Nina Williams

Nina Williams (Japanese: ニーナ・ウィリアムズ, Hepburn: Nīna Wiriamuzu) is a fictional character from Namco's Tekken fighting game series. A cold-blooded Irish professional assassin, Nina made her first appearance in Tekken, the original game in the series, and is one of eight playable characters (the others being Yoshimitsu, Paul Phoenix, Jack, Kazuya Mishima, King, Marshall Law, and Michelle Chang), and the only female character to appear in all main installments in the series. She also starred in her own spin-off game, Death by Degrees.

Nina has an unstable and often violent relationship with her younger sister, Anna Williams, who is frequently her arch-rival in the series. She is known for her fast and lethal fighting style, based loosely on the fighting arts hapkido and koppojutsu, among others. The character was mostly very well received, often regarded as one of the best Tekken characters as well as one of the most attractive and stylish female characters in gaming.

Appearances

In video games

Nina Williams was born and raised in Ireland, as was her sister, Anna.^[1][2] From a young age, both were taught various forms of martial arts such as assassination martial arts, aikido and koppojutsu.^[1] Both sisters admired their father, a former assassin Richard Williams, which caused a sibling rivalry between the two as they crave and compete for his attention. When Richard died (Nina and Anna Williams father), both sisters started to blame each other for the cause of his death. Although they tried to maintain their relationship following their father's last wish, it only made their rivalry strengthen even further. Nina's knowledge of the assassination martial arts help her quickly becoming an assassin and the 20-year-old Nina had later been hired during The King of Iron Fist Tournament to assassinate the head of Mishima Zaibatsu, Heihachi Mishima. However, she failed.

Two years later, Nina was contracted again to assassinate the current head of Mishima Zaibatsu, Kazuya Mishima by entering The King of Iron Fist Tournament 2, but Anna intervened, and a conflict prevented her from fulfilling the assignment. Nina was captured by Kazuya after failing to assassinate him and was used as a test subject in the "cold sleep" project by Dr. Boskonovitch^[1] - a cryogenic experiment. Anna Williams volunteered to be put in cryogenic sleep, but demanded to be awoken at the same time as Nina. The experiment went on for 19 years.^[1]

When Nina woke up from the cryosleep, she suffered heavy amnesia, a fate from which her sister Anna was spared. She was also controlled by the recently awakened Ogre, the God of Fighting who sent her to participate in The King of Iron Fist Tournament 3 to assassinate Jin Kazama^[1] - Heihachi Mishima's grandson. Near the end of the tournament, Jin managed to beat Nina back to her senses, allowing her to break free from Ogre's control. As an act of compassion, Anna wanted to end Nina's job of an assassin, however wanted to continue their rivalry. So Anna worked intensively with Dr. Boskonovitch to bring her sister's memories back. However, the project failed when Nina recovered the memory about the fact that she and her sister did not get along. After this, Nina left and did not contact Anna for some time.

Nina soon revived her role as an assassin, the only thing that she recalled from her previous life. Two years later, she was contracted by a Mafia syndicate to kill a famous British boxer, Steve Fox. However, she discovered that Steve was in fact her biological son, who was born through In vitro fertilisation during her years in cryosleep. At the last moment when she tried to pull the trigger to her rifle, she somehow and rarely regained her human emotions, and refused to kill Steve Fox her son. she abandoned her assassination attempt after detective Lei Wulong brought down the syndicate. After the collapse of her employers, Nina no longer required a viable reason to pursue her target. It was also revealed that she remained emotionally impassive about the discovery of her biological son, but the fact that she did not kill him when the chance presented itself shows otherwise for some.^[3]

Nina decided that it was time she re-discovered her lost memories and came to the conclusion that the only person who could help her was her sister, Anna Williams.^[3] Anna meets with Nina soon after. However, Nina's memories and hatred instinctively returned, and they rapidly engaged in a gun battle.^[4] The duel lasted for days and the two later agreed to meet at The King of Iron Fist Tournament 5 and finish their battle.^[3] The two promised that only one would walk away from the coming battle, however, when Nina won, she refused to take Anna's life as their fight was not satisfactory.

