Kuroko

Kuroko (黒子, Kuroko), was used as an official who officiated the match in early Samurai Shodown games. He starts to challenge players as a hidden boss in Samurai Shodown II and continues to do so in other games of the series. Kuroko is an alias; his real name is shown in the credits of the second game; but it is, for unknown reasons, blurred with mosaics. His "real" name is revealed to English fans nearly a decade later as Dueling Judge: "Slick" Sukihiro. Although he appears as his own character in the series, real life kuroko are meant to be anonymous and "invisible" stage men in Japanese theater.

Story
Not much is known about him or from where he comes from. He was forced to judge matches as a servant of Amakusa in Samurai Shodown because his other brothers were held hostage. After Amakusa's defeat, he reunites with his family. One of the brothers had a previous working relationship with Nicotine Caffeine and is well versed in necromancy.

Personality
He is an enigma. It's hard to tell which brother is under the Kuroko alias at what time.

Powers

 * Mimicry - Kuroko is notorious for parodying special moves of SNK characters from series such as Art of Fighting or King of Fighters (He used Hanzo Hattori's bonebreaking taijutsu at one point as well), which is regarded largely as SNK's joke. But because by timeline those series are far ahead from Samurai Shodown games, explanation was that Kuroko was the originator of those special moves who then passed knowledge to ancestors of respective characters.
 * Flag Fighting - Kuroko's very own (not mimicked) moves are based largely on use of his flags, which double as his weapons in game.
 * Multiple Attacks - Kuroko can kick his opponents a lot of times.

Fighting Style
He dons a red flag and a white flag (used in martial arts competitions to denote when a player hits an opponent) as his weapon. As a playable character, Kuroko parodied moves from other SNK characters, mainly from those in Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting, and unlike every other character in the game, it was his outfit that became red as his rage bar filled up. He also can't be thrown normally, like Earthquake in the same game, and apparently his flags, which he uses as weapons, can't be destroyed or lost. He becomes a copy of the player's character in Samurai Shodown III. In Samurai Shodown VI, his special moves further parodied King of Fighters characters.

Music

 * Footloose and Fancy-free - Samurai Shodown II
 * Butougeki (Dance of Battle) - Samurai Shodown III
 * True Garage Spirits (Spiritual Black Men Mix) - Samurai Remix VA

Game Appearances

 * Samurai Shodown - judge
 * Samurai Shodown II - judge, challenger and character
 * Samurai Shodown III - challenger and character
 * Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits: Bushidou Retsuden - save point
 * Samurai Shodown 64 - challenger and character
 * Samurai Shodown V Special - "judge" (actually part of one of backgrounds)
 * Samurai Shodown VI - judge and character