Karai (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 2003)

Debuting in the 2003 series' second season, Karai eventually became one of the series' main recurring characters. A woman torn between honor and family# appears both as an ally and an enemy to the Ninja Turtles, a dichotomy that plays a part in most of her appearances. Her allegiance varied throughout the series: first being an anti-hero (or anti-villain) during seasons 2-3, then villain in seasons 4 and 5, and finally became heroic near the end of season 5 and in later episodes.

Why She Rocks

 * 1) Much like Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Karai is shown to not be written a half-baked redemption since she is able to show her character and manages to redeem herself in a better way. In fact, she may have one of the greatest redemption stories for a character in television.
 * 2) She is given excellent character development on the show, we first see her as a villain who obeys the Shredder but shows that she does not want to physically harm anyone that is innocent, into a heroic and redeemable character at the end of Season 5 and Turtles Forever where she helps to kill the Demonic Shredder and helps to erase the Utrom Shredder's existence.
 * 3) *An example being that in Season 3, Episode 15, Karai shows concern over the fact that Shredder might completely wipe-out and obliterate China.
 * 4) *In the season 3 finale, when the Shredder attempts to end Leonardo's life by stabbing him, Karai stops him by explaining how Leo should be left to suffer from injuries and states that the four turtles all got what they deserved.
 * 5) Karan Neil does a fantastic job voicing Karai since she manages to bring a menacing version of Karai and is definitely the best voice actress for the character.
 * 6) Karai can be very intimidating as shown in Season 4 when she replaced her "Father" and even destroyed the Turtles original lair.
 * 7) She has an excellent design on the show, which easily displays how trained she is as a ninja and clearly has a menacing design.
 * 8) Her fights with the Turtles are always enjoyable to watch, especially in Seasons 2-4.
 * 9) She has a sympathetic backstory where her parents abandoned her before being raised by the Shredder.
 * 10) At the end of the series, we see her honor and how she won't follow in her father's footsteps.
 * 11) She is very skilled and easily can fool any other ninja.

Notes and trivia

 * This character is an adaptation of Karai as created by Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman, and Jim Lawson, and was developed by Eric Luke and the 4Kids team for the 2003 animated series.
 * Supervising producer Lloyd Goldfine envisioned the cartoon Karai as having a "sleek, no-nonsense, commanding, Japanese accent." The original comics' (and Karai's) co-creator and show consultant Peter Laird agreed, but emphasized that she is also "a powerful and dynamic individual". Laird opposed to having "all kinds of goofy, ludicrous weapons systems built into Karai's new Shredder armor". He was also "disappointed" to see Karai at April and Casey's wedding and fighting on the side of the "good guys" in the end. Regarding Karai being called "Leo's girlfriend" by the time of the show's third season, Laird noted that "contrary to what some TMNT fans might fantasize, Turtles don't mate/have love affairs with humans."
 * A major plot arc that started with her character during Season 2 of the show was that she was loyal to her father, despite his dishonorable ways. After Ch'rell's exile at the end of Season 3, Karai spent all of Season 4 and Season 5 hating the Turtles and possibly after season 5 making a truce the with Turtles. When she appeared in Wedding Bells and Bytes as a guest of April & Casey's wedding, it was assumed that her vendetta with the Turtles was over, but Turtles Forever (if it is meant to fully correspond with the 2003 series' plot line) indicates that with Ch'rell's return, her loyalty to him does not exceed her truce with the Turtles. But during Turtles Forever, she finally betrayed the Utrom Shredder and became a friend of the Turtles once again.