Arrow: Every character ranked from worst to best

19. Katana/Tatsu Yamashiro

I think the reason I love Katana/Tatsu Yamashiro as much as I do is not just the fact that she is an impressive fighter with a strong moral compass, but rather the fact that she actually did not like Oliver Queen when they first met. In fact, it took her quite some time to warm up to him and it was only after she saw how devastated he was by the death of her son that she really changed her mind about him.

I think Tatsu is the kind of tragic character that helped really build the world of Arrow beyond Star City. Whether she was doing her work as an assassin or helping to save Oliver and his family, there was something about her that really fascinated me as a viewer.

Watching Katana kill her own husband after their estrangement over his defecting to the dark side was truly heartbreaking. There is no doubt that if she could have saved him she would have. But at the same time, her moral compass was so strong that not even her love for him would stop her from doing the right thing.

Over the course of multiple seasons (even if her presence was strongest and most impactful during the third season), we witness as Tatsu went from having her family to losing everything and hating Oliver Queen to not only having respect for him but being willing to go against the people she worked for and with in order to help him save his own family.

Katana may not have been used nearly enough to rank higher in this list, but I think if she had been used more, we may have lost what made her so impressive as a character.