Japan considers the following are female ninjas:


Kitana is also neither Japanese. She is an assassin from an imaginary dimension whose emperor and adoptive father dresses like this:


If the MK team wants their 10,000 year old imaginary assassin-princess to dress like an imaginary ninja girl in their imaginary game set in an imaginary world where imaginary rules and physics exists and her imaginary backstory places her as the imaginary daughter of an imaginary ruler whose imaginary idea for imaginary assassins is they wear the shown imaginative current design.... sure, go wild. They could tell me Outworld and Edenian ninja fashion consists of the wool of bleated sheep and designed into lederhosen; their game, their rules.

Midway/Netherealm Studios isn't in Japan. We're talking about American Pop Culture here.

Still applies, though. Since female ninjas in video games are the topic. And since most of these franchises are international anyway.

It kinda doesn't, because I dunno if you got the point of my argument or if we're even talking about the same things or not. What I was talking about is that nobody fucking cares what the real world definition of a ninja is.

In American fiction, "ninja" is just a word for a masked assassin who knows martial arts. We're not talking about Japanese clans here, we're talking about generalizations and categories based on appearance and thematics.

Whining about the fact that Scorpion's the only "real" ninja in MK and you can't use the word "ninja" when you're talking about Kitana or Ermac or Rain is ridiculous anal-retentive behavior.

Also, I'm not sure what that pic of Kahn was meant to prove. The dude's armor is clearly based on samurai, so if he's the standard that his daughters and all of Outworld should be held to, then making their culture look Japanese does make sense.

Really? I thought he was based on combining all these dudes into one:

The plates around the back of his neck are shaped the way they are for a reason.

The general nakedness is from Conan, and the front of the helm being a skull would be inspired by any of a thousand different cases of guys who have skull faces or skull masks, but the armor itself is 100% samurai-based.

Alright...I've GOTTA ask...where in the world does Skeletor fit in? LOL

The way other brands and icons are being interpreted in this thread is nauseatingly consistent with what could be expected of an MK fan. Completely lacking appropriate context, appropriate understanding of the material, and/or reference for reasonable comparisons. I don't know whether to mock or be embarassed.

I'd love to refute, but I think that's a lost cause, regardless of the strength of the points of reference... I'm just agog to see some sort of reasonable turn around from this spiral of madness! If it isn't a misinterpreted reference being used to justify this lazy ridiculousness, it's more wrongs trying to prove a right. Can't help but shudder at the return of the dreaded "ninja" branding. Haphazard at best, a tangential misnomer at it's practised worst.

I would suggest that [Garlador's new gimmick?] posting images from other series is only a distraction from what should be a very simple proposition. Does a few rags of blue cloth make a good design? Short answer: No. Do they represent the spirit of the character in any definitive measure? No. Is this a good, thoughtful, or inspired design? No.

No amount of fiercely mocked Tecmo designs, or shoddy and similarly disregarded Greg Horn Elektra covers, make this any more admirable. This only supports the consistent pattern of what might have been offensive [RE: WarriorPrincess], but is irrefutable fact: MK fans love crap!
It lacks the hallmark spikes, chains, and automobiles that the fanbase usually flock to, but we certainly got a quota of "ninja", even if it was refreshingly maskless.

Sure. That's kind of the point of the whole thing. MK is crap, but it's fun, campy, over the top crap.

There's a big difference between genre appropriate popcorn crap, and the denim-soaked bullshite some MK fans seem to like to smear on the walls. MK has every potential and historic precedent to be the kind of "crap" that's justifiable in and of itself, and has an art to it. That was the direction it was pointing from day one, and it's always a shame to not only see it achieve less, but to see fans willfully request less.

Which, as you succinctly put it, is the point of the whole thing.
MK was, for a brief moment, a bit of a powerhouse brand. There's no reason it should settle for taking two steps forward and three steps back. There's no reason it should settle for being less well developed within it's own fiction, and genre, than it's competition.

Crow's the one that said "overly exposed cleavage". I'm just quoting him, so say that to him. My point is that the upperbody of the UMK3 and Mortal Kombat version looks almost identical.

If you actually believe that, I would definitely redirect the question to you: Do you have any idea what cleavage actually is?...
The MK3 model and design aren't anywhere near as absurd, as if this issue really needed to come up again.

For starters, I was just trying to lighten the mood by saying the Japanese interpretation of "ninja" is far more zany, colorful, and inappropriate than most fictional portrayals of ninjas and that Shao Kahn is an odd combination of skull-faced, belt-chested Skeletor and burly, scantily-clad He-man... apparently people took me a bit seriously.

