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Giovanna is a playable character in the Guilty Gear series who makes her debut in Guilty Gear -Strive-. Accompanied by a wolf spirit called Rei, Giovanna is an officer in the special operations unit that protects the President of the United States.

Design[]

Giovanna has red hair, blue eyes, and a tanned skin complexion. She is dressed in business casual attire, a loosely worn white shirt with bright green pulled up sleeves, baggy olive green dress pants with suspenders and belts, as well as light brown fingerless gloves and white-green heeled boots.

She is accompanied by Rei, a green wolf spirit with black snout and legs (with the legs being hidden during most of gameplay), whited-out eyes, and an orange recycling symbol around a heart on its forehead.

When possessed by Rei, Giovanna gains a few of Rei's features. Her skin goes a light green and her eyes become white alongside their symbol placed on her forehead. Her hair becomes a lighter red as well.

Personality[]

Giovanna is said to be careful with her words, but still manages to come off as rude and irreverent due to her attitude. Deep down, though, she means well and is especially friendly with children and animals. Due to the unique environment she grew up in, she can also be a bit lacking in social skills and nuances at times. Rei, her spirit wolf companion, is like family to Giovanna and fights at her side.

Despite her position as a special forces officer, Giovanna also comes off as lazy, but when push comes to shove, she handles matters as a professional.

Story[]

Background[]

While her past is mostly kept confidential, she spent a certain amount of time living in an old ruined shack with an elderly man she had never previously met, given clothes she never owned after having been picked up off the street from living homeless.

She picked herself up from this situation and became a professional in every aspect, eventually landing a job in the U.S. Government and the Secret Service.

As Goldlewis Dickinson appears to be her boss, he seems to know a great deal about her.

Guilty Gear -Strive-[]

Giovanna is first seen driving a limo to the White House with U.S. President Vernon E. Groubitz, Erica Bartholomew, and the Gear Maker, Asuka R. Kreutz for a preparation of upcoming World Peace G4 Summit. When Anji Mito is at Washington as well, Gio smells no hostility on the Japanese twin-fan wielder, as he is only inspecting Asuka in person.

After bringing Vernon, Erica and Asuka to the White House, Gio takes to the top of a building far from Washington before being called for training by her superior, Stryper and a new agent Udos. Gio explains Stryper on why she refuses to earn high-ranked badge, which is because the design which Vernon made is too cartoony. Before they begin to return to training area, Stryper asks Gio to button up her shirt, advising her that having her shirt button open won't work on catching a "good" man.

Sometime after her training on the day when G4 began, Gio is in a middle of patrolling the White House on the top of a building far from the former building. She soon senses an eerie presence of Happy Chaos, and realizing she is too late to save her fellow agents from being brainwashed by him. While Vernon is able to escape with Sol Badguy and trying to find a way to get away from Happy Chaos preventing him from using Asuka's Tome of Origin for his partner in-crime, I-No, Gio defeats most of the brainwashed agents off-screen and manages to get inside the White House before Chaos reveals the building's true form as an airship called Tir Na Nog, preventing Sol and Vernon from escaping the area. Although Illyrian Third King Daryl manages to make Chaos free him and the rest of world's leaders who are still being taken hostage at meeting room to a rescue airship, so Chaos can only focus on hunting Sol, Asuka and Vernon. As Sol, Asuka and Vernon are in trouble to find a way to escape Chaos' unwitting samurai, Nagoriyuki, Gio saves Sol from being killed by the samurai, knowing that a material from his blade can kill Gears like Sol and any godlike beings. Although Giovanna won the first round against Nagoriyuki, she lost on the second round when Chaos controlling the samurai's body, until Sol's stubborn willpower to fight allows Nagoriyuki to have finally break free from Chaos' control.

After Chaos is tricked by Asuka into leaving with his former disciple's illusion on PEOC, then Asuka revert Sol back to his original human-self, Frederick Bulsara, Gio recovers and meet up with Vernon, Ky Kiske, Asuka, Jack-O' Valentine, Potemkin, and a now human Sol, while still injured. When Gio talking about a retirement plan on never keeping a cartoony high-ranked badge, it makes Second Illyrian King Leo Whitefang to notice something is not right. As Gio confirms that the jacket whom Chaos stole was belonged to Udos instead of Stryper, Leo realize that the "Chaos" they arrested is an altered Stryper, while the real Chaos disguise as Udos, meaning Sol's aversion back to human is on a bad timing. After Chaos reveal that Asuka fuse with the real tome for safekeeping, then fuse with I-No into a singular godlike being, Gio, Potemkin and human Sol ignores Asuka's warning on not to engage a now godlike I-No in combat, and both of three lost. While Giovanna and Potemkin are knocked out, Sol is able to recover and joins both Dragon Install Power Ky, Axl Low, a recently freed Asuka, Vernon, and a freed Nagoriyuki against a godlike I-No, saving Jack-O from sacrificing herself and the universe.

After recovering from the battle, she vowed to get revenge on Nagoriyuki, but her true objective is to save him from the current situation he is in.[1]

Abilities[]

During battle, Giovanna is aided by her wolf spirit companion called Rei, who is able to possess her and grants her inhuman speed.

