Over in the world of Street Fighter V, there was an outcry a few months ago against a butt slapping animation from the R Mika character. Listening to complaints from the community the animation was removed. To be quite honest, it’s not hard to understand why it was pulled but at the same point, it’s not like SFV isn’t full to the brim of sexualized content, but we digress.
Over the past couple days the internet has been on fire once again with people arguing back and forth over the over-sexualization of games and the characters in them. Blizzard faced a bit of a swarm in regards to an optional victory pose by one of its characters in Overwatch, Tracer. In the pose she was looking over her shoulder towards the screen and providing an ample booty shot. When the dust settled the offending post was removed from the game.
So it’s fairly clear that this week’s rallying cry of gamers is against all things too sexy with articles popping up left right and center to give an opinion. As expected, there’s a lot of opinions on both sides of the fence and to be fair, good points on both sides as well. We’re not going to dive into that debate though. What we ARE going to ask is why Capcom would make a move to remove a certain animation due to its provocative nature and then continue to promo another character and her new costume in an equally provocative situation?
New costumes are on the way for a few characters in an upcoming Street Fighter V content update and as NeoGAF is known to do, a member managed to find out what they were ahead of any other promo. Laura, Ken, R Mika and Zangief all get new digs and they’re really quite amazing. R Mika is adorned in feathers, Ken goes cool in a leather jacket and Zangief… well Zangief is ready to SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM! Seriously, hopefully someone gets that reference.
And then we have Laura. Dear, sweet Laura. Laura receives a skimpy new outfit that isn’t necessarily all that out of context in the world of Street Fighter V but the promo shot truly is something else. It shows a fairly clear shot of side vagina. Now, you’ll forgive us for being crass but that is exactly what the shot portrays. Again, it’s not about arguing either side of the over-sexualization argument but more of a question as to why Capcom would pull one thing and then drop another that is very likely equally offensive to those who were offended in the first place. Heck, this even comes after an update to reduce Chun Li’s jiggle physics so you know that this is something on Capcom’s collective mind.
No matter where you stand on the debate there’s no question that this pose is provocative in nature. In terms of the usual content in the Street Fighter series it might be a bit over the top, but not entirely out of line with their line-up of overtly sexual characters. The question is, why can’t Capcom make up their mind? Do they care or do they not? We won’t be surprised if the internet gets angry once again when these costumes launch in the next update.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.