Shulk

Shulk
Xeno character
Shulk as he appears in Xenoblade Chronicles
First game	Xenoblade Chronicles (2010)
Created by	Tetsuya Takahashi
Voiced by (English)	Adam Howden
Voiced by (Japanese)	Shintarō Asanuma

Shulk (シュルク, Shuruku^?) is a fictional character and the protagonist from Monolith Soft's 2010 role-playing video game Xenoblade Chronicles, part of their overarching Xeno series of video games. Shulk gained an increase in attention and popularity upon his inclusion in Nintendo's 2014 crossover fighting games Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. While he is not present in the game's spiritual sequel, Xenoblade Chronicles X, the game's character creation tool does allow for the player to create characters that look similar to Shulk, complete with his voice actor Adam Howden.

Tetsuya Takahashi, creator of the Xeno series, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Shulk, states that his primary motivation in creating Shulk was to make a more likable and relatable protagonist than in most Japanese role-playing video games.Xenoblade featured a prolonged, four year development cycle dating back to 2006, where Takahashi states that, while the game went through many changes, the overarching plot following Shulk remained largely the same. Takahashi's personal belief was that the more negative, jaded JRPG character-type leads the player to resent them due to the emotional investment required to complete such long games. Takahashi worked with anime writer Yuichiro Takeda on Shulk's creation. Takeda felt that the easiest way to make Shulk likeable would be to make him be a silent protagonist. Takahashi rejected this idea, feeling that it hurt the character's ability to "resonate with the player". In the end, Takahashi went in the opposite direction, making Shulk's positive interactions and words of encouragement, especially in battle, a focus of the game. Takahashi tried to make Shulk react as much like he thought game players would react to the scenarios. He even took advantage of Nintendo's in-house team of debuggers, the "Super Mario Club", whose feedback assured Takahashi that he was on the right track for his goal.