Vanessa's Makeover.

Note: Let me start off by saying that though this topic has nothing to do with VF5 gameplay I posted it here because it’s about a VF5 character, if only aesthetically.

I want to discuss Vanessa’s physical revamp in VF5.

While the other characters have received an inevitable touch-up to their looks due to improvements in hardware. Vanessa is the only character to receive a complete physical makeover. OK, you could argue that Lau has too what with his pale skin and all but I would counter that with the fact that Lau still looks like “Lau". Pretty much as you’d remember him in VF4 albeit, with a much paler, haggard complexion. However, I think Vanessa has gone though more than that.

Anyone who played VF4 will remember Vanessa Lewis as an Amazon personified; possessing a highly developed muscular physique and striking white hair. While her nationality/ancestral background was never revealed (and like all other non Asian characters, her accent wasn’t an indication either) her facial features were more Caucasoid in my opinion but her rich ebony skin tone gave little doubt that she was ethnically "Black" or rather, she derives from a region where Black people are amongst the populace.

Again, like VF character voices I’m reluctant to take any clues from her fighting style, Vale Tudo. Characters like Akira, Brad and Lion disprove that theory.

But I digress. At the core of my thoughts is this question: Why did Sega decide to drastically change her appearance? Looking at the official website’s CG pictures and scant clips you can find of her in action she’s visibly lighter in skin tone and while she still has her stature compared to the other characters her muscle definition is all but gone.

Personally, I was indifferent to Vanessa’s original appearance but appreciated Sega’s attempt to diversify the range of characters in the series. Vanessa still stands out, but not to the extent that she did in VF4 and I think it’s for a different reason than her initial physicality. Other than the lightening of her skin it’s as if she’s gone “under the knife”; her face is softer, her eyelashes more pronounced (though that could be tied to her skin tone too) and all in all, to me, she looks a lot foxier.

Observing her intros and win poses confirms that she’s still gruff and all business but I wonder if, like Sega’s decision to change her 1P costume, the redesign to her image was an effort to give her more "mass appeal".

Your opinions please.

 

I don't like Vanessa's new look. I don't play other fighting games, so I don't know if her VF4 look can be found in, say, a Tekken character. It's too bad they diluted her appearance.

 

she was too black and too strong a woman for the japanese to wrap their minds around therfore she got ethnically nerfed. I think she was much more of an origional character with the muscle defintiion the stark black skin and the white hair. Now she seems like a christie clone or that other breakdancing black girl from DOA. Next thing you know she's gonna be pop locking in her vale tudo style. god damned game designers

 

In game, she doesn't look that bad. The new look doesn't really make a difference when you are beating the crap out of someone. She still has powerful looking attacks and stances.

And her poses don't show her fluttering her eyelashes either.

I honestly think people are over reacting a bit. Yea, she looks a bit less butch. But no, she doesn't look so crazy feminine. I'm sure with the right costume items, you can make her look a bit more amazonian, but really... it's not that bad.

 

th epoint is they went out of their way to make the character less powerful or black looking. Overreacting my ass.

 

Well I for one was intimidated by her butch look cos I find that amount of "butchness" on a woman quite scary, lol.

I'm happier with her VF5 look and dare I say she looks pretty hot too. If I saw VF5 for the first time, I would've prolly picked her out of all the girls first. She's changed her outfits in all versions so far so I guess AM2 can't make up their minds on a deafult outfit for al the games.

 

Thanks for replying guys, you’ve all aired some interesting opinions.

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I don't like Vanessa's new look. I don't play other fighting games, so I don't know if her VF4 look can be found in, say, a Tekken character. It's too bad they diluted her appearance.

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I think “Diluted†is a good term Plague. She’s still portrayed as being strong willed and professional but I believe the change to her physique takes away from that persona when you see her in VF5. Few things show ones commitment to a way of life than conditioning your body to excel in it. To coin a phrase; she looked like she "walked the walk" in VF4, which put her character above those who only talked a lot of smack. Especially as a female character, she was a pioneer.

And speaking of Tekken, while you allude to it, Vith_Dos hit the nail on the head when he mentioned Christie.

