Character Designs

[Missiletainn]

I just noticed Elise is missing a finger in her full art in dengeki. Someone's been playing five finger fillet!

[DodgeDusk]

I just noticed Elise is missing a finger in her full art in dengeki. Someone's been playing five finger fillet!

Her little finger might be hiding behind her ring finger. Still, it does look kind of odd, especially since if it was, I'd thought the ring finger would be more bent

[Philranger]

Two left feet and now missing a finger? Must be some serious inbreeding problems in Nohr. Maybe that's what you're trying to revolutionize from the inside.

[Ryo]

^ Kamui was born in Hoshido though :P

[Honey Bunny]

I just noticed Elise is missing a finger in her full art in dengeki. Someone's been playing five finger fillet!

Oh god. I mean I knew that this game would be darker, but d*** Garon. A bit extreme isn't it? That might explain the higher rating though.

Overall I really like the character designs in this game.

I don't like how Elise's butt is so in-your-face in her art, but considering Nowi's outfit was a thing, I'll take what I can get.

Camilla's outfit also worries me. Hopefully her outfit will actually make sense with her personality unlike another character in Awakening.*cough*Olivia*cough*

Marx's outfit is pretty cool. I can understand why so many people are enamored with him.

Leon is okay. I don't really have much to say on him, he's mysterious and his outfit helps with that.

The maids I don't really care about, Joker on the other hand...I really, really like his outfit. To the point that I've already declared him my husband-o.

Captain Smiley is great. He looks manly, and hammy, and fun. My only concern is that he ends up being a one dimensional character.

Rinka looks great too. On my male run she'll be my waifu.

Basically everyone on Hoshido looks good. Ryoma was going to be my husbando until I found the one true way of Joker. I don't think I can really say I have any concerns on the Hoshido side of things.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Honey Bunny

[Jagen]

I'm really liking a lot the designs so far. Especially M!Kamui, I might actually go with the default look if I don't find a better combination than that.

Other than Kamui, I'm really digging Leon. Looking like a blonde Marth really helps, Leon is just so handsome and cute at the same time.

I agree Leon Marth is the sole reason i'm siding with Nohr.

[Book Bro]

^ that is beautiful haha

[MajorMajora]

So I'm a little bit confused what kind of hidden weapons there are going to be. I get that they're concealed but not much else. Shinobi have shrunken, so it's not that. So what exactly is Felicia keeping hidden in her panties?

[Duke]

Probably knives strapped on her garters or something like that.

[Soapbar]

Probably knives strapped on her garters or something like that.

Or strapped to her leg, her boots, etc. It's not that hard to conceal a weapon in an era that doesn't have any way to detect metal on a person.

[KMT4ever]

I'm preferring Hoshido's Asian style over Nohr's Western style, especially because I hate seeing so much black and purple on Marx and co. I prefer the designs of the non-nobles as well, like Kazahana, Tsubaki, and Mr. Smiley. Overall though I think the designs in this game are too flashy and over designed for the 3DS to handle. RD and PoR (to an extent) could render 3D character models reasonably well on a TV, but a 3DS screen is too damn small for that level of detail.

[Vitezen]

Really my only problem is with how Nohr is designed almost to blatantly seem evil, or at least less altruistic than Hoshido. Reminds me of this.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Vitezen

[BlueL]

For me the main point is that since awakening none female characters ever wear pants and are over-sexualized (perhaps excluding miriel and lucina....). Even characters like sully and it doesn't fit her character at all. like why can't female robin wear pants in stead of that mini skirt and Camilla's design takes all of that to the extreme.

And everything will always be compared to something and IMO the Tellius games had the most realistic outfits

First, you're exaggerating the number of females not wearing pants. Going off of the official artwork, several girls are wearing pants: Miriel, Noire, Severa, Maribelle, Anna, Lucinia, F!Morgan, Kjelle, F!Robin and Lissa (ok, she has a dress on but it's not sexual at all shows no skin). That's 10 of 25 playable females. That's a lot closer to half of the playable girls than none. Just because they're not wearing pants doesn't make them overly sexualized. Only 7 girls have sensual poses or boobs and booty emphasized: Tikki, Cherche, Panne, Tharja, Olivia, Nowi and Aversa.

As for the "the main point is that since awakening none female characters none female characters ever wear pants ", that's just not true. At least the pants part. I don't feel like going through every past FE game, so I'll just cite 2 games I've played most recently.

