulcalibur IV and Ohatsu from Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams in the Japanese versions of those games.
 * Touching Kat (via touching the screen in Gravity Rush or the PS4 touch pad in Gravity Rush Remastered) will cause her to jolt and feel uneasy.
 * It is/was believed that Kat slept in the nude. However, this was stopped in the sequel due to sharing a room with Syd on the Banga Settlement.
 * According to the Gravity Rush 2 Complete Guide, Kat is 17 years old at the outset of Gravity Rush 2.
 * According to her character bio in Everybody's Golf 6, Kat is 160cm (5 feet 3 inches) tall, just one inch over the average height for a Japanese woman, also making her a head shorter than Syd. It is not known if her high heels are factored in, though. Her weight remains unknown to this day, however.
 * Even without the guide, she is implied to be a teenager when she states that she cannot drink alcohol, suggesting that she was 19 at the very most.
 * Kat's dark skin and blonde hair share something in common with the Japanese subcultures of gyaru and ganguro fashion. These subcultures emerged in Japan in the late 1990's and early 2000's, largely as a way for young women to rebel against the traditional Japanese standard of feminine beauty as light-skinned and dark-haired. Given Kat's rebellious personality and the occasional comments she receives from others about being less-than-stunning in the looks department, the connection to such subcultures seems likely. By contrast, Raven represents an idealized form of Japanese bihaku beauty: pale-skinned with long, dark hair.
 * This is supported by producer Makato Isomine and Naoko Sato's comments that they were concerned while creating the first game that Kat would come off as "too Japanese," and aimed to give her (along with the rest of the series) a more westernised/European feel.
 * According to character designer Shunsuke Saito, Kat does not wear underwear with her default outfit.
 * Despite her sweet personality, Kat is the only character to swear in the whole series, with a single use of the word "crap" when spotted by police in The Hekseville Phantom. For some reason, this only applies to the NTSC release and was changed to "damn" in the PAL region.