Darli Dagger

Darli Dagger is a new character introduced in Samurai Shodown (2019). She is voiced by Yū Kobayashi.

Development
Originally, the team had intended for a feudal Japanese firefighter character, Hikeshi, to join the roster, but the team couldn’t get the concept to work. Director Nobuyuki Kuroki says, “Although that original concept had an interesting visual design, we felt it was a bit too difficult to convey the nuances of the design to a global audience.”

Instead, Kuroki and his team came up with the idea of a carpenter who wielded a giant saw blade as a weapon. “Giving a large saw to a muscular male character didn’t feel distinct enough, which is why we decided to make the character a powerful and strong-willed female with African roots, a region not usually represented in the Samurai Shodown series.” With these details in mind, character designer Yumi Saji came up with Darli, leader of an all-women group of carpenters.

Story
A shipwright who has mastered the use of various tools. She washed ashore an island at an early age, where carpenters taught her how to make things and pirates taught her how to protect herself and survive. She is currently building a ship said to be unsinkable with her comrades at the island’s workshop.

When a dark crisis spreads across the world, centered in Japan, one of Darli’s ships is destroyed by a masked man, leading her to hunt him down for payback. She mistook Tam Tam for said man, but in her ending, Darli finally finds and catches the masked man who was actually on Madagascar right under her nose the whole time.

Personality
Darli is strong willed, not backing down from any opponent and is VERY confident in building an unsinkable ship.

She also firmly believes in hard work, threatening to break the bones of those who want to give up. Those who dare to cross her, like the masked man who wrecked one of her custom ships will end up feeling her wrath.

Due to her appearance and being raised by pirates, Darli admits that many mistake her for a pirate, but she doesn't blame them.

Powers
TBA

Fighting Style
Darli, has a very compounded but impressive fighting style, implementing both her saw-blade skills and the use of hand-to-hand combat, complementing her muscular physique. Many of Darli's blade attacks are slow but deadly and usually leave devastating damage if they connect, such as her chargeable serpentine breaker, where her saw becomes a hammer which she can slam into her adversary. Darli can incorporate many other attacks with her blade, like riding it like a surf-board or turning it into a drill to grind it into the enemy. If Darli is unarmed, she isn't vulnerable as she can utilize her own unarmed combat skills; her unarmed special attack nicknamed ("Darli Dagger Punch") strikes the opponent with immeasurable strength.

Music

 * Seafarer's Paradise - Samurai Shodown (2019)

Games

 * Samurai Shodown (2019)
 * The King of Fighters XV - DLC Character

Trivia

 * The game's accompanying artbook reveals that Darli was originally going to receive her own home-stage. The stage was designed around a ship-yard situated on the lush, tropical beaches of the Island of Madagascar - a locale similar to the one depicted in her ending artworks. This also strongly implies that the island she washed up on, as detailed in her bio, is Madagascar. The artbook also confirms that her red/white/green color-scheme is based on the island's flag, and the location being an African island fits in with her confirmed African roots.