Morrigan Aensland (モリガン・アーンスランド Morigan ānsurando) is a fictional character in the video game series Darkstalkers. She first appeared in Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (Vampire: The Night Warriors in Japan). She is an anti-hero and a main protagonist alongside Demitri Maximoff. In the series main canon, Morrigan's father, Belial Aensland, had split her power into three. Later in the events of Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, Jedah Dohma would find part of this power and give it a body as Lilith.
Morrigan was originally voiced by the late Yayoi Jinguji through out the series and in various crossovers until Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. She would later be voiced by Rie Tanaka in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds onward in Japanese dub, just as her primary English voice provider is now Siobhan Flynn since Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as well.
Appearance
Morrigan appears as a beautiful woman with straight long, emerald green hair, and bat-like wings on her back and the sides of her head. Her hair is a hime cut which was a sign often used in Japanese media to indicate a woman was rich or of high status. The outside of her wings are black and the inside of her wings are either purple or hot pink mixed with purple. For her outfit, it consists of a sleeveless black leotard with feathers at the trim that mostly reveals her cleavage with a heart-shaped cutout under the chest, purple or magenta/hot pink tights with bat patterns, light rose-colored gloves that cover the middle finger, and black calf-length heeled boots.
She can transform into a variety of different outfits and will remove her wings to appear more human. Her Midnight Bliss transformation is a weird sailor doll thing that seems to have a hair style that might be ojou curls.
In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix or Pocket Fighter in Japanese, Morrigan has seven disguises in the game as three of her disguises were used in her default win animations, her individual ending and the ending credits and is tied to Street Fighter's Ibuki who had seven disguises. Her four disguises is used to attack her opponent (eg: a golfer (as she wields a golf club to smack the opponents), a maid, a waitress and a nurse (who wields various hospital items such as a giant injection, a tray and a wheelchair which she used to ram her opponents)). The other disguises are used as explained above which Morrigan wears her casual outfit as a human seen in her default win animation and her ending where she dates with Ken Masters until his wife Eliza had caught them and lastly is a pink karate gi where she poses as Dan Hibiki after she deflected his Shinku Gadoken towards the latter with a golf club in her golfer disguise.
Background
Morrigan Aensland is a succubus who was born in 1678 in a region of Scotland. Belial foresaw that Makai would be exposed to the crisis of perishing soon. Someone, a great Life Form, would be needed to maintain the unbalanced world of Makai. He foresaw that one with such power would not be born in the family of Aensland for another 1,200 years. Knowing this, he decided to leave the future of the Aensland family in Morrigan's hands. To Belial, the future of the Aensland family was the same as the future of Makai.
Morrigan was a very special Succubus, even within all of the Darkstalkers. She was born as an S Class noble. But at that time, roughly 300 years ago, a struggle for power had already started. Various battles had occurred in various locations. It was unacceptable for a Succubus child to be given rights to power at the time. The problems didn't end there either. Morrigan had no way to control the enormous powers that she held within. If she were to be left alone, she would destroy herself and the land around her. Belial, her adoptive father and head of the Aensland House, split her soul in three to protect her; one he kept within himself, and another in a pocket dimension. Morrigan grew up without knowing this. She found her life in the Aensland castle dull and visited the human world time and time again to look for some kind of fun. One night, she was drawn to the strange power permeating from Pyron and ventured into the human world again.
After she came back from the human world, she was told that Belial died and she was the next successor to the throne of the Aensland family. Due to Belial's death, the 1/3 power he split from Morrigan during her childhood returns to merge with her. Although she is rightfully the ruler of Makai, she avoids her duties and continues her life like before. But when Jedah created the Majigen, she and her castle are pulled into Jedah's dimension. Sensing Lilith, the now sentient remainder of her soul sealed off, and released by Jedah, Morrigan set off hoping to find some sort of enjoyment. After meeting with Lilith, she was finally able to return to her true self when the both of them fused back together into one.
