Bayonetta (character)

Bayonetta (ベヨネッタ), born Cereza (セレッサ), is the titular character and main protagonist of the Bayonetta video game series developed by PlatinumGames. She was created by Hideki Kamiya and designed by Mari Shimazaki. Hellena Taylor voiced the character in English for the first two games and several appearances outside the series from 2009 to 2018, while Jennifer Hale voiced her in Bayonetta 3 (2022). She is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka in Japanese.

Bayonetta is one of only two surviving Umbra Witches, being the child of a Witch and a Lumen Sage. During the events of the first game, she goes in search of her forgotten past, heading for her old home of Vigrid and fighting the angelic forces of Paradiso on the way. In Bayonetta 2, she becomes a demon hunter confronting her own literal demons. She appears as a guest character in other games such as Anarchy Reigns, The Wonderful 101, the Super Smash Bros. series, and Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Dx2.

Reception of the character has been positive overall, with the common point of praise being her highly feminine image, which makes her both stand out among female characters in video games and go against several set conventions.

Conception and design
Given the suggestion to create another action game by producer Yusuke Hashimoto, project director Hideki Kamiya decided to create a female lead, having felt he had already done all that could be done with male protagonists. To this end, he told character designer Mari Shimazaki to create her with three traits: a female lead, a modern witch, and to use four guns. Her name was inspired by a bayonet, meant to imply there was "more to her than meets the eye", while her four guns were named parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme after the old English ballad, "Scarborough Fair", due to Kamiya's love of folk music. Her birth name, Cereza, means "cherry" in Spanish. The process, which took a full year, went through a hundred character designs and alterations, with early appearances resembling a traditional witch, with a frayed black outfit and a "veil-like look" on her head. The outfit color persisted, described by Shimazaki as being her "theme color" due to being a witch. She was given longer legs and arms to make her more appealing as an action-game character, countering what Shimazaki felt was a trend of female characters in such games having short and thin limbs. Her limbs and the rest of her design were appealing to Kamiya, and development proceeded on the character's attire.

Bayonetta's beehive hairstyle in the first game was an aspect Shimazaki insisted on, using it as an alternative to the usual pointed hat seen on witches. However, despite concerns, Kamiya had no qualms about the hairstyle one way or another. She was additionally given glasses at Kamiya's insistence, intended to differentiate her from other female characters as well as give her a "sense of mystery and intelligence", though Shimazaki attributed it to possibly his preference for women with glasses. Her guns were modeled after a derringer pistol, in order to remain convincing and familiar, as well as to make her weapons "capable of rapid fire; a simple, rugged gun". Kamiya approved the idea, on the grounds that he felt the weapon would look "hot" in a female hand. Holsters were additionally considered for her feet, however the developers discarded the idea after feeling it wasn't feminine.

The concept of creating her outfit out of her hair was intended to fit into her design as a witch, which the development team felt meant she derived power from her hair. It was designed to both be a "means of adornment and protection" while also giving her appear "fashionable" and accentuate the movement of her limbs. During this process it was decided that as she summoned creatures to attack her enemies during the game she would lose partial control of her hair and end up in more "comfortable" attire; Shimazaki noted this as one of the aspects of the character she loved. Kamiya in addition wanted to avoid giving her large breasts and cleavage, feeling that normal sized breasts were adequate and that being mysterious was more attractive than "baring it all". The character's model was created by Kenichiro Yoshimura, who observed non-Japanese models to keep her proportions authentic, giving particular focus to her backside which, as a result, led to it being made wider and more rounded than the typically slim-hipped female characters designed by Japanese artists. While the character Jeanne came to be better liked by most of the team, Bayonetta was Shimazaki's favorite character, while Kamiya referred to her as his "ideal woman".

