Laura Matsuda

• 1. Introduction

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  Laura Matsuda made her debut in Street Fighter V, the 2016 entry in Capcom's long-running fighting game series. She was revealed at the Brasil Game Show on the 8th of October 2015, four months before the game itself reached shelves. From that reveal onward, her design would draw both admiration and open criticism, splitting players, reviewers and academics alike. Some of that reaction centers on who she is and where she comes from, and some of it centers on how she was drawn. To understand both, the story starts with a request made to a Japanese game director by Capcom's own office in Brazil.

• 2. Designing a Brazilian Fighter

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  Nakayama, the director assigned to the project, received a specific request from Capcom's own office in Brazil: give the country a representative besides the veteran fighter Blanka. He wanted a 'cheerful girl'. Producer Yoshinori Ono, meanwhile, pictured a beautiful woman with capoeira-inspired movement, an idea sparked by his 2011 visit to Rio de Janeiro's Brazil Game Show. Ono wanted her to reflect Japan's fanciful, not necessarily accurate, image of Brazilian women, and to capture how impressed he'd been with the country itself. Art director Toshiyuki Kamei then built the actual design around two keywords: 'Brazil' and 'Jiu Jitsu'.

  One discarded concept put a male soccer player, raised in a poor neighborhood, into the ring, fighting with a ball and soccer-style kicks. Nakayama scrapped it, feeling it echoed Roberto, a character from Capcom's own Rival Schools series. A concept nicknamed 'Wild Rapunzel' gave her long, blonde hair that doubled as both weapon and shield against an opponent's attacks. Other drafts included a tall woman with dreadlocks and a long reach, and a physical therapist whose moves were meant to look 'extremely painful'. One version wrapped her body in bandages that tore away to reveal more skin as an attack grew stronger. A design called 'Clumsy Cutie' dressed her in a patchwork shirt and pants. As the fight went on, the clothes tore and shredded, exposing more of her body. It was never used, though Nakayama later considered reviving it for a separate, stand-alone character. Other outfits used a black belt as a makeshift bra and emphasized her curves, especially her buttocks. Nakayama explained his reasoning directly: 'a characteristic of Brazilian women is that their buttocks tend to get bigger when they exercise.' He said he wanted them left exposed for ease of movement.

  Designers weighed hairstyle options meant to look 'sexy' or 'naughty' well into development. By late development, the team settled on a doji martial arts outfit built around an 'MMA' theme, adjusted to feel both comfortable and quick. Kamei said the look started out more orthodox and casual, then grew more sophisticated the longer he worked on it. Inspiration at this stage came from Japanese hakama skirts and the attire worn by professional wrestling divas. Early mockups placed a Brazilian flag on her back; that detail was later replaced with a full color scheme across the whole outfit. Her name traces back to Nakayama's own nickname for her, Lala, which he felt carried a Portuguese feel. Nakayama later posted several of these abandoned early designs, with full profiles and artwork, on Capcom's 'Shadaloo Archives' website.

• 3. A Body That Divided Opinion

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  Laura stands 5 ft 9 in, or 175 cm, tall. Her primary outfit is a green sleeveless jacket with yellow highlights, tied beneath her breasts. It's paired with matching doji pants, sandals and a black martial arts belt. The color scheme was chosen to highlight what the team called her 'Brazilian femininity' and her ties to Jiu-Jitsu. Bracelets on each wrist served as small design accents. Her hair is long and flowing on the right side, and styled into cornrow braids on the left. Combined with a 'voluptuous' build, it was meant to give her a distinctly South American look. The initial plan left her rear exposed, covered only by a thong. Capcom Brazil objected, so black tights were added beneath the pants on the final model to cover the exposed skin.

  In the finished game, Laura received several alternate outfits, including versions built around hotpants and swimsuits. There's also a Christmas-themed look and one modeled on Gloria, a character from Devil May Cry 4. Her outfit for the game's 'Story' mode consists of daisy dukes, a thong and a shirt that exposes the underside of her breasts. Nakayama personally oversaw the design. He added tanlines as his own personal touch, worried at first they might read as 'overkill' before deciding to keep them anyway. That balance of exposure and concealment, worked out on the character model, would soon carry over into how Capcom pitched her personality.

• 4. Everyday Carnivale

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  G.K. Bowes voices Laura in English, while Yoko Hikasa provides her Japanese performance. According to Johnathan Klein, the English-language voice acting director for Street Fighter V, her personality was built around one idea. For her, it's as if 'everyday' were Carnivale. The team wanted her brash and playful, yet sweet enough that she felt like she was 'killing you with kindness.' Nakayama, separately, wanted her to come across as 'cool', someone who 'understood their own sexiness' without turning 'sarcastic'. He also decided early on to make her the sister of an existing character, Sean Matsuda, from 1997's Street Fighter III, specifically to deepen Sean's own background. That sibling connection would resurface later, on both the fighting stage and the printed page.

