Shantae is the title character and main protagonist of the Shantae video game series developed and published by WayForward Technologies. She was created by Erin Bozon, wife of Matt Bozon, WayForward's creative director. She has been voiced by Cristina Vee since 2014's Shantae and the Pirate's Curse.
Shantae is a half-genie, the daughter of a human father and a mother who was a Guardian Genie. She consequently has limited magical powers, including her signature whipping hair and magical dances that allow her to change into magical creatures, and has to rely on her skills and magical items that she acquires during her adventures to fight her adversaries.
The character has been well received and is featured in several lists of the greatest video game heroines. Shantae has since become WayForward's mascot.
Concept and creation
Erin Bozon, wife of WayForward's creative director Matt Bozon, came up with the idea for Shantae in 1994 while coming back from a day camp where she worked as a counselor. The character was named after one of the campers. She came up with the basic design and had the idea that she could whip her hair as a weapon and would use dancing to charm or summon animals, which was later changed to transformations into animals and mythological creatures. Matt Bozon tried to incorporate more conventional weaponry to the concept, but ultimately reverted to fighting moves which incorporated Shantae's hair. Erin Bozon's initial inspiration for the character was the TV show I Dream of Jeannie, while Matt's subsequent work on the character and her universe were based on Ranma ½, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water or Hayao Miyazaki's films, as he was introduced to Japanese animation around that time while studying at CalArts.
By 1997, Shantae's design was still not completely locked, as she sported brown hair, didn't wear earrings but wore golden bracelets, and had different proportions. At that point, her magic was still meant to summon animals, her dances were generating magical attacks based on the four elements, and she had different outfits giving her different abilities. By the year 2000, Matt Bozon had locked the final proportions and her ultimate graphical style, adding earrings and replacing the bracelets with wrist guards, and coloring her hair into her signature purple.
After the first game, Matt Bozon worked to make the character easier for other people to work with. Her hip sash was progressively removed, and attempts to turn the character into 3-D generated a new batch of issues as her initial appearance had to be revamped to make her look more natural, with her hair in particular blocking the view and needing to move naturally. Various experiments were done to make her feel more kid-like and heroic, but feedback was mixed, which led to reverting to a look closer to her original one, but with the clothing alterations kept. For Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, her proportions were altered, being described by WayForward as featuring "[a] bowling pin shaped body, [...] very tall eyes, [...] [a] long torso, and black triangular pants" with the main aim being on-screen contrast and readability regardless of the distance from the camera. Her lighter skin on the first sketches in contrast to her former design generated minor controversy, and WayForward worked to fix it later on.
In Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Shantae was voiced by Meagan Glaser. For all subsequent appearances, the character has been portrayed by voice actress Cristina Vee, who had started collaborating with WayForward in 2012.
Appearances
In the first game, Shantae is described as a half-genie, the offspring of a human father and Guardian Genie mother whom she never met, as they disappeared when she was only a baby. She wishes to prove her worth as Scuttle Town's Guardian Genie, despite her scarce magical abilities. She is described as a "spirited dancer with a strong sense of right and wrong", and "trouble-prone". When the evil lady-pirate Risky Boots comes to the town and steals her adoptive uncle Mimic's steam engine, she sets on an adventure to stop Risky and recover the engine. By the end of the game, she has come to terms with her nature and is relieved to hear from Mayor Scuttlebutt that the fact she is not a full genie doesn't matter, since she proved her worth by stopping Risky.