Her outfit in Bayonetta 2 was again designed by Shimazaki. It was generally designed more around straight lines than curves. All her jewelry and accessories were designed around this initiative apart from her glasses. There was debate about where to show skin, but when it was decided to create a cape at the front of the outfit, the front of her outfit was closed and instead they opted to show a large area of her back. For her new look, blue became a key color as opposed to the first game, where it was red: this was because water was a key theme for the second game and Hashimoto requested blue to become the design's key color. This eventually proved difficult as, combined with the black and silver incorporated into her outfit and the game's general color palette, it did not have the sharp qualities of her former appearance. Shimazaki described trying to make her stand out in her black outfit as "a nightmare". Her overall design theme was "solid". The character's hairstyle underwent a major redesign. Hashimoto's main reason behind this was that "[Bayonetta's] personality is the type that would not want to remain stagnant. She would want to change her style, taste in fashion, and her costumes. Down the line in the series, she may make further changes to her appearance." The texture of her outfit was designed to appear similar to leather, despite it still being made from her hair. Her new guns, Love is Blue (named after the song), were also difficult to design, as making them too large or too similar in color to other elements of Bayonetta's outfit would not have fitted her. In the end, they were made a more striking shade of blue, as well as being given some gold to match Bayonetta's chest piece and a silver sheen. Each of the guns, Toccata, Prelude, Nocturne, and Minuet, were given antique charms adorned with flower designs and named according to their color and the ideas they evoked to further promote and augment the new look.

Portrayal
Bayonetta is voiced by Hellena Taylor in English and Atsuko Tanaka in Japanese. For the original game, despite production being based in Japan, Kamiya was particular to insist that the character have an English voice actor, and had no Japanese voice actor assigned due to his belief that speaking Japanese would not suit the character. Tanaka first voiced the character in the anime Bayonetta: Bloody Fate, an adaptation of the original Bayonetta, and subsequently assumed the role in Bayonetta 2 and the re-release of the original game on Wii U. Tanaka also voiced the character in commercials for the original game in 2009. She was chosen due to the fact that her name kept cropping up when the team asked who could best portray the character in Japanese.

For Bayonetta 3, the character's English voice was recast, a decision originally attributed by co-director Yusuke Miyata to "various overlapping circumstances"; Tanaka returned to reprise her role in Japanese. Taylor contested Miyata's statement on Twitter, alleging that the reason for leaving the role was Platinum offering her a flat rate of $4,000 for the role; an amount she found "insulting" given the series' commercial success. Her statements, combined with responses to it, prompted online controversy. However, several investigative reports disputed the story, with sources claiming that Taylor was offered a rate of $4,000 per session, for a total of 5 sessions. The role was given to Jennifer Hale, a veteran voice actress known for her work in the Mass Effect and Metal Gear series. Commenting on fan concerns surrounding the change, Miyata stated that Hale's performance was "way beyond what we could have imagined."

Bayonetta series
Bayonetta was born in Vigrid from the forbidden union of Lumen Sage Balder and Umbra Witch Rosa. The Witch was imprisoned and the Sage exiled from his clan. Bayonetta's birth caused a rift between the formally peaceful clans and eventually led to them engaging in a war. Bayonetta became a black sheep among the Umbran Witches, and during the war, Jeanne, her former childhood friend and rival, sealed her away and wiped her memory to protect her from those who would exploit her power. For the next five hundred years, Bayonetta was sealed in a coffin at the bottom of a lake until she finally awakens from her sleep. A journalist, Antonio Redgrave, happens to be at the lake and is then murdered by Balder's angels who later got killed by Bayonetta as his son, Luka, looks on.

In Bayonetta, the witch sets out for her hometown Vigrid, where Balder is preparing to awaken the creator Jubileus and trigger the creation of a new world at the cost of the old one. She is followed there by a now grown-up Luka, who has become a journalist and has set out to show Bayonetta to the world, as an act of vengeance for her supposed part in his father's death. She also encounters Jeanne, who is under Balder's control, and Cereza, Bayonetta's younger self sent through time by the Lumen Sage. Cereza and Bayonetta become close, with Cereza thinking Bayonetta was her mother and Bayonetta eventually telling Cereza that she should keep things she treasured close to her heart (referring specifically to a charm Cereza's mother had given her as a birthday present). Eventually, Bayonetta learns the truth of recent events after defeating Balder and sending Cereza back to her own era: the "Left Eye" is actually Bayonetta herself, and regaining her memories allowed her to awaken her latent power. By bringing Cereza into the present, Balder set events into motion that would prevent Bayonetta from forgetting her past when Jeanne sealed her away. Knocked unconscious by the awakening of her power, Bayonetta is sealed within Jubileus by Balder, only to be rescued by Jeanne, newly freed from the Lumen Sage's control. Together, the two destroy Jubileus and save the entire universe from the Second Armageddon.