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she was too black and too strong a woman for the japanese to wrap their minds around therfore she got ethnically nerfed. I think she was much more of an origional character with the muscle defintiion the stark black skin and the white hair. Now she seems like a christie clone or that other breakdancing black girl from DOA. Next thing you know she's gonna be pop locking in her vale tudo style. god damned game designers

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I didn’t address this point initially because it would’ve left little to be discussed by others so I’m glad it was brought up. Christie Monteiro, while the two characters have nothing in common style or story wise I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they now have a slight physical resemblance. With this in mind would it be wrong to suggest, as Vith_Dos believes, that Vanessa’s transformation from “Amazon†to “Eye Candy†is a comment on social preference? At least, In Japan.

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In game, she doesn't look that bad. The new look doesn't really make a difference when you are beating the crap out of someone. She still has powerful looking attacks and stances.

And her poses don't show her fluttering her eyelashes either.

I honestly think people are over reacting a bit. Yea, she looks a bit less butch. But no, she doesn't look so crazy feminine. I'm sure with the right costume items, you can make her look a bit more amazonian, but really... it's not that bad.

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Fair play KTallguy. I agree that she still acts the part of a badass and I mentioned earlier that aesthetically she’s easier on the eyes according to my tastes, but don’t you think Vith_Dos has a point regarding her overall lack of physical character? To cut to the chase: Is a female character with visibly defined muscles too much for the gaming public. Especially one who is ethnically Black?

What I’m trying to say is that while all the characters in VF5 got touched up with a healthy amount of gloss (Lau I’ve already mentioned and well, maybe not Goh either but his character is built on the severity of his appearance and role as a “badguyâ€Â, though he’s a lot slicker in his 2P leather garb), Sega interpreted Vanessa’s “improvements†as downplaying her physical strength and lightening her skin tone, a move that I interpret as a clear indication of what they consider appropriate and thus what they wish to portray to their market (us, all VFers everywhere) as “coolâ€Â.

I see a trend personally in character design on the whole. If you look at Tekken and DOA’s offerings of Black women; Christie and Lisa respectively, you may notice that their facial features are more Caucasian than Black yet their skin tone is meant to give the player their definition of their ethnicity. But even then, in comparison to their male counterparts (Eddy and Bruce in Tekken and Zack in DOA) they’re always lighter in colour. On the contrary, in VF4 Vanessa was noticeably darker than Jeffery despite being male and the resident powerhouse.

Maybe Sega, like Namco and Tecmo are trying to give their fans what they think we want. If you consider the media as an indication of what society strives for then you’d be hard pressed to find greater figures in the spotlight than Beyonce Knowles, Alicia Keys and Halle Berry who are perceived to personify “Black Beautyâ€Â. They’re cool and maybe Sega, in an effort to gain some of the appeal enjoyed by their rivals for being cool when it comes to their characters, decided to jump on the bandwagon as it were.

Personally, I think Sega’s intial image of Vanessa was cooler. Not as appealing like Aoi, Pai or Sarah but definitely cool and original as a powerful woman.

Anyone else care to chime in?

 

Well, I could always try /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif
I think she was too chiseled in stone before physically. while I don't really see the point in changing her skin color, I do understand them making her less buff.
While this is just my opinion, I think that overly buff people look absolutely gross. While Vanessa didn't look like the worst kind of bodybuilder in Evo, she definitely had abs made of stone and the thigs of a race horse.
I don't think Vanessa has lost any of her power. Sure she looks a bit smoother in the face than you'd expect from someone with that line of work, but overall, I think she looks more natural than before.

 

Vanessa is fucking sex now!

I like her new look.

Didn't care for her VF4 look either. I remember my friends's GF was like "Is she supposed to be Storm from X-Men?"

 

I like this topic. I think that Vanessa's make over is a disservice to her, but a duality occurs because it might actually make her more popular. Personally, I love her look from VF4, muscles and all. She broke the character mold for females in so many ways as she was black, muscular, strong, and had 2 fighting styles.

True she did look older than the others, but so what! Tekken has 50+ aged fighters running rampant an it is about time a more mature female made an appearence.

I cannot see any resemblence to Christie from Tekken who looks like a brazillian I used to date years ago, but I guess AM2 wants to have a sexier character.

In Vanessa's look now, you can still see her powerful thighs in her model and the voice still lends itself to how powerful she is. Smoothing out her face isn't too bad either, but she is still a black woman so whatever.

Raw truth- Japan gets most of their images about black people from MTV and other imported channels. With all the aforementioned stars in the other posts, having features they could compare with from someone real will help to promote new players to the VF series. Again I thank them for even adding her to the cast and keeping her around for another romp. Maybe her 4th outfit or some custom items can make her look as a physical specimen as she did in 4.

