Hanzo (Overwatch)

Hanzo
Overwatch character
Promotional Overwatch image featuring Hanzo
First appearance	Are You With Us? (2016)
First game	Overwatch (2016)
Voiced by (English)	Paul Nakauchi
Voiced by (Japanese)	Shūhei Sakaguchi

Hanzo Shimada (Japanese: シマダ・ハンゾー, Hepburn: Shimada Hanzō) is a playable character appearing in the 2016 video game Overwatch, a first-person shooter video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and its related media, which includes animated shorts and webcomics.

The character is of Japanese origin and only goes by his given name in the game, Hanzo. In Overwatch, he is classified as a defense character and one with a high difficulty ranking. He is an archer whose arrows have the ability to show the location of his enemies or hit multiple targets.

Hanzo has been well received by critics and fans alike, with praise being directed towards his character arc involving his brother, design and abilities, especially his ultimate ability. However, reviewers have also noted that he is a character who requires practice in order to be used effectively in matches.

Hanzo was first revealed at BlizzCon 2014, along with eleven other characters from Overwatch, where he was described as being lightly-armored, scampering up walls using his bare hands and being able to spot enemies through obstacles. Originally, Hanzo and his brother Genji were created as a single cyborg-ninja character named Hanzo, who wielded both a bow and sword. Due to feeling that the character was too unfocused in design and had too many ninja elements attached to him, it was decided that the character be split into two brothers, with Hanzo obtaining the bow, name and clothing of the original character.

Hanzo was named after Hattori Hanzō, one of the most famous ninjas. Hattori was also known as "Demon Hanzo" because of his tactician abilities, which is what inspired Hanzo's "Demon" skin during the "Overwatch Halloween Terror" seasonal event in October. Hanzo's story arc along with Genji's was inspired by the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Michael Chu, lead writer of Overwatch, discussing Hanzo and his "will-he, won't-he fall to darkness storyline", stated that Hanzo's "real interesting because he can be a hero and a villain depending on your point of view – I think he can be both at the same time. There are more things to investigate there."