Whether Morrigan truly accepted her fate to be Makai's ruler after the events of Vampire Savior remains to be seen, but various media such as the crossover series, suggests she may have accepted this, to an extent.
After the events of Vampire Savior, it is implied Morrigan defeated and destroyed Jedah, ending his evil reign of terror over both the Human World and the Makai, with the Fetus of God and the Demon Dimension dissipating. In Darkstalkers canon however, Jedah is yet to be felled.
Personality
Beautiful, sexy, confident, conceited, and playful, Morrigan may be called many things given that she is a succubus, but she is not truly evil despite her heritage as a demon of the Makai realm. Instead she is friendly and approachable, perhaps in part due to her frequent visits to the material world to pursue her hedonistic tendencies and has found herself willingly aligned with the forces of good on many occasions. Morrigan is always out to satisfy her hunger and will often shirk her responsibilities as the current head of the Aensland estate to find something more engaging.
In the events of Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3 once Morrigan and Lilith fuse back into one, she senses something inside her has changed. In her own ending, she gains a more cheerful and brighter view on the world and feels like she can do anything. In Lilith's ending she feels the desire to wear the Isis Ring, the item worn by those who become the Master of Aensland, and seems to accept her role as ruler of Makai even if she doesn't understand why.
Powers/Abilities
Being known for being born as an S Class demon, Morrigan possesses a vast amount of powers and unique skills and traits; some ranging from teleporting, flying, reshaping her wings into spikes or blades. She can conveniently form a buckler out of her wings to protect herself from oncoming attacks if need be. Many of Morrigan's attacks are strong and can be extremely lethal to her enemies utilizing her own way of hand-to-hand she can do traditional punches and kicks and can use mystic abilities like soul attacks against her adversaries, such as the "Soul Fist". Some of her other traits are accelerated healing, speed, and the ability to create a physical mirror image of herself to aid her in battle. She can use some of her bats as well which are a part of her outfit, and can utilize them to swarm her enemies.
Some of Morrigan's unique powers is the ability to change clothes and hair in an instant and she can steal energy from her adversaries by kissing them. Morrigan's able to sense the magical energy inside a person and can usually see how powerful they are, she also has high reflexes being able to dodge things quickly. Morrigan's stamina isn't invincible, however, she's able to withstand a lot of damage from enemies and usually any attacks that are manipulative or spell related are nullified by her own natural abilities.
Weaknesses
As a succubus, Morrigan does need stimulation in order to secrete the liquid that maintains her life force, if she were kept away from any source of excitement, she'd die after two days by lack of feeding. Unlike similar Darkstalkers, her lifetime is finite and her longevity is stated not to be as extensive as expected to be.
About Aensland succubi
It is generally said that the Succubus race absorbs the spirit of the opposite sex and uses it as their own energy source. But the succubi that live in the Aensland family are slightly different. They create a special secretion liquid in their body when they are either physically or mentally stimulated. They use this liquid to maintain their life. If one were to be trapped inside a small secluded area, she would die within two days due to the lack of stimulus.
This is because the liquid needed to maintain her life can't be secreted. But to make up for this, they have become able to look into the dreams of others. When no stimulus was given, they evolved other ways to look for excitement. When a creature dreams, a special secretion liquid is formed in the brain. A succubus can take this liquid from the outside. Those who have been robbed feel a strange feeling, as if one's dream was completely taken away. This is quite different from not having any memory of a dream. This liquid, which the succubus robbed, is dissolved into the body of the succubus and is composed.
