Aska

Aska is a kunoichi from TMNT: Tournament Fighters who enters the tournament to win money for her dojo. She is actually an original character created by the developers specifically for the game, presumably due to the lack of female fighters in the mainstream TMNT universe. Fans of the TMNT Archie comics see that Ninjara (an anthromorphic female ninja fox character) would had been a much better choice to keep with the heavy Archie theme of the rest of the game. Other fans see that Lotus Blossom from the 1987 series would had been in the game, instead of Aska (and to a lesser extent, April just as she did in the Genesis version).

However there are many theories on why this character was created; some believe that as the game was made in Japan where the Ninja Turtles were hardly known despite several incarnations of the franchise over there (like the OAV anime Mutant Turtles: Chōjin Densetsu Hen), she was included so the programmers would not feel alienated while working on a western franchise like TMNT and bring contrast with her as an anime influence. Also perhaps related to this theory, was that as the game would be released in Japan too; she was included to attract Japanese audiences who might feel alienated as well from the TMNT concept.



Among Aska's attacks one of them consists of launching herself towards her opponent, using her buttocks. In the japanese release, she wears a thong and her victory celebration is longer in which her breasts bounce; while in the western version she uses some larger tight shorts. So far this is her only appearance in any kind of entertainment media. It is quite possible that Konami holds the rights on her, so any future appearance would depend on the company and it could be possible that she would not appear on anything TMNT related again. However it should be brought into consideration that both Konami and Mirage Studios hold the rights on the character; so both companies would have to agree on her return.

Due to her chram, she has quite an underground fan following. It is still in debate wheter her name should be rather spelled as Asuka even though it is still spelled Aska in the Japanese version. Her uniform design is rather similar to that of Rachael from the Martial Champions videogame.