Most playable girls from FE7 don't wear pants: Rebecca, Lyn, Isadora, Vaida, Nino, Louise, Karla, Priscilla and all 3 pegasus knight sisters. So that's 11 out of 13. Clearly a much higher number than in Awakening, although none are in sexual poses.

Of Sacred Stones 11 playable women, only 3 wear pants: Tethys, Syrene, and Natasha. 5 if you count creature campaign characters Ismaire and Selena. Not sure where'd you count Neimi, since she's rolled up her pants to her knees.

So percentage wise, Awakening actually has more girls who wear pants than either Sacred Stones or Blazing Swords, although girls posing in cute or sexy ways is more present than in Awakening.

Okay whether you want realistic outfits is simply taste. I think the outfits have to make sense, but if you don't feel that way fine.

And my main problem is with fanservicy armored units. I won't complain about a fanservesy mage or healer.

and on the matter of unattractive women I'd bring up meg (RD) she's not ugly but definitely not the usual perfect figure type of woman.

And on Vaike, yes he trades protection for looks, but for the male units his class is more the exception than the norm, unlike for female classes.

I agree it'd make a lot more sense if they all just wore pants.

I also agree there are some female characters who don't wear pants that should going off of their personality (Flavia, Sully, to name a few), I can't consider a unit who's otherwise covered but is wearing a skirt and showing some upper thigh overlysexualized. It's clearly meant to make them look cute, and apparently sensual, but I think saying that's overlysexualized is kind of strong.

In summary, I understand you're complaint and the females are in general drawn to emphasize their cuteness or sexiness rather than having generic or action poses, but you're overstating the problem (unless you just seriously detest Zettai Ryouiki, which is what the look the mount riders like Cordelia is called) and ignoring that it's nothing new in FE's history and instead falsely blaming it on Awakening.

I feel like a better comparison would be if all male cavaliers wore tight short shorts and you got constant "butt shots" in battle like with the panty shots.

I'm pretty sure more guys would be complaining then.

It'd also be very, very weird since you rarely ever see male characters wearing tight short shorts, unlike the whole Zettai Ryouiki thing all of the Awakening mount riding girls have going on. The latter is far, far more popular. I don't think I've seen any male action heros wearing tight shorts. So I don't think that analogy works. Also, short shorts would show a LOT more skin than what the mount riding girls in Awakening show.

I also don't get what you and BrandedRogue are refering to by constant pant shots in battle. Particularly for the mount riding females, that would require basically seeing things from the enemies POV (plus you'd have to zoom in) and that's not a battle option. Can you explain what you're referring to?

I mean Vaike's art didn't have him in a pose that emphasized his physique or flexing in a sexy way. A lot of females are drawn emphasizing their butts or boobs (Kamui, Tiki) or in ridiculous positions meant to look sexy/cute (Severa, Elise). So I do see a difference.

A better example would be Dieck in his official art from FE6 IMO since he's kinda flexing and looking towards the viewer like Tharja is in her art. Still it's a lot less common.

While I agree that the art for some of the females is meant to make them attractive versus a generic or action pose, there's nothing wrong with a female posing cute. I consider it like a female version of the males striking tough or cool poses (not saying females can't or shouldn't be drawn in such poses for their official artwork. I'd like if more females had art portraits like say, Cynthia or Florina).

BTW, I'm speaking strictly cute, not the sexy portraits or the ones that emphasize boobs or booty since I think there's a difference in the latter 2 versus girls drawn cute. Also, I think there's a difference between emphazing boobs/booty (Cherche) vs just wearing a low cut shirt while not being flat chested (Noire).

Tikki, Cherche, Panne, Tharja, Olivia, and Aversa are the only characters I'd say were in sexy poses.

Also, I don't consider Severa's sexy pose, nothing is showing, she's making no kind of appealing face. It doesn't say anything other than hands on her knees as a rest pose. Probably considered cute but not an example of Awakening's girls being overly sexualized.

[Thor Odinson]

The camera angle does change, and the final battle forces a back-shot, which in cases of FemRobin in one of the battle-panty classes (GK and Wyvern Lord are some of my favorite classes for gameplay, so I use those often) , that's a big ass right in my face.

Zettai Ryouiki is seriously overdone as a design element. It isn't necessarily bad given a class and a character that can work with it so that it makes sense both with what they do and who they are, but it's just kinda spammed everywhere and getting seriously boring.

