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| Rid Hershel 5049th Post
 
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
     
     
     
     
     
|  "Ninja girls thread"
, posted Sun 18 May 08:33:
Some time ago ninjas became trendy in videogames and animation. We got things like Last Ninja, Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Ninja Warriors, even Ninja Turtles (and people say that japanese games are weird). In fact we can even go a bit back on time, and we get things like Tatsunoko with Gatchaman and other shows that set up the ninja-like looks for the sentai genre. Ninjas were “cool”. They could fly from roof on roof, kill with a sword slash, disguise tree logs as them and nobody would notice the difference, climb on any surface, and spill a lot of blood of their victims (well, not in the US versions). And I can't avoid to mention that live action american movies were invaded by ninjas too ("Enter the Ninja" comes to my mind) in the late 70's, most of them are forgettable anyway. But the point is, ninjas were everywhere.
And then the obvious thing in a mostly male-dominant market came: girls. Somebody tought “a cute, underage if possible, girl that likes to kill stealthy would be a good idea” and the ninja girls appeared. In anime we got Jun from Gatchaman, Makimachi Misao from Kenshin (these two being the stereotype of “mainly useless female ninjas”), Sango from Inu-Yasha and a LOT more. American comics were also touched when Chris Claremont decided to "change" Psylocke Elektra was introduced by Miller in Daredevil and others that followed.
Videogames (that are the main point on this BBS after all) follow the same trends than anime usually, and so we got a lot of them too. SNK brought us the popular Mai Shiranui and Shiki (and, to some degree, Nakoruru has showed some ninja-like moves); Capcom (a company with a big tradition of ninja characters) has Maki in Final Fight 2 (and now in CvS2), and Ibuki, one of the most charismatic characters from SF3. Tecmo is no exception, they ARE Kasumi and Ayane at this point. Namco brought us a playable version of Suzu in the PS remake of Tales of Phantasia, and Taki in Soul Calibur. Psikyo, not far behind, got Junis in their popular shooter Sengoku Blade. Sega has a playable ninja in Gamecube's PSO, the HUcaseal class. And we can continue for hours, of course.
Tenchu (and maybe Ninja Warriors and some mangas like Blade of the Immortal) also added the tradition of Samurai/Ninja grown up guy with katana aided by a female younger ninja that uses knives and/or a pair of shorter swords. This E3 we saw that Shinobi (with Kunoichi) and Ninja Gaiden are following this trend too.
Anyway, a question: what’s your opinion about these characters, and which ones are your favorites (and why)?
[this message was edited by Rid Hershel on Thu 22 May 09:51] |
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| Hungrywolf 1967th Post
Gold Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
|  "Re(1):Ninja girls thread"
, posted Sun 18 May 12:44
quote:
Some time ago ninjas became trendy in videogames and animation. We got things like Last Ninja, Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Ninja Warriors, even Ninja Turtles (and people say that japanese games are weird). In fact we can even go a bit back on time, and we get things like Tatsunoko with Gatchaman and other shows that set up the ninja-like looks for the sentai genre. Ninjas were “cool”. They could fly from roof on roof, kill with a sword slash, disguise tree logs as them and nobody would notice the difference, climb on any surface, and spill a lot of blood of their victims (well, not in the US versions). And I can't avoid to mention that live action american movies were invaded by ninjas too ("Enter the Ninja" comes to my mind) in the late 70's, most of them are forgettable anyway. But the point is, ninjas were everywhere.
And then the obvious thing in a mostly male-dominant market came: girls. Somebody tought “a cute, underage if possible, girl that likes to kill stealthy would be a good idea” and the ninja girls appeared. In anime we got Jun from Gatchaman, Makimachi Misao from Kenshin (these two being the stereotype of “mainly useless female ninjas”), Sango from Inu-Yasha and a LOT more. American comics were also touched when Chris Claremont decided to "change" Psylocke and others that followed.
