Street Fighter Alpha/Characters/Karin

Karin Kanzuki has only ever appeared in Street Fighter Alpha 3. Karin is a rival of fellow schoolgirl Sakura and has a similar outfit, complete with sailor fuku (this one being predominantly red and white with a blue bola tie), but uses the martial art style Kanzukiryu Kakutoujutsu instead of Sakura's imitation of Ryu's fighting style. Her hair is styled into long, oversized ringlets, and she occasionally wears a blue bow in the back. Due to the fact that she is from a wealthy family, Karin is quite snooty and thinks other people are her "commoners", or inferiors.

Karin considers herself a rival of Sakura, who defeated Karin when challenged. Karin is from a very rich family, whose motto is "All you need is victory" and alternately "The worst we'll ever be is the Best", and used the family fortune when attempting to track down a roving Sakura to challenge her again. Karin defeated Sakura, but realized the victory was a fluke, and that the fight itself is more important, not winning or losing.

As much as Sakura resembles a female Ryu, Karin can be said to represent a female Ken (with her long blonde hair, predominantly red outfit, a rich family and sense of rivalry with Sakura). However, unlike Ryu and Ken (who were trained under the same master and use the same techniques), Sakura and Karin utilize different fighting styles. Additionally, unlike Sakura, Karin seems to look up to Ken, as indicated in her Street Fighter Alpha 3 dialogue with him, but wants to surpass him and makes no effort to emulate his style.

Karin first appeared in the Street Fighter-based manga Sakura Ganbaru by Masahiko Nakahira. Although originally not part of the Street Fighter canon, she was integrated into the games after Nakahira was hired by Capcom as a character designer. In the home versions of SFA3, her stage was changed from being a nighttime version of Sakura's stage, to a sailing yacht stage. According to the Japanese version of the home version of SFA3, as well as the arcade game Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper, the name of her family's yacht is the "Queen of Victory." Karin's butler, Ishizaki, and her dog appear in her win poses. She also happens to be R. Mika's sponsor.