Its a fucking dumb trope and I'm tired of it. Watching kengan asura and the girl who keeps stalking tokito ohma for marriage is underaged. Keeps on saying and doing suggestive shit. Keeps talking about having his babies. There is no fucking reason she should be underaged none at all. Its not funny or cute or any of that shit. It doesn't add anything to the story.

if they do insist on giving them <18 ages, why cant they go full absurdist?

make their canonical age 18months.

so that was better than the "she's totally 18 you guys" lolis that koei added in doa 6 and late doa 5 versions.

Is this about Marie Rose? She's the only character I can think of that could be read like this? Idk if thats the intent or not but Marie Rose just looks like a petite adult woman to me, 18-20. Should could pass for younger but I just... dont process things that way lmao? I've never been able to with Japanese media characters people say "look underage" unless they literally look pre or very early pubescent. Just not something that processes in my brain.

Like you mention Talim as well, with Talim I was surprised when I learned her age lmao. I again processed her as a petite adult (though I was myself younger than 15 when I played SC2 lol). Amy I suppose looks her canon age though even though I hadn't thought of it before.

Same with Street Fighter Lily as well. I''ve seen so much "she looks underage' discourse and I'm just like what? She just looks petite. Adults can be petite? And in her case there's no canon information otherwise.

Idk maybe I just have something broken in my brain because everyone says this lmao.

This isnt even a "please let me goon to these characters in peace" thing lmao I dont care about that. I just find the common perception around them odd because thats just not how my brain processes them.

sad thing is those characters don't act or particularly look like children so that was better than the "she's totally 18 you guys" lolis that koei added in doa 6 and late doa 5 versions.

Yeah, I was legitimately creeped out by Marie Rose and Honoka when they were added to DOA5. It felt like such an escalation from DOA's traditional "woah boobies" sort of horniness to something that was too icky to be funny anymore. From what I understand, they also just immediately skyrocketed in popularity in Japan, instantly eclipsing old series regulars.

There's probably something to be said about how otaku tastes had changed so much from the late 90s and early 2000s into the mid-2010s that DOA's big-boobed pro wrestlers and ninjas didn't cut it anymore so Tecmo had to add moeblob children to keep up

on the other hand, soul calibur is honest about talim and amy being children but it hasn't stopped the perverts. same with other fighters with "little girl" characters.

Soul Calibur and most other fighters don't sexualise all of their female characters to the same degree. They have their designated sexy characters like Ivy Valentine or Mai Shiranui, but in DOA every female character is blatantly intended to be ogled. Sexy pinups of the female roster in bikinis were a big part of DOA2's marketing which is probably why they redacted the ages outside of Japan.

btw if you want to play doa 2 against people there's a small community on fightcade since the dreamcast emulator has rollback.

I sometimes have trouble clearing the arcade ladders on normal difficulty so I would presumably get turned to paste

Tbh I support this measure because theres no reason for characters who look like mid twenties to be canonically children.

The Japanese Tommy Wiseau

Even that guy somehow manages to look more menacing than katana and trenchcoat Ben Shapiro.

In Japan, once you enter work life your life is basically over so they romanticise the fuck out of your teenage years and your early twenties

Any character over 30 is seen as a decrepit old fart. In MGS1 Solid Snake is forced out of retirement for one last job and several characters tell him he's aged and looks like shit. He's 33 but they act like he's pushing 50.