Felicia (Darkstalkers)

Felicia (フェリシア) is a fictional character in the Darkstalkers series of fighting game by Capcom She first appeared in the 1994 game Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and its subsequent sequels, later appearing in other Capcom games outside of the Darkstalkers series and related media and merchandise.

Conception and design
Felicia is a cute-faced, curvacious "catgirl" with feline features including cat ears, pointed teeth, a tail, and oversized hands and feet that resemble a cat's paws complete with sharp claws that she uses in battle. She also has a heavy mane of long blue hair, blue eyes, and an "outfit" that consists primarily of thin strips of skintight white material that leave her largely nude except that it partially covers her breasts, a bit of her stomach and hips, and forms panty-like bottoms as well as thigh-high leg coverings.

Early in the development of Darkstalkers, the development team decided to have two female characters: a catgirl and a vampiress, characters who would eventually become Felicia and Morrigan, respectively. Initially, Morrigan was to be the "cute" female character of the title, while Felicia would be the "sexy" female character. However, as Morrigan's character developed into that of a succubus she was made to be far more sexually appealling, and the roles of the two characters was reversed.

In video games
Besides the Darkstalkers series, Felicia appears as a playable character in several other video games, including Capcom Fighting Evolution, Cross Edge, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds,  Pocket Fighter, Puzzle Fighter, SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium and SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash.

In Namco x Capcom, Felicia teams up with King II from Tekken; of all the two-character teams in the game, this is the only one to include both a Namco character and a Capcom character.

In animation
The anime OAV Darkstalkers, Felicia is shown as already having a certain amount of success as an entertainer and is just starting a tour in the human world with her own traveling show. However, her tour gets off to a rough start when she is almost killed by monks pertaining to an anti-darkstalker militia and the zombie Lord Raptor saves her by promptly killing them all. Later, as Pyron begins his bid for world domination, Felicia attacks his Huitzil robot army. She destroys a few of the robots before being overwhelmed, but she is saved when ther werewolf Jon Talbain intervenes. She is taken in by a human doctor and befriends the local children, only to be captured by a human paramilitary group. The doctor rescues her and with her faith in humanity renewed she, along with Jon Talbain, lures the robots out of the town and destroying them with an explosives laden train. A major difference between this Felicia and the game's Felicia is that there is no mention of her origin and her religiosity is reversed: while it can be assumed from her being raised by a nun that the game Felicia is Catholic, her anime counterpart informs Raptor she is ambivalent to organized religion.

Felicia is the main hero in the American cartoon series Darkstalkers, in which she was accompanied by Harry Grimoire, a character created for this particular series whose purpose (aside from a plot device) was mainly to get Felicia into trouble. She is also stated to be several hundred years old in this. Her dreams of being a singer are never mentioned (although in the first episode she was fired from Cats because her "costume" was "out of date"). Felicia was also depicted as possibly being the last of her kind, despite having other catgirl friends in the game series itself.

In comics
In the UDON Comics version of Darkstalkers, Felicia is still looking for her big break into stardom; unfortunately being a catgirl proves to be a very large roadblock on the path to fame. Along the way, she runs into Jon Talbain who believes that humans are treacherous and vile, while she thinks that the current hatred between humans and darkstalkers are just a few "bumps in the road." Despite the fact that his interference costs her a potential gig, Felicia asks Jon to accompany her, so that she can try to prove to him that humanity is not all bad. Eventually, they end up at the Catholic orphanage where Felicia grew up; her foster mother is named Sister Cecillia and is still alive and active in her foster daughter's life.

In merchandise
Several figurines of Felicia have been made since her introduction, ranging from immobile figurines by companies such as Kaiyodo, Volks, Yujin, Clayz, Kotobukiya, and MIT Japan, to a posable action figure by Medicom Toy. She is also a character card in the collectible card game Universal Fighting System.

Reception
The book 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide cited Felicia as an example of the popularity of the Darkstalkers character designs, with fans frequently cosplaying as the character at various conventions since the original game's release. Sega Saturn Magazine described her as "too cute for her own good", questioning her viability compared to other characters in the franchise. GameDaily named Felicia one of their favorite Capcom characters of all time, placing her fiftth on their list of their top 25 and naming her also their favorite female in the Darkstalkers series. In later articles they listed her as one of their favorite American female characters in video games, and also third on their list of the "Hottest Game Babes". Play magazine described her as one of Capcom's "most beloved characters", featuring her in their "Girls of Anime" special; she later also appeared in volume 2 of their "Girls of Gaming" series, noting her as one of the greatest female characters in fighting games and adding "what can you say about a cat-girl that wears something so skimpy it barely passes as an outfit?"