Lisa Hamilton

Lisa Hamilton (リサ・ハミルトン, Risa Hamiruton), also known by her wrestling persona La Mariposa (ラ・マリポーサ, Ra Maripōsa), is a luchadora who made her first official appearance in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball and made her fighter debut in Dead or Alive 4.

As a former scientist for the Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee, Lisa has a mysterious, shadowed past that has not fully come to light yet, and has links with many others despite being relatively new to the series.

Early Life
Not much is known about Lisa's life before DOATEC, although it is well-known that she was high school friends with fellow wrestler Tina Armstrong and was a member of her school's volleyball team, which explains her great volleyball skills. At some point during her life, Lisa became one of the head scientists for DOATEC at DOATEC Germany, working for Victor Donovan during his genetic projects.

Project Epsilon and the Second Tournament
Lisa was known to be in charge of two DOATEC projects - Project Epsilon and the more successful Project Alpha - and was in charge of watching over the projects' test subjects, Hayate and his younger sister Kasumi, as well as Kasumi Alpha, who was a prototype product of Project Alpha.

When Helena Douglas was hosting a public gathering on the Freedom Survivor to announce her take-over of DOATEC and the start of the second Dead or Alive World Combat Championship, Lisa attended the speech and found Ryu Hayabusa in the crowd. She asked him if he would be joining the tournament, but Ryu wasn't interested in talking her so Lisa ended up insulting him for coming second in the first tournament. However, she apologized and they ended up going back to her cabin. While Lisa was bathing, Ryu overheard her talking about Kasumi to Donovan over the phone and he soon left to save her.

Around the time Lisa returned to DOATEC Germany, Ryu attacked the building and set it on fire. After Lisa ordered the evacuation procedures, she found that, during the chaos, Alpha had released Kasumi from her cell and she found out that her older brother was in the facility. Lisa became very annoyed with Alpha for telling Kasumi but, as Kasumi demanded to see her, the woman calmed quickly and drew out a handgun to keep Kasumi quiet. At that moment, Ryu broke into the building to take Kasumi to safety, letting Lisa and Alpha escape by helicopters, along with Hayate.

During the escape, the helicopter Lisa and Hayate were in experienced engine problems and crash-landed in the Black Forest. They both lived but Hayate somehow got separated from Lisa and was saved by Hitomi.



The Fourth Tournament and The Fall of DOATEC
Despite what happened at DOATEC Germany, Lisa continued to work on Project Alpha and at times even had to protect the project from being discovered by Helena, which included threatening the woman's life.

At some point just before the fourth tournament, Lisa seemed to have a change of heart about the project and its wicked goals and planned to help to take down DOATEC as her persona "La Mariposa." During the early stages of the tournament, she engaged Tina Armstrong in a no-holds-barred wrestling match.

While the Mugen Tenshin Ninja Clan attacked DOATEC's main headquarters, Lisa also confronted Hayate and told him that she was the one who manipulated him. He "thanks" her with a fight. She also revealed this to Helena Douglas during the tournament.

After the tournament, she went on to fight in a team wrestling match alongside Tina. It's possible, since DOATEC is no more, that this means that Lisa decided to follow a professional career as a luchadora.

The Fifth Tournament and MIST
After the fourth tournament, Lisa is working for Donovan with his new organization: MIST. He sends her to Tokyo to meet his client, but she is confronted by Ryu, who has overheard her conversation with Miyako on her cellphone and has confirmed MIST's existence. While Lisa tells him that it's her duty as a scientist to make new discoveries to change the world, Ryu replies that her discoveries have only brought suffering to him and his friends, and battles her afterwards. While escaping, Lisa accidentally bumps into Kokoro, who fights her with a demand for an apology. After the fight, Lisa asks Kokoro how her mother Miyaki, is doing.

During the fifth tournament, Lisa makes contact with Miyako without Helena's knowledge, drawing suspicion. When they visit the oil rig, Helena demands to know why they are their without her knowledge. Lisa refuses to answer and steps up to fight her but is presumably defeated.

In the last chapter, there is some evidence that Lisa is a double agent working against Donovan like she did in the previous tournament. At the oil rig, Lisa finds Kasumi in the lab trying to free Hayate, who had been captured by Rig. Lisa realizes that Donovan is reactivating Project Epsilon and frees Hayate. When the four ninja fight Alpha-152, Ryu and the clone launch a ninpo at each other. The impact of their attacks creates a huge explosion, destroying the lab in the process. Lisa is seemingly trapped under the debris and her cry is heard. It is unknown if she somehow survives and escapes or is killed during the explosion.

Appearance
Also see: Lisa's Outfit Catalogues

Lisa is a slender black woman with brown eyes, full lips, and brunette hair, which is cut short to the base of her skull and styled into a side parting on her left-hand side. She sometimes has to wear black, square-framed reading glasses, which she mostly wears during her work as a scientist.

Her luchadora costumes are very flamboyant and flashy, with added details such as shiny studs and colorful feathers. Her masks are all based around the shape of a butterfly, to match her persona as "The Butterfly." Her default costume is a white one-piece that shows off her waist and back, with added strips of material that act as a "skirt." The outfit is completed with lace-up boots, leopard-print stockings, various armbands, and a mask with a cap which covers most of her head so only her eyes and the lower half of her face are visible.

Personality
It would seem that Lisa is, at the very least, a nice and very intelligent woman. She appears to be able to connect with most of the women during their island holidays, being able to draw up conversation even with the likes of the taciturn Christie and the normally indifferent Ayane.