Cultural impact
A novel concept in Japan at the time (1994), succubi were introduced thanks to Capcom producer Alex Jimenez' suggestion during the development phase of the first arcade game. Since the game already had a vampire in Demitri, Jimenez suggested to change Morrigan from a female vampire to a succubus. According to Jimenez, the Japanese staff didn't know what a succubus was until he explained it and they became excited about the change.[2] While not the first worldwide or even in Japan (Famicom Wizardry II, released as Wizardry III in 1990 in Japan, is claimed by Sami Shinozaki in his book Fairy Encyclopedia: Visitors from another world (妖精事典 異世界からの訪問者) to have the first succubus in Japanese popular media designed by Jun Suemi, 1987 PC-88 Zeliard had succubus-like enemies and 1984 arcade game The Tower of Druaga had already a succubus disguised as Ishtar, made specifically clear in the 1992 port of that game for the PC Engine), Morrigan was the first widespread notable succubus to appear in Japanese media, making her the succubus archetype that would be used for reference in future Japanese popular culture works.
Due to succubi's nature, Japanese erotic productions started using them once their mythology became widespread known thanks to Morrigan. Succubi in general started appearing in Japanese media after Morrigan's arrival in the arcades. Morrigan's design has been widely replicated to the point of becoming a mainstay of succubi in manga, anime, video games and the like, particularly her vampire-like motif. In particular, Morrigan has become a darling of the cosplay community worldwide. Other Japanese media pays homage to Morrigan in the form of characters dressing as her, such as in Ultimate Girls.
Among media with succubi that take the vampire motif are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Lilim Kiss, Rotte no Omocha!, Rosario + Vampire and The Testament of Sister New Devil. Examples of popular Japanese media that also feature succubi prominently but with a different design, are Good Luck! Ninomiya-kun, Maria the Virgin Witch and Interviews with Monster Girls, all of which came years later after the Darkstalkers series was introduced.
Due to this influence in Japanese popular media, Morrigan is arguably more popular than the Darkstalkers franchise itself to the point where she has had more appearances in other games than the number of existing Darkstalkers games and more than any other character from the series.
Appearances
Darkstalkers 3
Victory Artwork
- Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
- Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
- Darkstalkers 3
- Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower
- Darkstalkers Resurrection
In Japanese only games
Onimusha Soul Christmas artwork
Screenshot from Morrigan Taking a Walk
Morrigan's portrait on the Underworld stage in CFE
| Game | Placement |
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| Street Fighter Alpha 2 | Ken Masters' stage along with Lord Raptor, Hsien-Ko, Mei-Ling and Felicia. |
| Capcom Fighting Evolution | Underworld stage, seen in a portrait on the back wall. The portrait features artwork from Darkstalkers 3. |
| Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds | Wolverine's ending. |
| Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 | Wolverine's ending and Thor's ending. |
| Dead Rising 4 | costume in Capcom Heroes. |
| Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition | Appears as a DLC costume for Chun-Li. |
Night Warriors Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA
Morrigan was a central antagonist in the Darkstalkers' animated series, being forced by Pyron to work under Demitri, who in turn worked under him. In this series, she's a descendant of Morgan le Fay and wants to turn Harry Grimoire into her pupil.
She is also in the Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA where she travels to the human's cities on the earth.Trivia
- She was named after the homonymous Celtic crow goddess.
- "The Morrigan" are interpreted sometimes as three sisters/godesses. Coincidentally Morrigan was going to have two characters in concept art for Vampire Savior as her siblings (one as her older half-angel sister, the other as "Belial Jr"). They would later become Lilith and Jedah Dohma. This would have made them three siblings in total.
- Morrigan's "Darkness Illusion" command would later be used and standardized by Akuma as the standard "Shun Goku Satsu" command.
- It has been a running joke (and a point of criticism) among fans that Morrigan has used the same idle, movement and signature attack sprites since her first appearance. The introduction of her 3D character model in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes finally changed this feature.
- Like Felicia, Morrigan was voiced consistently in the games up to Cross Edge by her original voice actress, Yayoi Jinguji. As of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 she is now voiced by Rie Tanaka, who was also the voice of Ciel in the Mega Man Zero series.
- Throughout Morrigan's crossover appearances, Chun-Li from the Street Fighter series would often be portrayed her rival.