I will say, I've been a fan of MK since day one at the arcades, but I find it a bit hard to say it "has an art to it". I do agree it does have strong visual flourish and simple, iconic aesthetics, but this is a series that thrives on ultra-violence, intentional misspelling, super ninjas, and quite a bit of shock and shlock.

When MK was a "powerhouse brand", it was NEVER a "good" brand. We had movies, cartoons, comics, a traveling tour show for kids, toys, T-shirts, underwear... you name it.


Fans have never "settled" for less. We're the ones that have demanded and pleaded for a return to their roots. We wanted the violence back with a fiery glory. We wanted the traditional, old-school 2D playstyle. We wanted the iconic rosters. We wanted a deeper, more in-depth fighting engine. We wanted more emphasis on the characters and story, with more personality and originality.

... this new game is GIVING us all that. But regardless of anything else, the game is promising us a level of polish and quality we have been unaccustomed to since, well, MK3. I see no reason to belay the entire game on the superficial choices of something as mundane and silly as "Kitana doesn't look right", or "they're not really ninjas", or "Johnny tattooed his name to his chest".

And say what you will, but this is the first time a MK game looks truly impressive and inspiring in over a decade, and I'll take this era of the MK: Rebirth mini-movie, the HD 3D MK Kollection, and the upcoming MK9 over the era of this

and this.

It's a sad day when that becomes true.

EDIT: The rest of the post leaves me speechless.
Unbridled stupidity seems to be the theme of today. I don't know what else I can call it. Bizarre illogic, confused misinterpretations... Just wow! Sorry, I don't have a picture for you.

You would take Rebirth, Dark Knight wannabe garbage, over The Journey Begins, one of the most awesomely fucked up things ever? That's just not okay.

Personal taste I suppose.

I have the VHS of it sitting proudly beside my DVD of MK: Annihilation. I actually showed it off to my animation instructor and the rest of my animation class. She almost had a fit laughing.

Any disparaging comment, no matter how minor, is apparently "mundane and silly". Sorry if I'm not ready to fall to my knees and just praise everything I see out of this game. That's not how I operate. I keep my mind open, I try to stay objective and I like to think the MK team members appreciate people like that because those are the people they can truly learn useful things from. While it feels good to have a legion of fanboys and girls who worship whatever you make, a real artist wants someone that's going to help them get better, not mindless praise. That's what I want to do; I only want MK to get better, and in my opinion a more diversely designed cast would go a long way in helping the cause. That was the entire original argument I had.

Character design is not "silly" to me; the characters are what keep me in the community and what attracted me in the first place. It's the most important thing in the game to me (I consider the story tied in with this) so you're right that I'm going to voice my displeasure if I see something I don't like. Kitana is a damned princess, and it is my opinion she needs to look more respectable than this and that's just how I feel about it. This feels out of character and overexposing simply for the sake of it.

Here, watch this! Look how easy it is to appeal to more than just one group by designing female characters in different ways.

The "sexy" character. Shows a lot of skin with flirtatious outfits.



The "cute" character. A female character that looks pretty ordinary girl type.



The "dangerous" character. A female character that has virtually nothing to do with sexuality.




Now, is this a hard thing for them to do? I know we've only seen Kitana and Mileena so far, but their track record isn't very good. Nearly every female has the same size bust (I do agree the bust size of Kitana was mentioned too much, but it was never among my major point) and barely there costumes. We've seen this with Sonya, Jade, Tanya and Nitara just to name a few. Again, I'm asking for diversity, not every female in Mortal Kombat to dress without showing a spec of skin.

Kunimitsu hasn't been seen since Tekken Tag Tournament so obviously that having nothing to with sexuality is working for her today. They haven't brought her back like they did with Baek Do San so I guess they don't give a crap about her anymore. This is less of a "You're wrong" and more of a "Why'd you have to bring that up" reply.

I brought it up because I like Kunimitsu and just wanted to use that as an example. There are other examples one can use, Hilde from Soul Calibur obviously comes to mind. Even then, I would just settle for Asuka type characters out of the MK team at this point.

The lack of said diversity is even worse here, as MK2011 is focusing on the early days of the series. There's only going to be so many female characters, and any similarites are going to make the whole thing feel undercooked.

Hence why I'm upset about Kitana, she should be the most respectable looking one of that bunch. If this character we've seen so far is going to be the most modest female design there's something wrong.

Edit: And no, it certainly isn't Sonya. Her colossal breasts, ever shrinking halter top, thong and last games nipples that could cut through glass pretty much has made me lose complete faith in her design.

That would actually be Sonya, but I digress. No, I was saying that since in a best case scenario, there's going to be only eight female characters, similar designs shouldn't be a thing.

... I'm pretty sure that's been the throughline of the entire conversation.