Karin

Karin Kanzuki (神月かりん, Kanzuki Karin) is a video game character from the Street Fighter fighting game series. She was originally a character from the 1996 Street Fighter manga Sakura Ganbaru! authored by Masahiko Nakahira. Her character would be integrated into the video game series in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where she appears as a playable character.

Appearance
As a self-styled rival of Sakura, Karin naturally has a similar outfit, complete with sailor fuku; hers is predominantly red and white with a blue bola tie. She stylises her blonde hair into long, oversized ringlet curls in a Victorian Europe-era fashion, and she occasionally wears a blue bow in the back. She also unusually wears her underwear on the outside of her leggings.

Personality
Karin's laugh and mannerisms are derived from the unpleasant "ojou" stereotypes common in anime and manga; while she commonly remains snobbish and haughty as the "ojou" stereotype, other aspects of her personality can vary wildly in other media. In Namco X Capcom, Karin is calmer, more level-headed and cynical, and serves as the voice of reason for the impulsive Sakura. In the UDON comics, on the other hand, she is extremely hateful and competitive the point of obsessiveness, making her much more of an antagonist.

Karin usually refers to other people as "commoners", or inferiors. She lives by her motto more than the rest of her family, as she takes majority control of her father's company from under his nose in a hostile takeover (ironic, since he was the one to drive that philosophy into her).

After Karin finds and eventually defeats Sakura in a rematch, she feels that she won only "by chance" and finally admits that Sakura is actually the best of them. Karin then decides to ditch her family's motto of "always winning" (at least when concerning martial arts) and starts to praise fighting itself as more importantly than victory or defeat, showing a bit of humility.

Family
Karin is the daughter of Daikenjuro and Nadeshiko Kanzuki; their butler is Ishizaki‎, and Shibazaki is the family steward. The wealthy Kanzuki family's mottos are "All you need is victory" (also interpreted as "Be the winner in everything") and, alternately, "The worst we'll ever be is the best". Her family's private estate covers 200 acres of land, and not only has its own geographical features, but its own climate. The Kanzukis are even wealthier than the Masters, so rich that they have their own satellite called "Red Spider Lilly".

Background
Karin considers herself a rival of Sakura, who defeated her when challenged.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
The Kanzuki corporation is threatened by Shadaloo, which makes demands of the dynasty. She uses the family fortune in an attempt to track down Shadaloo, as well as confronting a roving Sakura to challenge her again. Along the way, she encounters Blanka and defeats him in a friendly match, musing that "the world is so vast" for such a beast to exist. She also encounters R. Mika and battles her, and is so impressed by Mika's ability that she offers the wrestler her sponsorship. Karin eventually finds and defeats Sakura, but realizes the victory was a fluke, and that the fight itself is more important, not winning or losing (as Ken Masters told her this previously).

UDON comics
Karin appeared in UDON's Street Fighter Legends: Sakura comic. In it, she is portrayed in a considerably less honorable light, using questionable methods to gain underhanded advantages over Sakura, such as rigging a hot-dog eating contest in which Sakura took part just so Karin could challenge her later when Sakura was stuffed full of food, and thus in no real condition to fight.

Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
Karin may have been intended to appear in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter; a sprite of her with Sakura's outfit (with boots instead of sneakers, as shown below) exists somewhere in the ROM data, near Dan's sprites.

Capcom Fighting Evolution
Karin also appeared in Capcom Fighting Evolution as a playable character.

SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium
Karin appeared in Match of the Millennium as the Capcom guide character for the game's Olympic Mode.

Gameplay and fighting style
Though she styled herself as a rival to Sakura, she uses the martial art style Kanzuki-ryū kakutōjutsu, a style she created herself, instead of the "original" style Sakura uses. Karin has a wide array of strikes, throws and potent reversals, and she prides herself on being able to handle any opponent she faces. She prefers to keep her opponents guessing by varying the speed of her attacks, and also makes them second-guess their own choice of moves for fear of her powerful counterattacks.

She is well versed in various forms of Bushido, military arts, and "combative sports". This was probably mistranslated from a term that meant "combat sports", which includes various events (e.g. Japanese pro wrestling and Mixed Martial Arts groups). The sum of all her accomplishments in the field of martial arts is equivalent to 100 dan and 8 kyu (the Japanese ranking system for martial arts, among other things).

Quotes
See: Karin/Quotes

Trivia

 * Although Karin is usually depicted as an only child of the Kanzuki family in most Street Fighter media (this is even stated as much in Sakura Ganbaru!), in the Ryu Final manga, she has three unnamed sisters.
 * Emilie "Lili" de Rochefort from the Tekken series is often compared to Karin, since the former bears many similarities to her.
 * Karin and Lili both have schoolgirls (Sakura and Asuka Kazama respectively) for rivals, and declared them rivals so after they were defeated by them; Karin was defeated by Sakura after a challenge, while Lili was defeated by Asuka at the fifth King of the Iron Fist Tournament.
 * Each developed their own fighting styles, and enjoy the prospect of victory.
 * Both are somewhat selfish and stuck-up rich girls who come from wealthy families with companies/businesses being threatened in their main storylines.
 * Their butlers are present during their winning poses; Karin is shown with her butler, Ishizaki, while Lili asks her butler Sebastian if he can find a better person to fight than the person she defeated.
 * The comparisons come full circle in Street Fighter x Tekken, wherein Sakura compares Lili to Karin in the former's winquote against the latter.
 * Karin also has a similar personality and background to Nanami Kiryuu from Revolutionary Girl Utena. Karin's laugh is also similar to Nanami's.