- In the animated series (where she is voiced by Saffron Henderson), Morrigan is given a Scottish accent. This idea is revisited in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (although her English voice actress, Siobhan Flynn, is Welsh), but the accent frequently turns English or disappears altogether.
- Kathleen Barr, who voices Morrigan in the English dub of the OVA, had previously voiced Harry's mother in the animated series.
- Lili Rochefort in Tekken 6 can be customized to resemble Morrigan.
- Morrigan shares some similarities with Rouge the Bat from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, both being flirty bat girls with a heart motif. While some people think Morrigan has lead to her inspiration, this has not been confirmed.
- Morrigan was the first female Capcom character announced for Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.
- In Marvel vs. Capcom 3 her rival is the superhero Iron Man.
- Morrigan appears in Wolverine's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In it, Wolverine goes to a gentlemans club after defeating Galactus, and cross paths with Morrigan, who is one of the dancers. When trying to get his attention, he asks if she is looking for something, she is surprised by his reaction then asks if he would like to "step outside" when she's done. While annoyed, he agrees, but request to finish his drink first.
- Morrigan is implicitly bisexual. However, aside from some flirting quotes she never explicitly shows any real attraction to women as much as men, and most medias, crossover and galleries features her seducing just men.
- In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Morrigan received a DLC costume based on an outfit she wore in Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA, and similarly in one of her winning poses. This outfit was also available for free when pre-ordering the game from GameStop as the costume is grouped with the Femme Fatale pack that includes alternate costumes for X-23, Storm, and Chun-Li.
- In Skullgirls, one of Ms. Fortune's color palettes is a reference to Morrigan, as is one of Litchi's in BlazBlue.
- Morrigan has been revealed alongside Captain America in the extended gameplay trailer for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, implying that they may be featured together in the games' cinematic story mode. This however, was revealed to be false as when the game came out, they never actually interact with each other directly.
- In Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, her rival is Ghost Rider.
- According to Darkstalkers Graphic File it implies that Morrigan is able to sense Lilith's voice and emotions which send waves of heat through her chest. This possibly explains why even though she saw Lilith as a complete stranger, she was still able to sense her as a part of her soul. It is unknown why after they merged Morrigan still sees her as a stranger, calling her "that girl" in her ending, and even questions if her new feelings were because of her. This might be because while souls being split and the split half "instinctively" finding it's other half has been a thing to happen before, Lilith is the first time a soul has been known to gain sentience and a body of it's own so this is a new experience to happen in general.
- Similar to Felicia, there is an error/mistake where in some of her sprites and artwork her eyes are the wrong color. Canonically they are green but sometimes can appear as auburn, yellow, blue or a tan brown. The reason for this in games could be because of sprite limitations.
- When it comes to Morrigan being adopted by Belial but there also being “Aensland succubi” of her biological family, it is confirmed that there is a succubus tribe that lives in the Aensland family. Since Morrigan and Belial are confirmed to have no blood relation, it is unknown if they are just distant relatives/members of the Aensland clan or they or some tribe ancestor have been adopted in.
- In the first Darkstalkers game canon, it is said that the number of succubi in the clan were in the double digits but it is unknown if it applies to current canon as the first game was retconned.
- Despite being an anti-hero in the games main canon, most adaptations outside of the main games tend to portray and characterize Morrigan incorrectly as an outright evil character at worst and morally ambiguous at best, most notably the UDON comics continuity and the USA cartoon, due to her portrayal as a succubus, which has a historically evil lore.
- Morrigan's desire for souls in such portrayals is justified as humans being "nothing else than food" and that she sees no problem tricking, manipulating, abusing and killing them to get their souls, thinking that giving them "eternal bliss" justifies everything she does to them. However, Morrigan and succubis in official materials from Capcom has a specific way of obtaining equivalent nourishment without killing, so feeding on souls may be out of desperation or if confronted/provoked or subjected to hostility.