Later, Nina was approached by the CEO of Mishima Financial Empire, Jin Kazama who had already launched war around the world, to be his personal bodyguard and enters The King of Iron Fist Tournament 6 to intercept any possible threat to him, which Nina accepted. Meanwhile, Anna, who vows to take revenge at Nina becomes Kazuya Mishima's personal bodyguard, knowing she is bound to come face to face with Nina along the way. In the Scenario Campaign mode of the console version of Tekken 6, she served as one of the antagonist for the most part, assisting Jin at his scheme. After Jin sacrificed himself to kill Azazel at the end, she told Lars that she already knew Jin's plans about the world war since the beginning; so he can awaken Azazel's physical body, but she was unsure whether Jin's actions were right or wrong. She then left with a Mishima Zaibatsu helicopter, which may or may not signify that she became Mishima Zaibatsu's temporary new CEO during Jin's disappearance.

Though not appearing in Tekken 7's original arcade release, Nina returns in its updated title, Tekken 7: Fated Retribution.

Nina stars in her own action game, Death by Degrees, released in 2005.^[1] The game provides an alternate backstory for Nina and Anna; the plot concentrating more on their father and how he died when they were children. In this game it is revealed that Richard Williams had struggled with a few guardsmen, and shouted for Nina to grab a gun which one of guardsmen had dropped. However, her hesitation and fear caused the guards to get the upper hand and shoot Richard Williams, killing him. Anna is shown comforting her sister moments after, while the older Nina looks over the scene. The rivalry which stemmed from the incident crossed over to the real-time events of the Tekken series.

Nina also appears in the crossover fighting game Street Fighter X Tekken with her official tag partner, Kazuya. In the cinematic trailer, they battle against Ryu and Ken at a condemned building, before Kazuya captures Ryu as bait to lure Jin out.

Design

Nina Williams has blonde ponytail and blue eyes, and voluptuous yet powerful build. Her look contrasts that of her sister, Anna, who is a brunette. Nina dresses primarily in purple fitted costumes and is commonly seen wearing a military style outfit (to suit her occupation),^[1] sometimes also in costumes made of materials resembling spandex, PVC and leather; most of her shoes also consist of heels. In Tekken 6, one of Nina's extra outfits is one of her Death by Degrees costumes.

Nina Williams' fighting style is Hapkido. Nina is known for her lethal fighting styles, consisting of many martial arts and fighting skills.^[5] She has strong jabbing abilities, is agile and has above average strength.^[6] She was also among the first characters to utilize chain throws, having them since Tekken 2.

Other appearances

Summer Daniels (left) as Nina at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012

Nina also appears in the OVA Tekken: The Motion Picture as one of the main antagonists. She is seduced by Lee Chaolan and he hires her to kill Kazuya Mishima so that he will inherit the Mishima Zaibatsu from Heihachi. Nina attempts many times to assassinate Kazuya, but he keeps foiling her with his superior skills. Her rivalry with Anna is also present, although it differs from the games in the sense that Nina was favoured by their father, who ignored Anna, which led to Anna killing him as an act of revenge and resentment, something Nina never forgave Anna for. Eventually, Nina fights Anna somewhere on the island where the tournament is being held. As Anna is ambushed and devoured by a biologically enhanced dinosaur-like being, Nina flees. She is last seen among the other fighters who made it off the island before it explodes, but with Lee's death and Heihachi fleeing, she abandons her contract against Kazuya.

Nina Williams was portrayed by South African model and singer Candîce Hillebrand in the 2010 film adaptation, Tekken. In the film, she is a participant in the Iron Fist tournament, yet serves as an assassin under Kazuya along with Anna. Both of them are also Kazuya's lovers. Kazuya sends Nina and Anna to assassinate Jin Kazama, but the ensuing fight attracts Christie Monteiro's attention and Nina and Anna flee. In the next round, Jin recognizes Nina as one of the assassins, and Christie takes her revenge on Nina by beating her soundly in the ring. She returns when Kazuya order his soldiers to arrest the fighters. Nina is seen in one of the cells with Anna and Dragunov. Unlike the games, she and Anna are on good terms and has no relation to Steve Fox.

Nina also appears in the animated film Tekken: Blood Vengeance. In its beginning, she rides a motorcycle and fighting Anna. Despite being cornered, she still manages to escape and is sent to Russia by Jin to find Alisa. She once again appears after Xiaoyu and Alisa escape from Anna. It is later on revealed what had happened. Anna attempts to capture her, amusing Lee. This attempt leads to an unknown outcome.