Everyone loves amazons.

 

This is some bull crap. Sega had to "improve" her appearance because she was too dark?

Her old appearance was better. You cant even tell she's black anymore. Vanessa was the only black female character I knew of that didnt have light skin in a video game.

And as far as "sex appeal" goes, SEGA didnt have to lighten her skin to make her look sexier. People like halle barry and beyonce look down right ugly compared to women like Audree Jaymes and Vanessa blue both of which have darker skin.

Havent they heard? The blacker the berry the sweeter the juice!

 

Frank Miller: Sin City: book 7: to Hell and Back:
"Your body was crafted to perfection and needs no touch ups, your face on the other hand needs some alteration. Make it a tad less 'ethnic', a tad more marketable."
I was instantly reminded of Vane when I read that one again a month back. (quote is a loose one from memory)

From a character design point of view she's one of the few female characters out there not designed perse to look like a supermodel or actrice or something. Okay, she certainly has the looks, but her prime feature was a body hardened by training. Powerhouse female fighting game characters don't really exist apart from Vanessa, and those that are supposed to be such beside her look absolutely silly (DOA's Tina is a prime example here). Oh I forgot about Cammy here, that's probably the only other muscle bound girl out there.

VF's Vanessa was unique in the entire fighting game genre as a hard hitting woman who looked the part. And now she's 'devolving' back into 'just another fighting game girl'. I think its a shame.

Saiten: I also agree with you on the skin tone.
Heck David Bowie married the darkest super-model around at the time (Iman). I also remember have a thing for the young Grace Jones as well as the Dutch presenter Silvana Simons. And no, my family line doesn't run anywhere near Africa, it's just Dutch and French.

ps. I spent a couple of months trying to get to grips with fighting with Vane simply because of the VF cast she appeals to me most. I quit because I noticed I have a way to hard a time fighting with her when compared to most others.

 

OK I'll bite...I want to clarify/challenge a few assumptions:

- Why do we think Vanessa is black as in African black? I had always thought of her as Brazilian than African in ethnicity. From that perspective, based on what little I have seen of her in VF5, she still appears Brazilian even with the lighter skin tone (perhaps more Brazilian now than before...maybe that's what Sega wanted to fix).

- There are differences in skin tone even among "black" people. E.g. Chante Black is a lot darker in skin tone than Monique Curry, who in turn is darker in skin tone than Mistie Williams. All three girls I'm sure would be proud to call themselves black women.

- I hope I'm not stirring the pot here...but black friends have told me that even among black people, lighter toned black women are generally perceived to be more attractive than darker toned black women. If that's what Sega also thinks (assuming Vanessa is indeed African in ethnicity, not Brazilian)...can they be blamed?

- VF5 is emphasizing differences in body size/structure. Vanessa in VF4 is truly Amazonian...but in reality how many women are that big? She wasn't just muscled in VF4, she had height and girth! Vanessa's body mass in VF5 seems more realistic to me than in VF4, although she does look skinny.

- Fact: Vanessa in VF5 looks hotter than she does in VF4 (OK so maybe that's just an opinion). Fact: People like hot people. Fact: Sega wants to cash in where they can. Cha-ching! And hopefully we'd get more people playing the game.

- I remember reading VF5's producer comment on Vanessa's lighter skin tone...his response was just basically that he thought Vanessa looked better. Maybe there's more to it than that...but maybe that's all it really boiled down to: one man's perception of beauty.

- I agree this is an interesting topic...but do we really care?

 

Maybe her muscles/darker skintone will be an optional item, like Jeff's veins in FT. Then everyone's happy.
Incidentally, Audree James gave some interesting Google results.

 

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ice-9 said:
- I agree this is an interesting topic...but do we really care?

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Yep shows an inherent racism among japanese video game designers. *laugh* Why didnt they just make her white? Would that have been too obvious? Vanessa was the first character i really tried to play in VF simply for her orginality. As if the fighting game industry needs another white "ultra sexy" vixen that doesnt fit in a bit. I need to see more of VF5 but I cant take her much more serious than Tina from DOA now when she tries to say something tough sounding.

Also, could you imagine somone that small looking trying to take down or bully around a character like wolf, akira, lau, jeffry. Like i said before they should change her fighting style from Vale tudo to some sort of dancing technique. . . maybe one very popular in south america.. hmmm

 

Dude, did you even read my post? I am amazed that you're accusing AM2 of racism. I think that's pretty fucked up.

