Lady

Lady is a character from the Devil May Cry series of hack and slash action games. She is a human demon hunter, who first appeared in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, and later in that game's spin-off manga, the 2007 animated series, Devil May Cry 4 and recently its "Special Edition" where she makes her playable debut in the series.

Profile

In Devil May Cry 3, Lady appears in numerous cutscenes, fights Dante as a boss character, and allies up with Dante during the game’s closing credits, though she is not controllable by the player. She also provides the game’s framing narration, telling the story of how she met Dante and Vergil, and how Dante picked the name "Devil May Cry" for his shop, which was something she had said while trying to comfort Dante over the loss of his brother.

Her original name, Mary, was given to her by her father, Arkham, but she chose to renounce that name when he murdered her mother. Dante first called her "lady" when she refused to tell him her name.

Appearance

Lady seems to be younger than Dante. When she is first seen in Devil May Cry 3, she wears a schoolgirl outfit and she also wears this outfit in the anime series. This later changed into a formal outfit in the fourth game, probably by the amount of time that passes between the two installments.

Lady has dark, chin-length hair on both sides of her face and she has a fringe that reaches her eyebrows.

From DMC3 to DMC4, the scars on Lady's face appear to have healed and her breasts have slighty increased in size. This is most likely because of the amount of time that passes between the two installments, giving Lady time to mature and heal.

Like her father, she has the genetic condition heterochromia, which render each of her eyes a different color, as a result her left eye is red and her right eye is bluish-green. In her latest appearance, she wears sunglasses to conceal her eyes.

Personality

Lady is very fierce, rough, and tough enough to keep up with Dante. She is described as a "psychotic devil-hunting female". Although, when she kills her father, Lady breaks down and cries, showing a more sentimental side. She also appears to have a bit of a crush on Dante, as she appears to show a softer side when around him and she gets a little jealous when she learns that Dante is good friends with Trish.

She originally hated all demons, even half-demons, and wanted to exterminate all of them. Her greatest weapon at the time was her belief that what she was doing was right. This caused her to develop a moral bigotry against demons, believing them to be remorsless monsters unable to understand things like love or family. This may have been the reason why she did not initially believe in the legend of Sparda, she may not have been able to accept the fact that a demon is responsible for both the world's and humanity's continued existence.

However, over time and through her experiences with Dante, she learns that Sparda did exist and that humans and demons are equals in their capacity for both righteousness and depravity.

Story

Devil May Cry 3

Before meeting Dante, Mary's father, Arkham, killed her mother for reasons unknown to her. Because of this, she disassociated herself from the name her father gave her. She quickly developed a hatred towards not only her father for his horrendous act, but also against all demons, which she blamed for corrupting him. In a quest for revenge, she begins to climb the Temen-ni-gru in pursuit of Arkham.

She first meets Dante just after his battle with Cerberus. She fires a missile from Kalina Ann at Dante, who dodges the missile and rides it around the chamber like a flying skateboard. Dante releases it, and the missile blows a hole in the other side of the chamber. She then drives her motorcycle through the hole, continuing up the tower.

She fights her way up through the tower, taking a different path than Dante. As she approaches the top, she is confronted by Arkham, who calmly asks her why she points a gun at her own kin. She then claims the only family she had was her mother attempts to shoot him, but Arkham dodges her bullets and flips her off the side of the tower. She fires at him with her handguns as she falls, and one bullet grazes his cheek.

Below, Dante, in devilishly proper timing, catches her by the ankle. She then shoots Dante in the forehead, and he drops her. By jamming the blade of the Kalina Ann into the wall of the tower, she manages to stop her fall only a short distance away. Dante peers over the ledge to express his outrage at being shot, so she shoots at him again. This time Dante catches the bullet in his teeth, but leaves her be.

Still without a name, she presses on. She does not see Dante again until Leviathan nearly falls on her. Not sure what to make of it, she draws her gun as the eye begins to move. In a fountain of blood, Dante bursts forth from the eye. He starts to walk away, following a sign left by Jester, but she stops him. The two exchange a few words, but are attacked by demons. She and Dante stand back-to-back and fight off the demons. During the battle, Dante asks what her name is, to which Lady responds that she doesn't have one, and that he can call her whatever he likes. Dante, in a rather dismissive way, replies "Whatever, Lady" before leaping away and leaving the rest of the demons for her to deal with.

When Dante finds the seemingly dead body of Arkham, Lady arrives at the scene. Seeing the body of her despised father, she asks Dante if he is responsible. When Dante replies with an unsatisfactory, "So what if I did?" Lady flies into a rage and shoots at Dante, though he dodges or counters every shot. While venting her anger on Dante, she explains Arkham's sins and that he is her father. She laments about Arkham's death being her responsibility since they are family, but ultimately sends Dante on his way. Some time after Dante's departure, Arkham awakes, though he is still on the verge of death. He tells Lady that it was a demon who tricked him into killing his wife, and pins the blame on Vergil. After saying this, he takes his last breath. Lady then cries over him and promises to avenge his death by stopping Vergil.

Lady then catches up to Dante as he is fighting Vergil, and joins the clash. Soon after, Jester stops the battle. Jester reveals that he is in fact the alter ego of Arkham. Arkham also reveals that he lured Dante, Vergil, and Lady into that chamber, stating that all of them are the key in his plan to unlock the path to Demon World. In Lady's case, she is the descendant of a human priestess who Sparda sacrificed to seal the Temen-ni-gru. Jester mocks the brothers, saying they are weak. After slamming Lady's face into the floor, he stabs her thigh with the Kalina Ann in order to draw her blood and break the seal. Lady, Vergil, and Dante together try to put an end to Arkham, but, since they are weakened from having fought each other, he easily dispatches them and knocks them off of the rising platform on which they were standing. Lady very nearly falls again as the floor beneath her and the sons of Sparda collapses, but Dante catches her. She insists that it is her job to stop Arkham since he is her father, and uses the grappling hook on the Kalina Ann to ascend to the top of the tower. Dante, however, doesn't think she is a match for Arkham, and follows her by a different route.

