So we’ve all probably seen the Decapre debut trailer from Capcom for Ultra Street Fighter 4. On April 1, Mike Zaimont and, maybe, Peter Bartholomew decided to take the piss out of Capcom a little bit.

April Fool’s jokes on the Internet might be old and tired, so the new thing is to make you April Fool’s joke a reality. Fukua was immediately made a player character in the PC version of Skullgirls Encore, and after moving her to the beta, balancing her a bit, adding a few particle effects, and even some fan-drawn animation frames, she is live on the PC and the PS3.

The origin of Fukua is simple: put your fingers on the I and L keys on your keyboard. Shift them slightly to the left. Instant typo! Now, you won’t see her as DLC because she is included in the patch, which was almost subject to the Skullgirls curse due to a short power outage at SCEA. Unlike Squigly and Big Band, Fukua will be free forever. She brings the roster count of the game to 11, and I can tell you I’m starting to notice the character diversity more. Fukua fits in to that diversity well in my opinion. She’s easy to learn, has some staple fighting game moves like a fireball and a charging attack using her hair as a drill, but has some unique quirks that make me want to learn her more.

Mike Z said that he thought of the idea on March 27, and got her playable on April 1. Even with using 100% recycled animation, including some frames from the alpha version of the game, it was a decent amount of work. Her current version isn’t too far from the April Fool’s version, but there’s been just a bit of polish added. Pay attention to the announcer when you select Fukua (and if you can’t find her, go to the right of Big Band). She’s also got her own stage with a new song, and she has a story mode as well, which go contrary to early reports from LabZero staff saying that she would not have any of this because she would be a fairly bare-bones character. The only thing she’s actually lacking is a tutorial mode, which may get added in the future.

On the horizon, we have Eliza, Beowulf, and Robo-Fortune before the work on Skullgirls Encore is complete, but this is a great sign that this title will continue to evolve. No word on when Fukua will be available on Xbox 360, but hopefully the Skullgirls curse is broken.

Oh, and by the way, Skullgirls Encore is free on PlayStation Plus.