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Geese Howard

is a fictional video game character appearing in SNK's (now known as SNK Playmore) fighting games. Geese is notoriously difficult to defeat in the games in which he appears. He is better known as the chief antagonist in the Fatal Fury and the Real Bout Fatal Fury series. Geese has also appeared in a few The King of Fighters games, while his young self makes an appearance in the second Art of Fighting game. In Gamest's 1997 Heroes Collection, Geese was voted as the staff's ninth favorite character.

Geese is the local crime boss of the fictional city of South Town and runs the company Geese Connections. Geese bears a striking resemblance to "The Aussie" from the 1988 feature film, Bloodsport. Both are blond-haired white men fighting in an hakama and gi top.

Aside from the Fatal Fury series, Geese also appears in many CD dramas and stars in his own character image album. He also sings in a number of image songs.

History

Fatal Fury series

Geese Howard first appears in the original Fatal Fury, where he hosts the "King of Fighters" tournament. The central plot of the game centers around the Bogard Brothers' (Terry and Andy) quest to avenge their father's death, who was murdered by Geese a decade before the events of the game. During the game's final battle, Geese challenges the player's character to a final match set in the top floor of his building, the Geese Tower. After the player defeats Geese, Geese falls off from the building and hits the ground, being declared dead during the game's ending.

The immediate sequel, Fatal Fury 2, did not feature Geese; instead, a new antagonist named Wolfgang Krauser (an old nemesis of Geese) becomes the sponsor of the new King of Fighters tournament. Geese does appear in the revised version of the game, Fatal Fury Special, where it is revealed that he survived his fall at the end of the first game and had his death faked.

Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory centers around Geese's attempt to return to power by collecting the "Sacred Scrolls of Jin", which is said to give their holder great power. In his ending, Geese obtains the scrolls and prepares for the next King of Fighters tournament.

The next game, Real Bout Fatal Fury, was promoted as Geese's final appearance in the series, advertised with the tag line "So long, Geese". In this game, Geese was once again the final boss in the single-player tournament, confronting the player atop Geese Tower. In either, Terry's or Andy's ending, Geese falls off his tower once again, refusing to accept help from either of the Bogard Brothers. Despite his apparent death, Geese appears in the subsequent game, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special, as a hidden final boss named Nightmare Geese. Dominated Minds, the PlayStation version of Real Bout Special, features Geese sporting a halo over his head as a reference to his passing. He also appears as a regular character in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2, although the game did not have any storyline.

Garou: Mark of the Wolves, set a decade after Geese's apparent death at the hands of Terry in the original Real Bout and centers around Geese's son Rock Howard, who was raised and trained by Terry himself.

Other games

Geese also makes an appearance in the second game in the Art of Fighting series. Art of Fighting 2, which is set a decade before the first Fatal Fury, features a younger Geese Howard as the corrupt police commissioner of Southtown. Geese is revealed to be Mr. Bigs true boss and the mastermind behind the events of the previous game. After meeting certain requirements, the player will face Geese Howard as a hidden final boss.

Geese also appears in a few games in The King of Fighters series, which does not follow the continuity established by the Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting games, despite sharing many characters and plot elements . In The King of Fighters '96, Geese serves as the leader of the "Boss Team" along with former subordinate Mr. Big and rival Wolfgang Krauser, which makes its only appearance in this installment. Geese would appear again in a non-playable role as the sponsor of the "Outlaw Team" in The King of Fighters '97, which is comprised of Billy Kane, Blue Mary) and Ryuji Yamazaki. The team would reappear in The King of Fighters 2003, with Mary (now part of the Women Fighters Team) replaced by Gato from Mark of the Wolves. Geese also appears in the console version of The King of Fighters 2002 and The King of Fighters XI as a selectable character, as well as in The King of Fighter '98 Ultimate Match, which brings back the Boss Team from 96. The younger version of Geese from Art of Fighting 2 appears as a hidden character in The King of Fighters Neowave.

Other media

Geese Howard also appears in a trilogy of animated films based on the Fatal Fury video games, where his voice is provided by Hidekatsu Shibata in the original Japanese versions and Ward Perry in the English dubs. The first two installments, 1992s Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf and 1993s Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle, both aired in Japan as TV specials on Fuji TV, while the third film, 1994s Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, was a theatrical film. The English adaptations of all three films were released on home video by Viz Communications. The first two films loosely follows the storyline of the games and both feature Geese as a major character, establishing him and Wolfgang Krauser as half-brothers who share the same father, a plot element which was canonized in the video game series with Fatal Fury Special. Geese makes a cameo appearance in the third film, where he performs the Raging Storm technique.

In addition to appearing in manga adaptations of the Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and The King of Fighters games published in Japan, Geese Howard was also the subject of a single-volume manga published in 1996 titled The Geese Howard Story by Etsuya Amajishi, adapting the character's fictional history from the Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury games. It was followed by a single-volume sequel in 1997 titled Geese in the Dark, by the same author.

Character design

The appearance of Geese in the Art of Fighting series was of a young man with long blond hair wearing a light purple and blue suit with red necktie. In Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters, Geese appears older, with short, slicked hair and wearing a white aikido outfit with red hakama and white uwagi without sandals. In most games of the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series - except Fatal Fury: King of Fighters and The King of Fighters '96 - Geese only wears the red hakama pants with the white gi either not present or hanging off the back/sides.

Trivia

Though his voice actor (Kong Kuwata) is credited in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, Geese is not heard speaking in the game (though he does have text lines in pre-fight dialogues and his ending).