• 5. Throws and Thunder Clap

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  Laura was trained by her grandfather in Jiu-Jitsu, and comes from a family with ties to both traditional Japanese martial arts and Brazilian Capoeira. In Street Fighter V's story mode, 'A Shadow Falls', she joins the other fighters in their effort to stop the criminal organization Shadaloo. Grabbing an opponent and slamming their face into the ground is one of Laura's signature grappling attacks. Like Blanka, she channels electricity into some of her attacks, including an electric projectile.

  Her original design leaned almost entirely on throws to pressure opponents. The development team felt this left her short on individuality, since several other fighters used similar attacks. Combat director Ryuichi Shigeno said he 'hastily' added a slow-moving projectile, 'Thunder Clap', to set her apart, and was ultimately pleased with how it turned out. That last-minute addition wasn't the only place Laura and Sean's rivalry played out; it would follow her into print as well.

• 6. Beyond the Arcade

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  In the web mini-series Street Fighter: Resurrection, a prequel to the events of Street Fighter V, Laura is portrayed by Natascha Hopkins. The series explores her relationship with her family and her involvement with the other characters.

  In print, she appeared in the Street Fighter V Free Comic Book Day Special, part of UDON Entertainment's Street Fighter comic series. There, she defeats her brother Sean in a Brazilian martial arts tournament by abandoning their family's Jiu-Jitsu techniques, which leaves him furious. Off the page, her design and story would face a very different kind of contest, in the court of public and critical opinion.

• 7. Critics and Scholars Disagree

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  In 2019, Capcom released a collectible statue of Laura wearing a blue and purple bikini. In 2022, she appeared on one of the covers of the Street Fighter Swimsuit Special 1 comic issue.

  Paste writers Suriel Vazquez and Eric Van Allen called her one of the series' most 'unique' additions, even while flagging weak story elements. They wrote that 'her spunk and use of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu make her a solid new addition to the lengthy Street Fighter gallery.' Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek disagreed sharply, naming her the worst addition to Street Fighter V's base roster. He praised her design and said he saw potential in her, but called her incredibly annoying. Her main trait, he added, seemed to be that 'she's Sean's less-interesting sister.'

  In an opinion piece for Red Bull, Greg Candalez argued that Laura exemplifies an inaccurate stereotype of Brazilian women as sensual and provocatively dressed. The Daily Telegraph went further, listing Laura as an example of 'porn-type heroines that are harming children', pointing specifically to her outfits. Screen Rant's Christopher Hodges was similarly critical of her design. He wrote that she was 'designed only to be hot and absurdly-dressed and not a character with any actual depth.' The Brazilian site Universo Online agreed, arguing that her 'hypersexualized' design worked against broader efforts to portray women better in games. The site felt her later outfits only made the issue worse, especially set against less-sexualized female characters.

  Brazilian journalist Bianca Freitas pushed back, arguing Laura represented a stereotyped cultural ideal much like many other characters across the franchise. He felt the hypersexualization claims were misplaced, since in his view Laura was no more sexualized than many of the male fighters. Freitas described the broader reaction as a 'distortion' between how the world imagines Brazil and how Brazilians see themselves. He called the country itself a 'universe of cultures.' He noted it isn't uncommon to see women in Rio de Janeiro's peripheral regions who resemble Laura. He felt Ono's original inspiration held up, given that context.

  The Brazilian Society for Interdisciplinary Studies of Communication examined Laura through the lens of race and feminism. The group wrote that 'Laura has her image and her body hypersexualized and objectified for the contemplation of the players.' They pointed specifically to the band across her buttocks, calling it 'purposely exposed so that the male gaze is met.' In their view, it suited neither combat nor her role as a fighter. Still, the group noted that her outfit's color and bracelets carried 'signs that express sensuality, joy, sexualization, miscegenation and Brazilian identity.' They also observed that, compared to her darker-skinned brother Sean, Laura's lighter skin read as an example of racial 'whitening' toward 'eurocentric' aesthetic standards.

  The Animus Inter-American Journal of Media Communication studied Laura alongside other Brazilian fighters in the series. It concluded that her race and outfits combined make her 'an iconic quali-sign of sensuality.' The journal described her as representing 'beautiful and sensual women, where warmth and music are an integral part of life.' It added: 'In Laura is a symbol of Brazil Country of Carnival, joyful, festive and touristic.'