Nakoruru

is a fictional character in the Samurai Shodown (Samurai Spirits in Japan) series of fighting games by SNK. She is one of the series' best known and most popular characters alongside its main protagonist Haohmaru, and was introduced in the original Samurai Shodown in 1993. Nakoruru is a good-hearted, young Ainu shrine maiden who loves nature and fights evil with the help of her hawk sidekick Mamahaha. She has a younger sister named Rimururu and an aggressive, and bloodthirsty darker side alter-ego known as Rera. As one of SNK's popular mascot characters, Nakoruru has also appeared in many other games and other media.

==Conception and design== The series' creator Yasushi Adachi chose "the two flagship characters" Haohmaru and Nakoruru as the characters that best sum up the series, with Nakoruru being "a main character in the storyline who has to fight for her life and her destiny, and sacrifices herself in the end to preserve an important cause," and thus representing "some of the most important Samurai Shodown themes." The idea for the character came from a modern Japanese perception of the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido, being depicted as revering nature and peacefully coexisting with it. Before the Samurai Spirit project began, one of Nakoruru's creators had thought that "one day Ainu women should have a first-class appearance" in a video game as he thought they have had received too little attention and representation in modern media.