But anyway on a serious note, the NiCO discussion did get me thinking more about why I have a problem with the newcomers to the series.
I feel the reason the recent characters stick out so much is not only because of a directorial change but a change in design.
Itagaki and old TN designed them as sexy fighting game characters first right? Like Itagaki said it himself what sells for him is “sex and violence”.
These new characters are designed to be cute and sell merchandise first, and designed for the game second. Thats why their moveset doesn’t even match anymore.
For example take Helena. She's a rich aristocrat, makes sense her moveset is very technical and refined? It also makes sense she would appropriate an exotic Asian fighting style. Tina and Bass are American and it makes sense for them to be pro wrestlers. Leifang is another good example. She comes from a rich background. Thats why she has interactions with Helena and why they share so much in common when it comes to the philosophy of their fighting styles. They're refined and exotic.
Like there was truly thought behind these characters. Christie is a backstabbing bitch that usually kills her targets in discrete ways, therefore she's got snake fists
But now you have a “Swedish” character that fights "systema" (and lets face it it looks more like ballet). Their fighting styles are an afterthought.
Nowadays they search for the trending characters on the internet (Like Rem for NiCO) and tack on a fighting style on them.
The way they did the old characters were actually thought through.
Also lets face it even the tacked on movesets have no staying power because theyre super basic and honestly badly animated.
The thing too that's jarring about NiCO is that she looks straight out of an anime where DOA has always had that “anime” middle ground in the designs. She's honestly a boring ass character with an uninspired design and ugly looking moveset.
Also BTW regarding your "Unlike Ayane and Kasumi, who were literal 16 and 17 year-old children up until DOA5." comment, neither of those two characters acted like 5 year olds.
And let's be real, age numbers mean nothing in games. What really matters is how you portray a character. You can say shes 3000 years old if she looks like an 8 year old, talks like an 8 year old and acts like an 8 year old shes a kid.