Sin City's Devon Aoki Will Play Katana On 'Arrow'

Actress Devon Aoki already has experience playing a sword-wielding martial arts expert from comics with her role as Miho in Sin City, so her newest role, as DC Comics character Katana on The CW's Arrow, shouldn't be too difficult of a challenge. Deadline reports that Aoki will have a recurring role in the series' third season, which will, if the second season finale is any indication, partially take place in Hong Kong.

Of course, Katana -- real name Tatsu Yamashiro -- isn't from there. She's Japanese, but one could certainly believe she'd make the trip from Japan to Hong Kong to make Oliver Queen's life a little tougher and remind him of the other Japanese martial artist woman in his life, Shado.

Deadline reports that Katana first appeared in Green Arrow comics, but that's not entirely accurate. (It seems they got her confused with Shado, who did first appear in Mike Grell's Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters.) Like many of the characters on Arrow, Katana actually first appeared in a Batman comic, specifically 1983's The Brave and the Bold #200, in which she got caught up in a misunderstanding over an assassination in the fictional country of Markovia. Fans of Arrow may remember that country's name from a Suicide Squad mission there last season.

For much of her comics existence, Katana has been a member of the sometimes-led-by-Batman superhero team the Outsiders, though most recently she was a member of the Birds of Prey and the Justice League of America. Only recently has her story tied in with Green Arrow very much. In Green Arrow #27, which came out back in January, Katana discovered that her husband's death (by the way, her husband's spirit sometimes inhabits her sword) tied into a group called the Outsiders, which also has ties to Green Arrow.

Will any of that play into her appearances on the show? Who knows, but at least they didn't change her name.