Video Game / Kasumi Ninja

Pakawa vs. Angus, in the showdown of the bad ethnic stereotypes.

Kasumi Ninja is one of the many fighting games that tried to copy Mortal Kombat.

Released for the short-lived Atari Jaguar in 1994, and claiming to be the "Mortal Kombat Killer", Kasumi Ninja could not live to those standards. As a matter of fact, it was blasted by critics.

The plot of this game is, in a word, nonexistent. The only information the game gives is that the game takes place on Kasumi Island. In fact, part of the blame for this game's failure lies in the rushed production schedule the developers imposed upon themselves. This need to get the game done as fast as possible led to nigh everything not related to the gameplay or unlocking characters getting excised.

Today, the game is notorious on the Internet for one character in particular: Angus, the Scotsman who shoots fireballs out from under his kilt.

Not to be confused with the ninja named Kasumi from Dead or Alive.

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Kasumi Ninja provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Thundra and Danja are these. Thundra is the Queen of a warrior tribe in the Amazon who earned her position by being their strongest warrior and ringleader of an operation that sabotages deforestation efforts in their rainforest home. Likewise, Danja is an assistant Defence Attorney who moonlights as a Vigilante by night, and is a professional street fighter who uses mixed martial arts and Explosive Bolas to bring criminals to justice.
• Adjustable Censorship: There are four blood levels:
  • None (Bloodless Carnage)
  • Combat (blood flies out when fighters are hit)
  • Disturbing (allows blood to fly and pool on the floor)
  • Gore Fest (both of the above and enables the Death Moves, which can be disabled by parental lock-out)
• Asian Speekee Engrish: The announcer, who speaks in a ridiculously-thick, stereotypical Chinese accent that's especially noticeable in how he pronounces certain words and phrases.
  Announcer: SERECT... YAW FAITAH!
  Announcer: ENTURENG... THA COMBAHT ZAWN! ^note Entering the combat zone!
  Announcer: CHO NO MASSY! ^note Show no mercy!
• Badass Native: Pakawa. He's the chief of the Comanche fighting tribe, leads a specialized group of warriors known as the Tu-Wee-Kah — who are outright stated to have been the tribal equivalent of the Green Berets — in a fight against greedy colonists who betrayed the Comanche and seek to remove them from their homeland by force, and is himself a highly experienced warrior.
• Blood Knight: Angus' biography states that he's a blacksmith who loves fighting, and having beaten every challenger at his native Loch Katrine, is looking for an opponent that will give him the fight of his life.
• Bruce Lee Clone: Chagi is this, but partially composited with Johnny Cage; what with being an Asian martial art enthusiast who makes a lot of Funny Bruce Lee Noises as he fights, and has a background as both a movie/television star and owner of successful chains of kickboxing schools and convenience stores.
• Captain Ersatz: Notably, the two starting characters are clearly supposed to be Scorpion and Sub-Zero, right down to the color schemes and rivalry.
• Captain Ethnic: You thought Thunder Hawk and Nightwolf were stereotypical? Take a look at Pakawa, who even does the "HEYA-HOYA-HEYA-HOYA" dance when he wins, scalps his victims for his Death Move, and fights in a stereotypical Native American camp with tipi tents and totem poles.
  • The very, very Scottish Angus falls under this as well; what with the bright red beard, fighting in a kilt, the penchant for violence and pub brawling, has the Loch Ness — complete with a bagpipe-based theme song — as his home stage, and flat-out says "Och Aye!" when he wins.
• Demonic Possession: Gyaku is said to be possessed by the most powerful demon in the netherworld.
• Evil Counterpart: Gyaku to Habaki and Senzo. Responsible for the massacre of the Dragon Cloud Temple after being possessed by a demon, he is a gray Palette Swap (in his first form) of the duo, who even shares the same Finishing Move as Habaki.
• Evil Is Bigger: Gyaku's second, demonic form is much larger than any of the playable characters.
• Excuse Plot: There's some semblance of a plot in the attract mode and ending, with a secret island meant to train ninja, dark gods taking over, and a prophecy to help the player find a way to beat the Big Bad. Not like anyone's plot actually bothers with this.