In Bayonetta 2, a few months after the events of the first game, Bayonetta and Jeanne are fighting an angel outbreak when a supernatural summoning goes wrong and Gomarrah kills Jeanne. Bayonetta then sets out to rescue Jeanne's soul from the realm Inferno, heading to the sacred mountain Fimbulventr to find the Gates of Hell. Arriving at the town of Noatun, she encounters a mysterious boy named Loki who serves as her guide to the mountain. She also reunites with Luka, who tells her about the legend of the deity Aesir, who created and ruled the Chaos Realm (Human Realm). During their journey, the pair is attacked by a masked Lumen Sage who targets Loki. When they reach the Gates of Hell, Bayonetta meets Loptr, who is apparently working with the Masked Lumen and knows Loki very well. Through a vision, he reveals to her that her father Balder was not responsible for the witch hunts and tried to save her mother, who was killed by an unknown assailant who looks like Loki. To escape their attackers, Bayonetta and Loki flee into Hell, but the Masked Lumen follows them. Separated from the boy, Bayonetta fights through hordes of demons and successfully rescues Jeanne but finds Loki being attacked again by the Masked Lumen. Intervening, Bayonetta fights the Sage, revealed to be a younger version of her father Balder who had been targeting Loki for Rosa's murder. Suddenly, Loki unwillingly sends both Bayonetta and Balder back into the past during the Witch Hunts. Bayonetta meets her mother Rosa, and the two of them fight against the angels. During the battle, she fights a younger version of Loptr, and she realizes that he murdered Rosa and framed Loki for the crime. Later encountering Balder, the pair enter the Umbra Witch sanctuary to find that Loptr had killed Rosa. When he escapes, Bayonetta tells Balder that the killer was not Loki. She then opens a time portal and the two of them return to the present. With the help of Jeanne flying a fighter jet, Bayonetta and Balder set out for Fimbulventr to confront Loptr, who has captured Loki. He reveals that he and Loki are the two halves of Aesir. When Aesir divided his power into the Eyes of the World, he split his soul into two: Loki being the good half and Loptr being the evil half. But Loptr decided to take back his power and become Aesir once again. Draining Loki of his power, Loptr takes the Eyes from both Bayonetta and Balder and transforms into Aesir. While the Witch and the Sage team up to fight Aesir, Loki erases the Eyes and weaken Loptr. Bayonetta and Balder defeat Loptr and split his soul from his body. When he tries to escape into the past to be reborn, Balder stops him by sealing the soul inside his body, despite Loki warning that it will corrupt him. Bayonetta tearfully bids farewell to her father as he is transported back into the past and becomes the corrupted Balder. As Loki begins to fade, he promises to Bayonetta that they will meet again when he is reborn.

In Bayonetta 3, Bayonetta hears the call of a mysterious voice, pinpointing it to an ambush of homunculi. With Jeanne and Rodin's help, Bayonetta dispatches the army. At the Gates of Hell, they meet a young witch-in-training named Viola. She claims to come from an alternate universe, where its Bayonetta variant was killed by a mysterious and seemingly unbeatable enemy known as Singularity. Bayonetta, Jeanne and Viola travel to the island of Thule, which serves as a gate to the multiverse, to collect four Chaos Gears that can lead them to the Alphaverse, where Singularity lurks, while Jeanne goes to meet Sigurd, a doctor and scientist who has knowledge about the multiverse. Meanwhile, Viola pursues Luka, who has become a creature known as the Strider, in order to save him from his transformation's influence under his alternate variant, Dark Adam, also meeting another variant, Lukaon, the king of the faeries. After fighting her way past four alternate universes, meeting alternate versions of herself in the process, Bayonetta claims all four Chaos Gears and, with Jeanne and Sigurd, unlock the way into the Alphaverse. However, Sigurd reveals himself as a disguised Singularity, kills Jeanne, and traps Bayonetta and Viola in the Alphaverse, where Bayonetta fights Luka in his Strider form, freeing him from Dark Adam's influence with Lukaon's help, allowing Luka to become Arch-Adam, a guide for Arch-Eve. Bayonetta, identified as Arch-Eve Origin by Singularity, engages the entity in a final showdown. Though beginning to fall short against Singularity, Bayonetta makes a comeback with Jeanne, the alternate Bayonettas, and her past-game variants' spirits aiding her, defeating Singularity and restoring the multiverse. However, Bayonetta's Umbran Watch breaks, causing her to lose control of a summoned demon, knocking her soul from her body. Luka rescues Bayonetta as the two share a passionate kiss and are dragged together into Inferno. Afterwards, Viola defeats a spirit known as Dark Eve, who is revealed to be a remnant of the Bayonetta of the Alphaverse, awarding Viola her title as a final message from the Witch.