A good design isn't necessarily 100% practical, but it should definitely take into account of what the class does and requires, and also designed to suit the character.

Also Namor totally wears tight shorts

[FrostyFireMage]

Really my only problem is with how Nohr is designed almost to blatantly seem evil, or at least less altruistic than Hoshido. Reminds me of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxr3DuMnxI

I agree with this

It feels a little too much like Ylisse/Plegia to me. They totally failed at making Plegia seem sympathetic (we didn't deserve to be attacked by Ylisse despite being mostly full of psychos, yanderes, sociopaths and Satan worshipers!).

[BrandedRogue]

First, you're exaggerating the number of females not wearing pants. Going off of the official artwork, several girls are wearing pants: Miriel, Noire, Severa, Maribelle, Anna, Lucinia, F!Morgan, Kjelle, F!Robin and Lissa (ok, she has a dress on but it's not sexual at all shows no skin). That's 10 of 25 playable females. That's a lot closer to half of the playable girls than none. Just because they're not wearing pants doesn't make them overly sexualized. Only 7 girls have sensual poses or boobs and booty emphasized: Tikki, Cherche, Panne, Tharja, Olivia, Nowi and Aversa.

As for the "the main point is that since awakening none female characters none female characters ever wear pants ", that's just not true. At least the pants part. I don't feel like going through every past FE game, so I'll just cite 2 games I've played most recently.

Most playable girls from FE7 don't wear pants: Rebecca, Lyn, Isadora, Vaida, Nino, Louise, Karla, Priscilla and all 3 pegasus knight sisters. So that's 11 out of 13. Clearly a much higher number than in Awakening, although none are in sexual poses.

Of Sacred Stones 11 playable women, only 3 wear pants: Tethys, Syrene, and Natasha. 5 if you count creature campaign characters Ismaire and Selena. Not sure where'd you count Neimi, since she's rolled up her pants to her knees.

So percentage wise, Awakening actually has more girls who wear pants than either Sacred Stones or Blazing Swords, although girls posing in cute or sexy ways is more present than in Awakening.

I agree it'd make a lot more sense if they all just wore pants.

I also agree there are some female characters who don't wear pants that should going off of their personality (Flavia, Sully, to name a few), I can't consider a unit who's otherwise covered but is wearing a skirt and showing some upper thigh overlysexualized. It's clearly meant to make them look cute, and apparently sensual, but I think saying that's overlysexualized is kind of strong.

In summary, I understand you're complaint and the females are in general drawn to emphasize their cuteness or sexiness rather than having generic or action poses, but you're overstating the problem (unless you just seriously detest Zettai Ryouiki, which is what the look the mount riders like Cordelia is called) and ignoring that it's nothing new in FE's history and instead falsely blaming it on Awakening.

It'd also be very, very weird since you rarely ever see male characters wearing tight short shorts, unlike the whole Zettai Ryouiki thing all of the Awakening mount riding girls have going on. The latter is far, far more popular. I don't think I've seen any male action heros wearing tight shorts. So I don't think that analogy works. Also, short shorts would show a LOT more skin than what the mount riding girls in Awakening show.

I also don't get what you and BrandedRogue are refering to by constant pant shots in battle. Particularly for the mount riding females, that would require basically seeing things from the enemies POV (plus you'd have to zoom in) and that's not a battle option. Can you explain what you're referring to?

While I agree that the art for some of the females is meant to make them attractive versus a generic or action pose, there's nothing wrong with a female posing cute. I consider it like a female version of the males striking tough or cool poses (not saying females can't or shouldn't be drawn in such poses for their official artwork. I'd like if more females had art portraits like say, Cynthia or Florina).

BTW, I'm speaking strictly cute, not the sexy portraits or the ones that emphasize boobs or booty since I think there's a difference in the latter 2 versus girls drawn cute. Also, I think there's a difference between emphazing boobs/booty (Cherche) vs just wearing a low cut shirt while not being flat chested (Noire).

Tikki, Cherche, Panne, Tharja, Olivia, and Aversa are the only characters I'd say were in sexy poses.

Also, I don't consider Severa's sexy pose, nothing is showing, she's making no kind of appealing face. It doesn't say anything other than hands on her knees as a rest pose. Probably considered cute but not an example of Awakening's girls being overly sexualized.

Okay, first. You're right, I got my numbers a bit (very) wrong. And yes I think your third paragraph basically sums up the problem (issue, name it), it's not that much about the actual outfit, but more about how it's displayed (the poses).

