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Nina Tucker was a minor character in the Full Metal Alchemist Manga and Anime. She was the five year old daughter of the Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist who specialized in the creation of Chimeras by combining two or more animals using Alchemy.

History

Shou Tucker became the Sewing-Life Alchemist when he impressed Amestrian Military State by creating a Chimera that was capable of human speech. He subsequently received a large sum of money and a massive estate for him to conduct research and experiments. It was later revealed that the only reason Shou was able to create a talking Chimera was because the main component of the transmutation was his own wife.

Two years later, Shou was threatened by the Military State to have his State Alchemy license and all its benefits (his house and money) taken away since he failed to offer anything as substantial as his first talking Chimera. Desperate, he ultimately decided to recreate the previous transmutation, using his daughter and her pet dog Alexander Tucker as the components.

When it was discovered how Shou made the Chimeras he was placed under house arrest for breaking the laws of Alchemy for preforming a Human Transmutation and soon was assassinated by the Alchemist Serial-Killer nicknamed Scar. After mourning her father's demise for a few moments Scar decided to put her out of he misery using his destruction transmutation.

Appearance/Personality

Human

When she was a human, Nina had the appearance of cute little girl, with blue eyes and very long dark brown hair which was braided into pig tails that went down below her waist. She would often wear clogs with a pale green dress, a plain red shirt, or overalls.

She had the tendency to refer to both Edward and Alphonse as "Big Brother". She was also generally happy, playful and excitable little girl and was usually seen playing with or embracing her large pet dog, Alexander. She also loved her father very much and never stopped believing in him.

Chimera

As a chimera, Nina's soul inhabited the body of a dog-like beast. This creature has a brown mane the same color as Nina's original hair and wide, blank eyes. This chimera has the ability to speak, as did the chimera Tucker created from his wife.

From what is known, most likely Alexander was a breed of dog known as a Great Pyrenees. After the Chimera is fused Alexander loses his white fluffy appearance for a peach skinned hybrid creature with a carpet of hair growing out of its back. It is also noted that Nina seems to be a bit unsure of her memories and her own fate after the transfusion. It is also implied that Nina physically suffered through the transmutation process and continued to suffer as a Chimera, which is one of the reasons why Scar decided to give her a mercy killing.

Legacy

For the duration of the series, Nina's fate becomes a major motivator for Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric's Journey, most chimeras that they encounter leads to them having brief flashbacks to Nina. They are also occasionally haunted by nightmares of the experience. Nina is also cited at the very end of the series in Edward's Final confrontation with The Truth. Furthermore, Shou Tucker is widely considered to worst father in all of Anime, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of terrible fathers in anime.

Dana Claire Simpson (who is best known as the creator of the syndicated comic Phoebe and Her Unicorn, as well as the long-running web comic Ozy and Millie) wrote a song called "Still Nina", released in May 18, 2005 as a tribute to the character as part of her album Shiver.