In Cereza and the Lost Demon, Bayonetta's origin story was revealed six hundred years before the great Witch Hunts caused by Aesir. During her time training under Morgana, an exiled Umbra Witch, Cereza frequently experiences a dream that tells her of Avalon Forest, the home of the Faeries that she has been strictly warned by her teacher not to venture into at any point. However, one such dream differs from the others and she sees the vision of a mysterious boy telling her to go into the forest to find a way to save her. One night, Cereza is allowed to try summoning her first Infernal Demon using a special brace provided by Morgana. However, the inexperienced witch cannot control the summon using her hair as a conduit properly and is nearly attacked before the demon dissipates. Though desperate to try again, Morgana comments that Cereza is not allowed due her failure and still needs to train harder. Disheartened, but remembering the words of the boy in her dream, Cereza decides to ignore Morgana's warnings and go into Avalon to become strong and save her mother. Taking the brace with her, the girl leaves that same night. Cereza's bravado is eventually whittled away the further she travels into the forest before she is suddenly attacked by Fairies. Knowing that she is no match for them on her own, she attempts to try the spell she had previously failed and summon a demon. Though she is able to complete the summoning, her inexperience with using her hair as a medium causes her to accidentally bind the demon to her stuffed cat. The demon is furious at this confinement and attempts to flee in order to find a way back to Inferno, but quickly discovers that the summoning drains him of his strength and power the further away he is from Cereza. Realizing her mistake, Cereza promises to find a way to send the demon back home if he accompanies her through Avalon to help her find the power she seeks. With no other choice, the nameless demon begrudgingly agrees, with Cereza christening him with the name "Cheshire" after the stuffed cat he inhabits. The two continue went on an adventure, following the tracks of a white wolf whilst conquering the dangerous creatures that lurk in the forest and destroying the four Elemental Cores hidden deep within the forest, where Cereza discovers confidence she never thought she had in herself and gradually overcomes her timid nature, while Cheshire's stubborn attitude eventually begins to soften as he looks at Cereza in a new angle. Suddenly, a faerie tries to lure Cereza into its grasp by disguising itself as her mother. Realizing this, Cheshire destroys the illusion, but Cereza's grief over her mother causes her and Cheshire to argue, deciding to part ways. Later, after seeing him captured, Cereza, concerned, swallows her pride and, with the wolf's help, ventures into the faeries' castle, rescues and makes up with Cheshire, and the two work together to defeat the faeries' ruler, Púca. Soon, the two reach the deepest part of the forest, where the boy Cereza saw in her dreams, named Lukaon, explains that, like Cereza, he was cursed for being the half-blood son of a faerie and a witch. Cereza sympathetically agrees to help him, but grows torn when Lukaon explains that he needs a demon's essence to free himself from the curse. Refusing to put her friend in harm's way, Cereza refuses to give up Cheshire, but Lukaon decides to rely on force and use Cheshire to rid himself of the curse. Luckily, Cereza manages to rescue the demon, though Lukaon steals the elemental powers Cheshire gained from the Cores. The two combine their strength and engage Lukaon in battle, take back the elemental powers, and defeat him. However, soon after, Púca returns for payback, amassing his faerie army for cavalry. Cheshire, carrying the weakened Lukaon, and Cereza narrowly escape the forest before being saved by Morgana, who discovers the boy, but instead of saving him, she angrily turns to Cereza and Cheshire, revealing herself to be Lukaon's long-lost mother, as well as sending other failed Umbran disciples before Cereza to retrieve Lukaon from the forest, unleashing her magical power upon them to avenge her son. At first feeling doubtful of her abilities to combat her mentor, some words of encouragement from Cheshire spur Cereza to fight on, manifesting the Witch Time to take Morgana by surprise and defeat her, destroying her Umbran Watch and knocking her soul from her body. After tearfully bidding farewell to Lukaon, Morgana's soul is dragged down into Inferno--a fate that eventually befalls every Umbra Witch--and Cereza and Cheshire share a farewell of their own before Cheshire uses the portal made from Inferno's denizens and returns home. Cereza, after her mother wishes her luck in a dream, leaves home the next day to find her next adventure.

