Poison

Poison (ポイズン Poizun) is the friend and manager of Hugo. Before her career as a manager kicked off, she was well known as one of the more recognisable members of the group called Mad Gear.

Appearances
Poison is a character who originated from the Final Fight video game series, created by Akira Yasuda for Capcom. Introduced in the first Final Fight (along with similar character Roxy), she has appeared in later artworks and games in a cameo role, and is one of the few characters from the series to move on to a minor role in the main Street Fighter series. She was voiced by Atsuko Tanaka in the Street Fighter III series, and Masae Yumi in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.

Beyond the Final Fight series, Poison has appeared alongside Hugo in Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact and its sequel Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike as his manager. She was planned to appear in Capcom Fighting All-Stars, but the game was canceled. She was also slated to appear in Final Fight: Streetwise, but, along with Sodom, was cut from the final game. Recently, Poison has been announced to be a playable character in Street Fighter x Tekken.

Poison has been featured in various promotional Street Fighter related artworks, as early as Street Fighter II. Additionally, she has been used as a cameo character three times in the Street Fighter Alpha series. In terms of merchandise, an immovable model was being made for the 2008 Capcom Girls Collection line of figurines by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa, using her Final Fight attire and at 1/6th height, standing nearly 11 inches tall. A similar model was released by REFLECT later on, identical to the previous figurine except with her giving a thumbs down gesture and darker colors

History and Gender Controversy
Poison's first appearance in Final Fight featured her and a palette swap character named Roxy as recurring minor enemies for the player to fight. Named after the band by an unnamed female employee at Capcom, she was designed by Akira Yasuda to contrast against the bigger characters in the game and move about randomly. According to the book All About Capcom Head to Head Fighting Games, the characters were originally planned to be normal females, but were changed to transsexual females (or more specifically "newhalfs") due to the suggestion that "hitting women was considered rude" in America and the concern that feminist groups would sue.

A later appearance by Poison as playable character in Final Fight Revenge, an American-produced 3D fighting game spinoff of Final Fight, portrayed the character in a highly feminine manner and had her romantically interested in Final Fight hero Cody. Commentary about her ending in the game in All About Capcom suggested that the character might have gotten a sex change. The Final Fight-related character profiles featured in the 2005 compilation Capcom Classics Collection acknowledges Poison's transgender characterization, while addressing Roxy as a "she" who dislikes Poison's provacative outfits.

The discrepancy regarding Poison has been addressed more than once in interviews with former and current Capcom employees. Final Fight developer and Arika founder Akira Nishitani stated he supposed the character could be male, but added it was up to the viewer to decide. Street Fighter IV's producer Yoshinori Ono, when asked in an interview about the matter, stated "Let's set the record straight: in North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female." He later emphasized it again when asked about what female characters could be included in the game Street Fighter IV, stating that it would be too confusing to include her due to the region-specific gender.