Laura

"Boom! That's how you start the fight and finish it quickly! (ドーンと始めて、パパッと終わらせちゃうよ！)"

- Laura (Street Fighter V)

Laura Matsuda (ララ・マツダ/松田) is a character in the Street Fighter series who first appeared in Street Fighter V. She was first seen in the Japanese game magazine Famitsu and through a leak on Twitter. Laura was the third of the four new fighters confirmed for Street Fighter V, the first new female fighter in the game and the third Brazilian fighter to appear in the main game series following Blanka and her younger brother Sean.

Appearance
Laura has long black hair, the right side being worn loose and the left side starting as cornrow braids before blending with the rest at the back. She has light brown eyes.

She wears a bright green sports bra top with yellow linings and a tie at the centre, matching bright green martial arts pants with yellow linings with a black belt to her waist, it has black and yellow linings and at the center resembles a bright green thong and black ankle wraps on her bare feet. She also wears several bracelets in different colors similar to Elena's. The color scheme of her outfit matches the Brazilian flag.

Her alternate costume consists of a short sleeved bright green mini shirt which uncovers half of her breasts and the word "bonita" (Brazilian Portuguese for "beautiful [woman]") at the center of her mini shirt, denim short shorts with straps of her black thong exposed, brown gladiator-style sandals, yellow and red bracelets in both of her wrists and a red choker on her neck with a gold round at the center of her choker.

Her second alternate costume consists of a yellow openly karate gi with black outlines, a black bikini top underneath, bright green buruma with a black karate belt to her waist and black leg wraps on her feet. She also wears black fingerless gloves. Her braids are tied in a high ponytail.

Personality
Described as "bohemian", Laura has a free spirited and energetic personality and enjoys thrills. Similar to Makoto, she has a desire to promote her family's fighting style. Laura also likes to give advice to others. Her character-specific versus quotes imply that she is also very easy to befriend too.

In A Shadow Falls, Laura has a very hyper-active side when she tries to use her Jiu-Jitsu moves and a headlock to her younger brother, Sean which is the reason for him to be afraid of her. She also shown to be short tempered when she mistakes Ken Masters as an enemy before Sean corrects her about them being saved from the Shadaloo soldiers led by F.A.N.G.

Concept
The earliest design of Laura bore a near resemblance to Street Fighter EX fighter Pullum Purna, a later design had her resembling her brother Sean more closely.

Background
Laura Matsuda, her younger brother Sean, and older brother Fabio were born in Brazil, though their father (Yuichiro Matsuda) and paternal grandfather (Kinjiro Matsuda) were Japanese (hence the surname). Yuichiro married Brenda and had three children (Fabio, Laura, Sean). Laura has two maternal cousins (Enzo and Manuela Da Silva) who practice capoeira.

Laura was trained by Kinjiro in the art of the family's Matsuda Jiu-Jitsu. When Sean leaves at some point to become Ken Masters' apprentice and pupil, Laura becomes the heir of the art.

Prologue story
Heir to the Matsuda Jiu-Jitsu style, Laura looks for opponents to fight and to promote her fighting style. Before leaving her house to seek strong fighters, she hugs and teases Sean a bit. She encounters Birdie and offers him a free meal if they fight, afterwards Laura asks Birdie if he knows any strong fighters to which he points her in the direction of Karin. After their fight, Laura asks her if she knows any strong fighters, Karin replies by telling her about Ryu, after finding and fighting the wandering warrior, he talks about the Satsui no Hado. Later on, Laura meets and fights against Zangief who gives her tickets to a wrestling scouting event.

At some point during R. Mika's prologue story, Laura is fighting against R. Mika in a wrestling match while Zangief is watching both of them. Before her match with R. Mika is interrupted, Laura happily states that she was tougher than she thought.

A Shadow Falls
In the main story, Laura was later seen teaming up with Alex in a tag team match against both Zangief and R. Mika. She gets the ring announcer's megaphone to inform the audience that their tag team match will become an epic showdown. Laura, Zangief and R. Mika are cheering the audience while Alex shrugs at the trio until it was postponed due to the black out made by the one of the Seven Moons created by Shadaloo.

Laura is revealed to be carrying one of the chess pieces as mentioned by Sean who is almost intercepted by F.A.N.G. and his Shadaloo soldiers before Ken saves him. Laura arrives to see Ken, Cammy, Chun-Li and Sean who manages to put her brother in a headlock. She angrily mistakes Ken as the enemy who attempts to get the chess pieces until Sean corrects her telling her that he was saved by the Shadaloo soldiers who were beaten by them. Laura apologizes and makes a deal with Ken if she will join to their group because of the chess piece that she carries, she will put Matsuda Jiu-Jitsu as part of his online karate as Ken agrees to her deal as Laura was excited to join with them to stop Shadaloo.

Fighting Style and Gameplay
Her fighting style is an original martial art inspired by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu known as "Matsuda Jiu-Jitsu". Laura has been seen to use grappling techniques and breaking throws. Some of her kicking moves are similar to Elena's Rhino Horn and she is able to manipulate electricity similar to Blanka. Her Thunder Clap projectile works in a similar fashion to Juri's Fuhajin and some of her special attacks include grabbing her opponent and breaking their leg while another involves slamming the opponent to the ground and breaking their arm.

Her Critical Art, the Inazuma Spin Hold has her grabbing the opponent in a tornado fashion in mid air and slams them to the ground, forming a lightning strike as she spins her opponent in a electric dodge ball (similar to Blanka's first Ultra Combo in the Street Fighter IV games) to finish her opponent with a headlock.

Street Fighter: Resurrection
Laura appears in the live-action miniseries Street Fighter: Resurrection portrayed by Natascha Hopkins.

Quotes
Laura/Quotes

Trivia

 * Laura is the heaviest playable female character in the Street Fighter series.


 * She is the first playable grappler fighter in the series to have a projectile.


 * Laura's hairstyle is similar to Alicia Keys' in her music video "If I Ain't Got You".


 * Laura shares some similarities to Eddy Gordo, Christie Monteiro and Katarina Alves from the Tekken series; all four of them being Brazilian fighters, sharing a similar outfit with the first fighter and a similar lively and seductive attitude with the last two fighters.
 * Laura's first alternate costume bears a little resemblance to Christie's Player 2 outfit in Tekken 4 and her hairstyle from her second alternate costume has a slight resemblance to Christie's hairstyle.


 * Whenever Laura summons her electric projectile, she is seen in a pose that involves both her hands touching her hair. This is also shown in her intro, outro and her selection pose. This was later confirmed as being the way she generates static electricity via her first V-Comment, which says "Anyone can release electricity! Rub your hair a little, and zap! Electricity!"
 * Laura seems to have face, body shape, and personality slightly similar to those of Brazilian funk singer Anitta, although nothing has been said about that by Capcom.
 * Furthering the similarities, Laura's theme song has a slight resemblance to Anitta's 2015 hit single, "Bang", mainly in its use of synthesized brass instruments.

Gallery
Laura/Gallery