Lisa also seems to be a bit of a "workaholic," evident by her multiple jobs and the fact that she is almost always seen doing some form of work - her multiple careers and job-changing is a trait she shares with Tina. She is possibly one of, if not the most, intelligent woman in Dead or Alive, as shown by her previous job as a head scientist for DOATEC and her refined speech patterns.

Working with DOATEC, the main antagonistic force in Dead or Alive, however, doesn’t mean that Lisa is immoral; in fact, she is quite the opposite, showing friendly and sometimes compassionate behavior: It was she who released Hayate from his capture during Project Epsilon, and it was also her that started the attack by the Mugen Tenshin Clan as a way to stop Alpha-152, the then latest creation by DOATEC.

Etymology
Lisa's name is a short form of Elizabeth, from the word Ελισαβετ, Elisabet, the Greek form of the Hebrew name אֱלִישֶׁבַע', Elisheva, which means "my God is an oath" or "my God is abundance."

Lisa's luchadora name "La Mariposa" means "the butterfly" in Spanish. Butterflies have many layers of symbolism to them; for example, some old cultures see butterfiles as a symbol of rebirth, which could relate to Lisa taking on a new persona and becoming a different person altogether as La Mariposa, as luchadores often do with their wrestling personas.

Butterflies also have a clash of symbolism in terms of luck; while in western cultures it's believed that having a butterfly land on you means good luck, in Japan large numbers of butterflies are viewed as bad omens, a portent of coming evil. This clash could link to Lisa's role in the series, as she was one of the people to bring an end to DOATEC, bringing chaos and badness but helped the Mugen Tenshin Clan defeat the Committee, which gave them peace and happiness.

Tina Armstrong
Friends since their school days, Tina and Lisa seem to have kept in touch to the point that Tina was the only girl, aside from Lisa, who knew that Zack’s "Dead or Alive Tournament Invite" was a hoax. Re-acquainted on Zack Island, Lisa decided to enter the fourth tournament to match her wrestling skills against Tina’s, resulting in the two teaming up to defeat a rival wrestling team.

Hayate
Lisa had been involved with and led Project Epsilon. Hayate, then Ein, escaped in the catastrophe of the lab being destroyed and soon regained his memory. In Dead or Alive 4, Lisa flies in on Hayate. Hayate thanks her for making him come destroy DOATEC and giving him a purpose in life, in return for which he battles her.

Helena Douglas
Before entering the tournament Lisa was working for Victor Donovan, who assigned her to Project Epsilon. When Helena entered the tournament, she was ordered to stop her from finding out what DOATEC was doing with all their experiments. During the Mugen Tenshin attack on DOATEC, Helena blames Lisa for it and battles her on the Tritower Heliport.

Dead or Alive
Lisa can be considered a mixture between Tina and Zack due to her powerful throws and quickly executed kicks, her style is a mixture of Lucha libre and capoeira styles. Her kicks are very effective since they are long to close range meaning that she possess total ground control, being especially adept at low and mid-position tracking, and her counters nearly match those of Bayman in power percentage.

Additionally, Lisa is unpredictable, making her difficult to counter and defend against. However, this unpredictability also makes her a very difficult character to learn and master and thus is very unsuited for beginning players.

Dead or Alive Xtreme
If the player takes the tour of the island at the beginning of the game, Lisa is their partner automatically. Even without the tour, Lisa is nice and friendly enough to become friends with everyone, and vice versa. She will easily become friends with Tina, as both of them were already childhood friends.

In beach volleyball Lisa is a very well-rounded player. Since she used to represent her school in competitive volleyball tournaments, she has a good jumping skill and great technique as well as average power, speed, and defense. She is one of the best characters for beginners. By far, she would make an ideal team with other balanced players, especially Helena and Christie.

Dead or Alive Series

 * Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (2003)
 * Dead or Alive 4 (2005 - 2006)
 * Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (2006)
 * Dead or Alive Paradise (2010)
 * Dead or Alive: Dimensions (2011)
 * Dead or Alive 5 (2012)

Musical Themes

 * Tribal Beats - Dead or Alive 4 and Dead or Alive: Dimensions
 * Dance Of The Angel - Dead or Alive 4 Ending Theme.

Trivia

 * Lisa's Lucha Libre moves are based on pro-wrestler.
 * Lisa's fighting style seems to involve capoeira kicks.
 * In Dead or Alive 4, all of Lisa's costumes bear masks as default, except for her cat-like costume which is unmasked. Selecting this costume with 360 Y Button.png will give it its butterfly mask.
 * Lisa's voice is used for Final Fantasy VII character Tifa Lockhart in Monty Oum's Dead Fantasy.
 * IGN featured Lisa in their "Videogame Babe of the Day" series in 2006.
 * Lisa, Aya Brea from Parasite Eve, Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII, and Ling Xiaoyu from the CGI movie Tekken: Blood Vengeance, all share the same Japanese voice actress,.
 * Lisa is very similar to Tekken's Julia Chang. Both characters are very intelligent American women who also learn how to fight. Both characters are also secret luchadora fighters as well: Lisa being La Mariposa since Dead or Alive 4 and Julia being Jaycee in Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
 * Lisa's first costume in Dead or Alive 5 is based off of Virtua Fighter's Luchadore El Blaze's original Costume A in Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.
 * Lisa, Christie, and Gen Fu are the only characters in Dead or Alive 5 to not be playable characters in the game's Story Mode.
 * Despite her wrestling persona, La Mariposa, being playable in Dead or Alive 5, La Mariposa wasn't seen nor mentioned in the game's story mode or by Lisa. It could be possible Lisa might have retired as she is shown to be more involved with MIST.
 * Despite an explosion is heard and Lisa's cry is apparent, it is mainly presumed that she is deceased. However, fans still speculate she is still alive and managed to survive the explosion or escaped in a nick of time.