Not a stupid topic. This is one of the more serious topics in gaming because its all about representation. I'm an
old-school gamer and its no secret that Japanese games have been and continue to be steretypical towards their ethnic characters. Ethnic gamers simply want to be represented correctly like their Asian and European counterparts. This doesnt represent the Japanese culture as whole (of course not), espcially seeing how the current generation has embraced Hip Hop and other non-Japanese culture. It's just the Japanese game developers have not caught up to the rest of the world, and its definitely their choice not to do so.
Gamers want to be represented despite developer bias. Mr. T is old, drop the black mohawked, bad attitude characters. Drop the Mike Tyson bit, African Americans do more than box. Put a little more apple in the bottom of the ethinic female characters, a lil more curl to that hair (even if its a flat tecture drawn on, and yes we know straight hair is easier to model). If Zack is American then remove the Japanese comic side of him and use American comedy. Eddy from Tekken remains the only decently represented ethnic character from a Japanese/Asian game. It's a Japanese game, we get that. They cater to Japanese gamers, we get that too. People just want to be represented well in any product or medium, and that will always hold true for those of us who have been in the minority side of this issue.
We'll take the final product and enjoy games as we always have, but we'll keep making noise until we can fully enjoy an immersed experience like everyone else. Check out those Helena fans, they might get some tweaks because they've been making some noise.
Anyway, I'm new to the forum so hello fellow gamers. Zack is my main, Tina for the tag, and Lisa for second main. Love the likes of Hitomi, Lei Fang, Helena, and always on a mission to beat the ninjas, ha! And yea I have every console DOA game, including the DOAX games and the Japanese import of DOA 2 for Dreamcast (since it had more tag moves and costumes that were taken out of the American version!).