When it comes to objectifying women and tactlessly parading scantily clad avatars with unreal bodily proportions, fighting games are usually the worst offenders. Back in my 360 days I didn’t like to play Soul Calibur IV if my girlfriend was in the room because, sure enough, someone online would pick Ivy or a custom character wearing nothing but underwear that barely covered her huge, bouncing boobies. Currently I don’t like to play Street Fighter V with my wife in the room because some of the outfits are a well beyond the limits of good taste. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either. Apparently this past weekend during the Evo tournament, Street Fighter V ‘s R. Mika turned a few heads and raised a few eyebrows.
The SFV tournament was huge, with over 5,000 participants. The tournament was so big it actually merited live, televised coverage from ESPN. Japanese finalist “Fuudo” is an R. Mika player, and many attendees noticed that after his first top-eight match he changed to R. Mika’s story costume. Ryan Harvey (AKA Fubarduck) sent out an amused tweet stating that ESPN deemed Mika’s default costume “too revealing” for its network coverage. I can’t say I blame them. It’s a tacky, awful, ugly costume; pure T&A. Any casual viewer who happened to tune in to ESPN and stick around to watch the finals would have been confused and grossed out, and I think ESPN made the right call.