added a rare Kasumi card in 2013. DOA6 director and producer Yohei Shimbori said he would like Kasumi to appear in Nintendo's Smash Bros. series. Kasumi also appeared as a playable guest character in Netmarble/SNK's The King of Fighters All Star (a 2021 collaboration). Character design Tomonobu Itagaki originally envisioned the character to be male, before changing her sex. As Kasumi became more and more kawaii, he decided to make her the lead character. The rest of his team was only half-convinced at first but warmed up to the idea eventually. Kasumi and the other ninja characters are "like superheroes" compared to the more realistic fighters, regarded as a "fantasy element" by Dead or Alive 6 art director and scenario writer Yutaka Saito. Kasumi is and weighs . Some scholars used her and Tomb Raiders Lara Croft as examples of the characters embodying "unique aesthetic for perfection" - a hyperreal, exaggerated 'hyperbody'.Lisa Nakamura, Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet, University of Minnesota Press, 2008, page 136. Like the other female characters in the Dead or Alive franchise, Kasumi was designed with large breasts; her official measurements are 35-21-33. She is usually wearing a wakizashi in a small of her back. Her hair has been variously blonde, auburn and red, with hairstyle options including a ponytail, a braid, and loose hair. She wears many types of costumes through the series, including female ninja outfits, feminine casual clothes, Japanese schoolgirl uniforms,Itagaki Speaks! , 1UP.com, 2005. and bikinis. Commonly, her default (and sometimes only, in most of her guest appearances) costume has been her blue-and-white "Brilliant Lapis" (originally white-and-red, later known as "Immaculate White"), made of a revealing and puff-sleeved Japanese tunic (later with swan-themed ornaments), a sash, thigh-high tabi, sandals with shin guards, hand guards with metal wristbands, and a choker. According to IGN, she had the best outfits of the characters in Dead or Alive Ultimatethe expanded compilation of the first two DOA gamesin which "she looks great and her outfits are fantastic." A planned new main costume for Kasumi in Dead or Alive: Dimensions upset some fans when the game was announced in 2010. She was the youngest character in the original version of the first game. Itagaki said his "daughter" Kasumi "has been a main character of the Dead or Alive series, and please understand, she is like a Venus to me." When asked if he was comfortable