- Despite her portrayal in the UDON comics being evil and not well liked by fans, Matt Moylan (Udon's director of publishing) has refused to acknowledge or admit that version as either evil or inaccurate with Morrigan. On the contrary, he claims that her being as a succubus is the reason for such portrayal, with apparently no intent to amend the inaccuracy.
- There is another common mischaracterization of Morrigan that she is one of the mature, "intellectual" and responsible characters instead of the rebellious and carefree princess who prefers to live in the moment rather than think things out. This could be because some adaptations like the UDON comics portray her as a responsible noble from the start rather than a trait developed later on like in Lilith's ending for Vampire Savior. There can also be the confusion of her having more "dark" and adult themes with having a dark and mature personality.
- Her ending in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom reveals that she enjoys video games, tying in with her personality of constantly looking for something to interest herself.
Sprites
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Darkstalkers
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Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
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Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
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SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium
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Notes:
- Morrigan's Darkstalkers sprite was used in every normal 2D fighter she appeared in.
- The Marvel vs. Capcom Lilith version is only seen in the original Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes game. The colors were reused in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.
- The Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo sprite was also used in Pocket Fighter.
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Card Fighters' Clash
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Card Fighters' Clash¹
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Card Fighters 2
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Card Fighters 2¹
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Card Fighters 2 ²
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Notes:
- Morrigan's costume change seen in her Darkstalkers series victory pose.
- Possibly inspired by one of Morrigan's Mighty Combos and various other transformations in Pocket Fighter.
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Card Fighters DS¹
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Card Fighters DS
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Card Fighters DS²
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Card Fighters DS³
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Notes
- Morrigan's costume change seen in her Darkstalkers series victory pose.
- Morrigan appears in this form in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes.
- Possibly inspired by one of Morrigan's Might Combos and various other transformations in Pocket Fighter.
Official artwork
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| The full image gallery for Morrigan Aensland may be viewed here. |
Videos
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Capcom, (2008). Darkstalkers Graphic File. Udon Entertainment Corp, pg. 52. ISBN 1897-37604-9
- ↑ GameTrailers. (2016-07-05). Darkstalkers: Movie Monsters - Pop Facts. Online video clip. YouTube. Accessed 2018-02-20.
External links
- Morrigan at the Capcom Database
- Morrigan at StrategyWiki
- Morrigan at the Marvel vs. Capcom Wiki
- Morrigan at the Project X Zone Wiki
- Morrigan at the Resident Evil Wiki
- Morrigan at the TEPPEN Wiki
- Morrigan at the MUGEN Database
- Morrigan at Encyclopedia Gamia
- Morrigan at Mizuumi Wiki
- Morrigan at SuccuWiki
| Darkstalkers cast |
| Main cast |
| Anita • Anakaris • Baby Bonnie Hood • Bishamon • Dee • Demitri Maximoff • Donovan Baine • Felicia • Hsien-Ko • Huitzil Jedah Dohma • Jon Talbain • Lilith • Lord Raptor • Morrigan Aensland • Pyron • Q-Bee • Rikuo • Sasquatch Victor von Gerdenheim |
| Secondary cast |
| Belial Aensland • Dark Talbain • Le Malta • Marionette • Mei-Ling • Oboro Bishamon • Ozom • Shadow |
| Other cast |
| Anita's parents • Baraba |
| Cartoon characters |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger • Atlantian Ambassador • Computer • Director • Dracula • Dragon • Elijah Grimoire & Merlin • Hairball • Harry Grimoire • Hendrick Farr • Irving I. Irving • Klaus Schmendrick • Lex • Lily Lemay • Marshall • Morgan le Fay • Mrs. Grimoire • Terramon • Warriors of Ancient Scotland • Yonobi • Zunayoshi |
| Anime OVA characters |
| Manga/Manhua/Comic characters |
| Deeres • Heinrich Bauer • Jack • John Stately • Majorette/Thomas |