Also, Vale Tudo as I recall is pretty popular in South America. Ever heard of the Gracie brothers?? (http://www.gracie.com.) The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Vanessa is Brazilian. Here's another clue--where does the Amazon River run through? Why do we keep describing Vanessa as an Amazon woman?

 

The initial character design of Vanessa was a white woman with red hair. They changed her to a black woman.. Yes, no matter what excuse they use she was lightened up to appeal more. In an article somewhere they said becaused they used a new shader model or lighting engine(something like that) she became lighter. In turn she looks like Beyonce and maybe they deem her the perfect black woman...

Who knows really, bit of a shame though..

 

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Jide said:

The initial character design of Vanessa was a white woman with red hair.

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Seriously? That's interesting.

 

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ice-9 said:

- Why do we think Vanessa is black as in African black? I had always thought of her as Brazilian than African in ethnicity. From that perspective, based on what little I have seen of her in VF5, she still appears Brazilian even with the lighter skin tone (perhaps more Brazilian now than before...maybe that's what Sega wanted to fix).

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Yeah, which was the reason I said at the start that she derived from Black ethnicity rather than was definitely Black of African decent. Brazil’s inhabitants are a vast mix of African, European and indigenous Indian (is that the right description?) and so forth, without a definite nationality it’s hard to make a solid judgement.

I get what you’re saying but the reason this stirred me into debate in the first place was because it wasn’t just a single factor of the character that was changed but rather, on two fronts; skin tone and physique.

To me it seems out of key for Sega to change their minds so drastically after having created a character 4 odd years ago and pass it off as if she was always supposed to be lighter or, less muscular. You would have thought that these decisions would have been ironed out before VF4’s release. But the fact that these two changes go hand in hand speaks volumes to me.

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ice-9 said:

- I hope I'm not stirring the pot here...but black friends have told me that even among black people, lighter toned black women are generally perceived to be more attractive than darker toned black women. If that's what Sega also thinks (assuming Vanessa is indeed African in ethnicity, not Brazilian)...can they be blamed?

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No, you’re quite right. There is a stigma amongst some within Black culture where the tone between light and dark has some sort of sway. This harks back to my previous thoughts on perceived standards of beauty popularised by the media. But what I can’t get my head around is why Sega would apply these social stereotypes to a character who’s “strength†was her strength. I never envisioned Vanessa as a character who was sold on her female charms like say Sarah.

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ice-9 said:

- VF5 is emphasizing differences in body size/structure. Vanessa in VF4 is truly Amazonian...but in reality how many women are that big? She wasn't just muscled in VF4, she had height and girth! Vanessa's body mass in VF5 seems more realistic to me than in VF4, although she does look skinny.

- Fact: Vanessa in VF5 looks hotter than she does in VF4 (OK so maybe that's just an opinion). Fact: People like hot people. Fact: Sega wants to cash in where they can. Cha-ching! And hopefully we'd get more people playing the game.

- I remember reading VF5's producer comment on Vanessa's lighter skin tone...his response was just basically that he thought Vanessa looked better. Maybe there's more to it than that...but maybe that's all it really boiled down to: one man's perception of beauty.

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Yes, in the end I guess it really comes down to the whims of the designers. But then why make a character like Vanessa in the first place if you’re going to dilute the very qualities that make her character unique? Perhaps I’m missing the true ideal of the character that the designers had in mind. I created this thread to mull it over and I’m glad those who’ve shared their thoughts have been honest and mature on the matter. Kudos.

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ice-9 said:

- I agree this is an interesting topic...but do we really care?

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“Do we really care?†Well, the people who’ve chimed in, yourself included, seem to have an opinion on the matter... /versus/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

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ice-9 said:

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Vanessa is Brazilian. Here's another clue--where does the Amazon River run through? Why do we keep describing Vanessa as an Amazon woman?

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Ah, I used the term “Amazon†as a description of her previously obvious physical power and conditioning. The fact that the mythical Amazons were rumoured to hail from a region we suspect Vanessa does is circumstantial. It’s a universal moniker. With that frame of mind the same theory could be applied to Wolf and Jeffery, who could be referred to as “Herculean†in size and stature yet, neither have any genetic ties to the people of the Mediterranean. Well, accept Jeffery’s fighting style, and we all know how much of an indication that is in VF.

So that trail of thought doesn’t carry much weight, in my opinion. /versus/images/graemlins/smirk.gif