Other appearances


At the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Sega chose Penny Drake to model as Bayonetta after auditioning 100 women. To promote the character and the game, Playboy featured several models dressed as her for viewers to vote which they considered the best. Sega also joined men's lifestyle website Maxim.com to run a contest to find women who looked like Bayonetta; the grand prize winner was Andrea Bonaccorso. A Spanish cosplayer known as "Judy Helsing" portrayed Bayonetta as she appeared in Bayonetta 2 for Playboy.

Bayonetta starred in the anime film Bayonetta: Bloody Fate, an adaptation of the first Bayonetta game. She also appears as a downloadable character in Sega's multiplayer fighting game Anarchy Reigns, and as a special guest character alongside Jeanne and Rodin in Nintendo's action game The Wonderful 101.

On December 15, 2015, Bayonetta was announced as the final downloadable character for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Following a Nintendo-sponsored fan poll asking for character suggestions for the game, Bayonetta was the most popular choice among "negotiable" characters worldwide, placing among the top five vote-getters in the United States and placing first in the polls in Europe. She sports her primary character designs from both Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 with her design from the second game being her default appearance, and retains many of her abilities from both games, such as extended combos, Witch Time, and Infernal Climax. She was released alongside a stage based on the falling Umbra Clock Tower from Bayonetta on February 3, 2016, in North America and on February 4, 2016, in Europe. Both the character and stage return in the sequel Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, this time in the initial release.

Hideki Kamiya was approached about having Bayonetta included in Project X Zone 2, to which he refused as he wanted Bayonetta and Dante from Devil May Cry to meet "on his own terms". However, he has stated that he has come to regret this decision due to realizing how the fans would have loved the two interacting, and that if there is a Project X Zone 3 he would be all for Bayonetta's inclusion.

Bayonetta also appears in 8-Bit Bayonetta, a free game that SEGA released on 1 April 2017 on Steam. The game's achievements led players to a "coming soon" page, with a countdown that ended with the release of the first game on PC.

Critical reception
Bayonetta was mostly well received upon her debut. In their review of the first game, the staff of PSM3 praised how well the character held the player's attention, stating that while every line she spoke "dripped" with sexual inuendo, "it's all very tongue in cheek". Additionally despite considering her one of the sexier characters they'd seen in gaming, "you're never asked to seriously consider Bayonetta as a sex object", and instead she poked at gaming conventions for how silly they were. Comparing her to prominent sex symbols in gaming at the time such as Lara Croft they felt she approached the subject matter better, and further described her as "one of the most memorable, likeable characters in the history of games". GameSpot's Mark Walton also praised her, stating "[D]espite suffering crotch shots and blatant innuendos …[Bayonetta] remains one of the most charismatic and powerful heroines in the medium. [...] the sexualisation here serves to empower, not to belittle."

IGN in particular gave her glowing praise. Ryan Clements described the character as a "hardcore badass" that was also "brimming with sexual energy", further describing her as an "immensely powerful protagonist". However, associate editor Nicole Tanner disagreed, noting she did not find the character's sexuality at all empowering as "just because you give a girl an attitude and guns isn't enough to offset what she looks like". Other members of IGN's staff named her their favorite video game character, describing her as "the playfulness and versatility of Dante" combined with "visually inventive combat". They cited her constant nudity as a point of appeal, calling the mechanic of her hair serving as her clothing both one of the stupidest and one of the coolest elements of a character.

