Conception and History
Poison's first appearance in Final Fight featured her and a palette swap character named Roxy as recurring minor enemies for the player to fight. Named after the band by an unnamed female employee at Capcom, she was designed by Akira Yasuda to contrast against the bigger characters in the game and move about randomly. According to the book All About Capcom Head to Head Fighting Games, the characters were originally planned to be female, but were changed to transvestites (or more specifically "newhalfs") due to the suggestion that "hitting women was considered rude" in America and the concern that feminist groups would sue.
A later appearance by Poison as playable character in Final Fight Revenge, an American-produced 3D fighting game spinoff of Final Fight, portrayed the character in a highly feminine manner and had her romantically interested in Final Fight hero Cody. Commentary about her ending in the game in All About Capcom suggested that the character might have gotten a sex change. The Final Fight-related character profiles featured in the 2005 compilation Capcom Classics Collection acknowledges Poison's transvestite characterization, while addressing Roxy as a "she" who dislikes Poison's cross-dressing.
The discrepancy regarding Poison have been addressed more than once in interviews with former and current Capcom employees. Final Fight developer and Arika founder Akira Nishitani stated he supposed the character could be male, but added it was up to the viewer to decide. Street Fighter IV's producer Yoshinori Ono, when asked in an interview about the matter, stated "Let's set the record straight: In North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female." He later emphasized it again when asked about what female characters could be included in the game Street Fighter IV, stating that it would be too confusing to include her due to the region-specific gender.
Read more about this topic: Poison (Final Fight)
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