Summer Daniels portrayed Nina in the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Girl Power Trailer, shown at Comic-Con in 2012.^[7] In 1998, Epoch Co. released a 1/10 scale Nina action figure based on her appearance in Tekken 3. The action figure comes with two plastic swords and one plastic gun.^[8] An action figure based on her appearance from Tekken 5 was released in 2006.^[9] Two Nina figures based on her appearance in Death by Degrees were also released that same year.^[10][11]

Reception

The character was received mostly very positively. Nina Williams was chosen as one of the 20 "muses" of video games by Brazilian magazine SuperGamePower in 2001.^[12] Polish edition of GameStar had her voted at fifth place in the 2006 poll for the title of "Miss of the Video Game World".^[13] In 2008, Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition announced she was voted the "Hottest Female Fighting Character" in their Internet poll.^[5]

Nina was often noted for sex appeal. GameTrailers listed her at number six among top ten "gamer babes" in 2007.^[14] That same year, Tom's Games listed Nina among the 50 greatest female characters in video game history, commenting that she proves that you can be hot and cold at the same time and "she has without a doubt one of the best bodies in the business, and she doesn't take crap from anyone,"^[15] while ScrewAttack ranked her seventh on the list of top ten "boobies" in games.^[16] In 2010, PLAY ranked her as second top "hottest" blonde in games, adding that she "was sexy even back when her hair was made out of about eight polygons,"^[17] while Gadżetomania.pl ranked her as number one top "sexiest and fierce" blonde in games.^[18] In addition, she was included in GameDaily's top list of hottest blondes in video games, for having both "a killer body" and a killer instinct,^[19] also placing as the 30th "hottest" among all "video game babes".^[20] In 2009, Maxim listed Nina among the top nine "video game vixens", complimenting her costumes and her running around with a katana with very high heels in Death by Degrees as "frightening and erotic at the same time—sort of like what we imagine having sex with Amy Winehouse might be like;"^[21] she was also showcased on a similar list by Fakt.^[22] UGO.com ranked her number 17th on their 2011 list of top "videogame hotties".^[23] That same year, Lisa Foiles of The Escapist put her among the top five "hottest blonde chicks," stating her preference of Nina over many other fighting game blondes (such as Cammy, Jill Valentine, Sarah Bryant, Sophitia and Tina Armstrong), as well as her sister Anna, and noting Nina's resemblance to Capcom's Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 5.^[24] In 2012, MSN included her among the 20 "hottest women in video game history", adding that "she became hotter and hotter as graphics technology improved,"^[25] while Gadget Review ranked her as the 20th "hottest" female video game character.^[26] Furthermore, Interia.pl included Nina among the "sexiest game heroines" of the year.^[27] She was ranked as the 15th best looking game girl by GameHall's Portal PlayGame in 2014.^[28]

In 2006, Gaming Target listed Nina as the fifth best Tekken character, calling her the "world's sexiest assassin."^[29] In 2010, G4 included Nina among the best assassins in all video games.^[30] In 2011, PlayStation Official Magazine listed her among "PlayStation’s meanest mothers".^[31] That same year, Joystick Division ranked Nina as the second most "badass" Irish character in video games.^[32] In 2012, FHM listed a fight between Nina and Poison as one of the ten "awesome fantasy fights" in Street Fighter X Tekken, adding that "hot girls fighting is always a spectacle to see, and these two represent the sauciest for both franchises."^[33] Complex ranked Nina as the second best Tekken character, commenting "Nina Williams is the ultimate ice queen. She's got a huge arsenal of pokes at her disposal, not to mention chain throws and combo launchers."^[34] In an official poll by Namco, Nina ranked as the 14th most requested Tekken character to be playable in Tekken X Street Fighter.^[35] In 2014, What Culture ranked Nina as the 12th greatest ever fighting game character, opining she "isn’t overtly sexualised in the same way that, say, Ivy and Taki from SoulCalibur are," and regarding her as among the strongest female video game characters.^[36] In 2015, WatchMojo ranked Nina as the sixth top Tekken character.^[37]

However, the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine called the Death by Degrees Nina as an "overrated" spin-off character in comparison to Whiplash protagonist Spanx.^[38] GameDaily listed Nina's appearance in Death by Degrees as one of her worst moments, citing the game's poor gameplay and below-average graphics.^[39]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nina Williams.

• Official website (Death by Degrees)