Dante finally catches up with her at the Divine Library. When Dante goes to the top of the tower to teleport to the Demon World, Lady stops him and aims her gun at Dante, saying that it is her responsibility to stop Arkham and Dante should not interfere. Dante insists that it is his responsibility, too, and demands that Lady get out of the way. Lady refuses and they begin a fight. After her defeat, Dante remarks that this whole mess started with his father, and he should sort it out. Lady acquiesces, and entrusts Dante with Kalina Ann in exchange for his name. Some time later, Lady is shown catching a glimpse of Vergil going to the top of the tower.

After Arkham's acquisition of Sparda's power and subsequent defeat at the hands of Dante and Vergil, Arkham falls back to the human world. As Arkham, weakened and bloodied, tries to recover, Lady finds him. With Lady training her gun at him, Arkham pleads his innocence and begs her for his life. Lady shoots him regardless, several times. Lady then cries beside his body.

Lady reappears at the end of the game beside Dante, and converses about the aftermath. This is where she coins the famous phrase 'Devil May Cry' after seeing Dante shedding tears for his brother. Afterwards, the demons still left in the human world appear and attack both of them. Lady fights beside Dante. Then, the scene shifts to Lady's commentary about the future, the demons left in the human world, and about Dante's newly opened shop. Through her interactions with Dante, Lady realizes that demons are capable of both good and evil, just as humans are.

Devil May Cry 4

Lady is shown as the one responsible for getting Dante and Trish involved in the events in Fortuna by assigning them there. She tells Dante and Trish about the Order of the Sword, a small congregation that gathers in the city of Fortuna and worship Sparda as a god, much to Dante's surprise. She also says that lately the Order started collecting Devil Arms and "even have butted in on some of [her] jobs". She also hints that the Order may have something more to them than what meets the eye. After seeing that Trish has taken the Sparda sword and left a lipstick message on the wall, Lady tells Dante to "not keep [them] waiting" and goes outside the shop where she sees Trish fighting off some demons, in which Lady gives a little help.

Later on after Sanctus and the Savior are defeated, Lady, Dante and Trish watches for a bit as Nero and Kyrie share a kiss. In the post-credits scene, Lady comes back to Dante's shop to pay for their services, implying that Dante doesn't have any debt to her anymore, even if the amount she paid was small. Trish complains about this small payment to which Lady reasons that the events that happened there escalated because of Trish's actions. She later accompanies Dante and Trish to their next assignment.

While Lady is unplayable in the original version of the game (appearing only as a story character), she appears as a playable character in the Special Edition version (along with Trish and Vergil). This marks the first time Lady appears playable in a Devil May Cry game. Her original outfit from Devil May Cry 3 is available as a bonus costume.

Weapons and Abilities

While still a normal human, Lady is an exceptionally skilled firearms expert and extremely acrobatic in close quarters combat. Her most powerful weapon is the Kalina Ann, a customized missile launcher with an attached bayonet. She also has a CZ-75 handgun modified with match grade target sights, an extended barrel, and a compensator/barrel weight. Lady is a remarkably talented Devil Hunter, able to easily kill most demons with her weapons. In the anime series, Lady was shown to have some skill in hand-to-hand combat, able to disarm Trish and go toe-to-toe with her in a physical fight for a short time despite the latter's superior physical abilities as a demon.

Lady is shown to be an avid billiards player. She is shown several times playing it, the first time being in the second volume of the DMC3 manga and the second time in the anime series. She is a capable player, able to strategically make a complicated strike to win a bet.

In Devil May Cry 3 and Devil May Cry: The Animated Series she owns a motorcycle. The first one gets destroyed by Dante. The motorcycle she rides in the anime is a red 1974 Ducati 750 Supersport.

Other Appearances

In Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, she works as a solo devil hunter, who sometimes calls on Dante for help, and at times for the amount of money he owes her. She also has a scar on her upper left thigh, from being stabbed with the Kalina-Ann in the events of Devil May Cry 3.

Lady appeared in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as an ability card for the mode Heroes and Heralds.

She also appeared in the Japan-only social game Onimusha Soul, along with Dante, Trish and Kyrie.

Lady appeared in a crossover trailer for Monster Hunter Frontier G, and her clothing is available to player characters as armor.

Lady appeared, along with Dante, in the crossover SRPG game Project X Zone as one of the assist characters. While obviously not a Devil May Cry game, the game marked the first time Lady appeared as a playable character.

Lady also appears as an unlockable icon in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

Trivia

Lady's original name Mary comes from the Virgin Mary, who called on St. Lucia and Beatrice to aid the poet Dante Alighieri in his sojourn through Hell in Divine Comedy. As such, her chosen name of "Lady" is likely then a reference to one of the Virgin's other names, "Madonna" (Italian for "Lady").

In Devil May Cry 3, the player can unlock an alternate costume for Lady. She wears it only if the player chooses to use special costumes.

Lady is the only playable human character in the series (Dante and Vergil are half-demons, Trish and Lucia were both artificially created and Nero has demonic power and is the son of Vergil).

Interestingly, in some of her concept art, Lady is not clearly shown to have two different colored eyes.

In the post-credits ending of Devil May Cry 4, Dante is looking at a magazine with Lady's picture in it.

Lady was voiced by Kari Wahlgren in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and Devil May Cry 4. She was voiced by Fumiko Orikasa in the anime and in the English version, she is voiced by Melissa Davis.