Videogames (that are the main point on this BBS after all) follow the same trends than anime usually, and so we got a lot of them too. SNK brought us the popular Mai Shiranui and Shiki (and, to some degree, Nakoruru has showed some ninja-like moves); Capcom (a company with a big tradition of ninja characters) has Maki in Final Fight 2 (and now in CvS2), and Ibuki, one of the most charismatic characters from SF3. Tecmo is no exception, they ARE Kasumi and Ayane at this point. Namco brought us a playable version of Suzu in the PS remake of Tales of Phantasia, and Taki in Soul Calibur. Psikyo, not far behind, got Junis in their popular shooter Sengoku Blade. Sega has a playable ninja in Gamecube's PSO, the HUcaseal class. And we can continue for hours, of course.
Tenchu (and maybe Ninja Warriors and some mangas like Blade of the Immortal) also added the tradition of Samurai/Ninja grown up guy with katana aided by a female younger ninja that uses knives and/or a pair of shorter swords. This E3 we saw that Shinobi (with Kunoichi) and Ninja Gaiden are following this trend too.
Anyway, a question: what’s your opinion about these characters, and which ones are your favorites (and why)?
I like Ninja girls (ninja characters in general too). My favorite is Ibuki. She quickly became my favorite character in Street Fighter three when it first came out, I love her moves and her look. I also like Mai, and not because she's bouncy. I think she is a good character and I do well when I play as her. Plus I like her relationship with Andy, and Andy's brother Terry is my favorite fighting character of all time so I have a particular liking of most all Garou Densetsu characters. I'm a big fan of DoA, so I of course like Kasumi and Ayane. These are just the ninja girl characters that I like in videogames. I guess Sango is included in that, since there is an InuYasha fighting game on PSx (that I have now and have finally unlocked all the characters and stages!). I love most of them in anime too. I like Misao and Jun and there is another female ninja in the Rurouni Kenshin anime towards the end of the series, she wasn't in the manga, I know, but she's alright too.
"Someday we'll find it the rainbow connection..." -Kermit The Muppet Movie
Hungry Like the Wolf
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| Megane
170th Post
Regular Customer
|  "Re(1):Ninja girls thread"
, posted Sun 18 May 18:52
quote:
Anyway, a question: what’s your opinion about these characters, and which ones are your favorites (and why)?
I think they're cool. Ninja girl character design has always been great, if not awesome (amazing how just one single class can have a lot of variety of different clothing styles, not to mention enough opportunity for fanservice if desired).
Although, with their presence in fighting games, I think certain misconceptions arise, like their lethal prowess. I mean, sure they can break necks and stuff, but they aren't that powerful in an upfront straight-on battle. =(
And my favorite ninja girl is Ibuki.
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| Rid Hershel 5049th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "personal take" , posted Thu 22 May 10:09
First of all, thanks Ishmael for the correction. My opinion? they're some of my favorite character types. I tend to use them a lot, but then again, I use female characters mostly.
My favorites:
Ibuki: I played with her for the first time in Pocket Fighter, and I really liked her, specially because she had the more "japanese looking" combos in the game. Then I got a DC with SF3, and she rocks in there! her taunt is probably one of the cutest ones I've ever seen, and her winning animations (lots of them actually) and quotes add a lot to her personality. Too bad that she lost the racoon in later games (even when it was poorly animated compared to the rest of the game). And she got a good "nemesis" with Makoto, they deserve more attention.
Ayame: Tenchu is good. I can say without a doubt that I enjoy Tenchu and Tenchu 3 more than any other "stealth action" game, the ambient is nice and the fun factor is big enough to balance the controls (well, controls are much better in T3). Ayame is, why deny it, VERY cute. She moves fast with well done animations (making her the better choice on the first game) and I can't find flaws on her design (not counting Tenchu 2).
Shiki: "Touch me and you're dead", her eyes say. She's incredibly sexy and I've stated in another thread, probably the best design to came from SNK's hand in the last times. Thanks Rugal for making SS64 vids.
Suzu: I have a weakness for everything named Tales. This little girl was an NPC in Tales of Phantasia for Super Famicom, and we got her as a playable character in the excellent remake for Playstation. She shares some moves with Pocket Fighter's Ibuki (the fire spitting frog ride), and had an interesting voice (her "sayonara" is memorable). Well done Namco, and of course, Kosuke Fujishima.
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