• Expy: Chagi shares a similar design to Liu Kang but is a Composite Character with Johnny Cage, in also being a film star. The three Palette Swap ninjas — Habiki, Senzo and Gyaku — are also basically the game's equivalents of Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot.
• Finishing Move: The Death Moves, which are as follows:
  • Habaki and Gyaku (first form): Throws the opponent above himself, then splits the opponent in half with his fist.
  • Senzo: Kicks the opponent in the gut, causing the opponent to double over on their knees, then jumps on the opponent's head to stomp it to mush.
  • Chagi: Knees the opponent in the gut, then kicks through the opponent's chest.
  • Angus: Repeatedly punches the opponent's face, decapitates the opponent by kicking their head into the air, then causes the falling head to explode by headbutting it out of the air.
  • Thundra: Flies through the opponent, splitting the opponent in half.
  • Pakawa: Knocks the opponent onto the ground, then scalps them and holds the scalp in triumph.
  • Alaric: Uppercuts the opponent, then places a bomb on the opponent, blowing them up.
  • Danja: Throws a set of Explosive Bolas towards the opponent, blowing them up.
  • Gyaku (second form): Uppercuts the opponent, then rips the opponent's head off.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There's not much of an explanation as to where the heck the end boss, a Palette Swap ninja who appears to be the Noob Saibot to the other two ninjas' Scorpion and Sub-Zero, came from. There is even less explanation as to how he transformed into a silly Kaiju monster.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Habaki, Gyaku (first form), and Thundra's fatalities involve doing this to the opponent. Gyaku's stage (second form) has a corpse with the lower and upper bodies hung from the branches of two different trees.
• Historical Domain Character: Alaric was probably King Alaric I, leader of the Visigoths.
• Lizard Folk: Gyaku's second form resembles a humanoid frill lizard.
• Man in a Kilt: Angus wears one, which he lifts up to shoot fireballs from under it.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: The elder ninjas of Kasumi Island embodied different aspects of human nature; Hiei embodied the lighter aspect of human nature (nice), Gyaku embodies the darker side of human nature (mean), and Kaioh embodied the aspect of indifference (inbetween).
• Ninja: Just like Mortal Kombat, we have a few of these as well with differently colored clothes.
• One-Winged Angel: If the player does not perform a Finishing Move on Gyaku in the single player mode, on the hard or Ninja God difficulty level, he will transform into his second more powerful form.
• Palette Swap: Habaki, Senzo and Gyaku (first form) are all these of each other, without even so much as a Head Swap. They even share the same move sets, with the only difference being that Senzo has a different Finishing Move, while Habaki and Gyaku share the same one.
• Playable Menu: The single-player mode has an unusual variation of this, where you walk around a round dungeon-like room in 3D and go up to statues of the game's characters to select them. You do this first for the one you want to play as — you only have Habaki and Senzo to start with, but you unlock more as you beat them — and then the one you want to fight after.
• Playing with Fire: The palette swapped ninjas' special moves involve throwing fireballs, Chagi shoots green fireballs, and Angus' special move involves him (somehow) shooting fireballs from under his kilt. Gyaku in his second form breathes fire.
• Prepare to Die: The game outright proclaims this ("TIME TO DIE") when Gyaku turns into his Second Form; which happens if you defeat his regular self but don't use a Death Move on him after.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: All of the palette swapped ninjas, who have bright red eyes on the Versus screens and are dangerous fighters who can teleport and throw fireballs.
• Stout Strength: Pakawa, who is noticeably heavy-set but hits very hard.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Chagi, who wears martial-art pants and a headband, but no shirt. Notably, he's the only fighter (Apart from Gyaku's second form, who outright fights naked) who doesn't wear anything up top.

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