By merging with her spirit wolf Rei, she gains superhuman speed, senses, and reflexes, combined with a certain amount of durability that allows her kicking attacks to hit opponents with incredible physical force.

Her fighting style appears to be a mix of Taekwondo, Muay-Thai, Savate, and certain elements of Shaolin Animal styles (possibly based on a Wolf, but also minor elements untypical of Capoera that are hard to trace).

In terms of gameplay, Giovanna is a rush-down character, combining her acrobatic skills and martial arts in tandem with Rei to deliver quick, powerful attacks. She specializes in close combat, able to close in with her fast movement and lock the opponent down with her offense. Her short range abilities can be a disadvantage, but Giovanna possesses special moves that launch her forward to approach the enemy. She has a unique mechanic which increases her damage output as her Tension Gauge fills.

Music[]

Quotes[]

Allusions[]

  • Giovanna could be named after the brazillian actress Giovanna Antonelli. She worked on many famous brazillian soap operas incluinding a main role in Sol Nascente, which could be the name origin to one of her specials.
  • Her Sepultura special is named after the famous Brazilian metal band.
  • Overall, Giovanna's design seems to have been inspired by Vanessa from The King of Fighters series. Both are agile redheads dressed in business casual attires with a no-nonsense personality. However, while Vanessa mostly uses punches focusing on a boxing-style, Giovanna seems to mostly use kicks.
    • Incidentally, her voice actress voiced Angel in The King of Fighters 2002, Neowave and 2002 UM.
    • In Giovanna's theme, the term "Silent Preacher" references Muta Predicatio, a Catholic term for Fresco Artwork that conveys scripture. This is also known as "Poor Man's Bible". A Silent Preacher is also a metaphor for a Gun.
    • It's been said that "Gio" is Giovanna's alias/nickname, though how she got it is currently unclear (even IF it seems like a JoJo/GioGio reference). Rei isn't technically her 'stand', by the way, since possession is a different form of supernatural phenomena.
    • Sepultura is named after the famous Brazilian Metal Band "Sepultura" (Grave), known for Groove, Thrash, Death, Alternative, and Black Metal.
    • While her design is "simplistic", Ishiwatari stated he had a hard time coming up with an outfit that fit her nature. Some have suggested it is similar to Vanessa from King of Fighters, though her fighting style also smacks of certain elements of Cammy's fighting style from Street Fighter (especially "Cannon Spike").
    • As a side note, one of her fellow agents is code-named "Dokken" named after the Metal Band famous for the song "Kiss of Death" (which, ironically enough, sounds exactly like the song D.O.A. the GGXX Character Select theme, as well as the other "Kiss of Death" song, which just so happens to be Goldlewis Dickinson's theme!)

Trivia[]

  • She currently has the most unique lines towards a single character, that character being Leo.
  • Giovanna has made a guest appearance in the game Crusaders Quest.
  • Giovanna’s name is commonly pronounced as “Jee-oh-vanna”. The correct pronunciation of her name would be “Jo-vanna” since the name “Giovanna” is of Italian origin and the “Gio” in her name is pronounced as “Jo” in Italian.
  • Giovanna is shown to have several traits connected to lycanthropes/werewolves
    • She is shown to have heightened senses, able to sniff out Anji
    • Her hobby of moongazing is reminiscent of werewolves connection to the full moon.
    • During Ventania, Giovanna grows a tail, and she is shown to fuse with Rei, similar to the transformation of werewolves.
    • While Giovanna's origins were something like a homeless orphan, she appears to blame no one for her fate (based on her theme), and while she could have "quit", she decided to keep doing her job to the best of her ability. The end result appears to have given her an insightful empathy in to other peoples' dark pasts and connections to the Crusades. So even if she is sarcastic and rude on the outside, she is very understanding of the people she meets.
    • Despite the fact Axl Low gave her the runaround in her story, he also knows her true nature, and just wants to make sure she doesn't hurt Nagoriyuki's feelings. -
    • Rei means "King" in Portuguese, but it also means "Zero" in Japanese.
    • A great deal of her victory commentary suggests she has tested her superhuman powers on real-live animals in the jungle, though, given her kindness to animals, she probably never actually hurt them (at least permanently).
    • The seal on Rei's forehead implies he bears a connection to Gears, despite being a spirit animal. The "recycled heart" icon seems to imply his soul was recycled and somehow merged with Giovanna's. Merging souls appears to be very similar to Forbidden Magic "outside the laws of heaven", not unlike Zato and Millia Rage's origins, though it appears that Giovanna has not sacrificed anything in particular for that power, there's still much we don't know about her origins yet.
    • It's ironic that the very Cartoon Badge that Giovanna didn't want to wear ended up helping Leo Whitefang track down Happy Chaos.
    • It's also implied that Giovanna has memorized Happy Chaos' scent... and could probably track him anywhere around the globe. She seems to hate what he smells like (implying he smells like a corpse).
    • Giovanna takes a great deal of pride in her physical fitness, even wanting to visit the gym after work, though her ulterior motive is to find a man who would find her attractive.

Gallery[]

External links[]

References[]

  1. GG World: "Correlation"


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