Sae K. Kim of GamePro on the other hand complained that the character's "overt sexuality and frantic anime-inspired shenanigans" hampered her appeal in his view, comparing her to a "skilled magician who is terrific at sleight of hand" but feeling that she overly relied on a "heavily overproduced stage show complete with burlesque dancers and a rocking soundtrack" for her presentation. As a result in Kim's eyes she fell flat as a protagonist, and while he acknowledged many would find appeal in her appearance and "vampish" approach he had preferred for her overt nature to be toned down. While Arthur Gies of Polygon praised Bayonetta 2 for giving the character "some much-needed development as a human being who cares about things other than herself", he was significantly concerned about other aspects of her depiction, such as gratuitous camera angles that were "frequently provided as an implicit reward for doing well. … It's sexist, gross pandering, and it's totally unnecessary." He felt that such issues "cause[d] an otherwise great game to require a much bigger mental compromise to enjoy". Edge stated that although "Bayonetta's default design shows how to walk the tightrope between sexy and sexualised", certain optional costumes "range from the respectable to the cringeworthy."

In 2018, Lady Gaga expressed her love of the character, referring to her as "tough." In 2020, Lady Gaga released a music video for "Rain On Me" containing several references to Bayonetta.

Regarding female empowerment
In an editorial for The Guardian on female characterization, Ria Jenkins praised Bayonetta as a character who is "unapologetically feminine, sexual and confident. Dismissed by many as an objectified fantasy, she is a woman without compromise who refuses to be ashamed of her body." She noted that in contrast to Lara Croft, where Croft's sex appeal was secondary, in Bayonetta's case she utilized it as a powerful weapon. To this end, the character made many of the male cast, and per Jenkins' own suggestion some male players, uncomfortable, and helped illustrate her as "a power trip for and about women". Jenkins further stated that as a character her autonomy and control over her body and femininity helped distance her portrayal as one seen as pandering to the male audience, and demonstrated the fact she was a powerful woman as compared to being "powerful in spite of being a woman". Additional comparison was brought up between the character and her younger self, Cereza, and how it not only illustrated a maternal side of Bayonetta, but also drew a distinction between woman and child by giving them different names, "the sexed and non-sexed subject." In Jenkin's view it allowed the subject to illustrate Bayonetta's growth as a character, whereas other portrayals of women in video games portrayed women as synonymous with vulnerability in Bayonetta's case she left hers behind.

Leigh Alexander in an article for GamePro noted that while the character was sexually overt, she felt that Bayonetta could be seen as an empowering symbol for women. She noted that many of the thematic stylings that Hideki Kamiya had worked into his previous games such as Devil May Cry were also equally present in Bayonetta. While in those titles Alexander acknowledged the female characters were "strong, sexy women", they were in her eyes often reduced to eye candy, while in the case of Bayonetta the character used their sexuality as a source of strength, bringing the "video game sexy woman stereotype from object to subject, and it's tremendously empowering." The framing of the game's world further helped support this, with the emphasis on strong women and the use of feminine imagery such as the "subtle grace of Bayonetta's butterfly-shaped shadow". Alexander further stated that while there had been debate on what exactly constituted an image of an empowering woman and that several had emerged in years prior, she felt it was "unfair to strip video game women of their sexuality completely", or moreso act as if the use of sexuality implied the character was being exploited. She added that the character's hypersexualization was intended to be " intentionally unrealistic", continuing a theme of unrealism common in Kamiya's works. She added that those treating a stylized female body as a personal affront overlooked the character's "particular brand of femininity", and that she felt Bayonetta not only an "innovative approach to the idea of female power" but also presented the first game that made her "directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl."

Johanthan Holmes of Destructoid on the other hand stated that such defense of the character surprised him after the game's release, feeling that a female character that "reinforces the idea that women need to self-objectify in order to get what they want isn’t doing much for feminism." He further drew issue with Kamiya's own statements regarding the character and positive portrayals of femininity, calling the interpretation of her as an empowering figure "skewed". Instead he saw the character as an empty shell reflecting her creator's sexual fantasies and "misconceived notions of the female gender", further stating that if the character was male at least it would go against convention, but as it was he considered Bayonetta a step back for the portrayal of women in video games. In a follow up article, he further decried what he saw as her unrealistic body proportions, stating she "does not look like an Earthling" due to her long legs. He further argued similar proportions applied to other video game characters would highlight the issues in her design, though acknowledged his criticism was in no way a demand to change her design.