And IMO many of the generic class looks of awaking do follow the male outfit -> remove pants -> female outfit line, especially the myrmidon and mercenary class lines.

Tho I don't think I'm 'falsely blaming it on Awakening'. My favorite universe is still Tellius and I based my comparison on that. You can call that biased but not ignorant.

And I agree with your comparison on Noire and cherche (I think this is what you're saying). Cherche's outfit is made so show booty (and is IMO utterly ridiculous, but aside form that) and Noire is simply wearing a lower cut shirt, I'm fine with Noire's outfit and it doesn't really clash with her character either. But I do think that the no pants for sully, Flavia and promoted Severa do make no sense and are therefor 'wrong' (Severa actually has a support convo where she's against showing skin "A proper lady never shows skin above the ankles and below the neck" So severa in a mini skirt is wrong character wise. And IMO there are more outfit's that are more designed for sexy looks than to fit the character, Panne, Nowi and Tikki (to a lesser extend) (underline IMO).

So I hope I managed to un-generalize my opinion a bit with this.

[Meiyu]

I agree Leon Marth is the sole reason i'm siding with Nohr.

Imagine the disappointment if we discover that we can't marry Leon (because he's family, even though not blood related)

I would be pretty bummed :'(

[Bovinian]

Props to Kozaki for designing a character even more androgynous than Tsubaki. Unlike Tsubaki, who just looked like a male with long hair to me, Oboro could legitimately go either way.

[IceBuster573]

Hoshido is the land of long, flowing hair. Saizou and Suzukaze need to step up their game.

[BlueL]

Okay, first. You're right, I got my numbers a bit (very) wrong. And yes I think your third paragraph basically sums up the problem (issue, name it), it's not that much about the actual outfit, but more about how it's displayed (the poses).

And IMO many of the generic class looks of awaking do follow the male outfit -> remove pants -> female outfit line, especially the myrmidon and mercenary class lines.

Tho I don't think I'm 'falsely blaming it on Awakening'. My favorite universe is still Tellius and I based my comparison on that. You can call that biased but not ignorant.

And I agree with your comparison on Noire and cherche (I think this is what you're saying). Cherche's outfit is made so show booty (and is IMO utterly ridiculous, but aside form that) and Noire is simply wearing a lower cut shirt, I'm fine with Noire's outfit and it doesn't really clash with her character either. But I do think that the no pants for sully, Flavia and promoted Severa do make no sense and are therefor 'wrong' (Severa actually has a support convo where she's against showing skin "A proper lady never shows skin above the ankles and below the neck" So severa in a mini skirt is wrong character wise. And IMO there are more outfit's that are more designed for sexy looks than to fit the character, Panne, Nowi and Tikki (to a lesser extend) (underline IMO).

So I hope I managed to un-generalize my opinion a bit with this.

Well considering the poses of Awakening vs past FE games (at least 7 & 8, the only ones I looked up), as I said earlier you're right that the females artwork are on average more likely to either be cute or sexy compared to previous games, although cute posing doesn't bother as long as it fits the character (i.e. Nowi's pose). There's no reason we can't have more poses like the ones in Cynthia's or Florina's artwork though. So far, I think FE if's women's outfits/poses are suited for their character and not focusing on their femininity so much, with the exception that Hinoka seems like she'd be more likely either wear a longer skirt or pants.

And, as awkward as it was to do so I went and checked the pants on the same classes but different genders (promoted units only), you're completely right on in-game models either removing the female's pants (swordmaster) or giving them a Zettai Ryouiki. (BTW, I actually googled that and they look a lot more sensual on real women than anime girls.) Although this where I need point out that female classes not wearing pants when their male counterparts do isn't new to Awakening (ex: Marisa vs Joshua in FE8, plus my examples from my previous post.

I wasn't trying to call you ignorant. It's fine if Tellius is your ideal universe, I was just clarifying that your claim of women not wearing pants starting with Awakening is false, although they do definitely on average pose in more attractive ways in Awakening. Although Telius (referring to their artwork) has more women without pants than not, but their's definitely a noticeable difference in how they pose vs most of Awakening's females.

And yea, you perfectly understood my example with Nowi vs Cherche.

And I agree with your last paragraph. Except for the part about Panne. In my experience, humanoid characters that aren't actually human tend to be more loose with their clothing.

But no I understand you're opinion better now.

[BrandedRogue]

Well considering the poses of Awakening vs past FE games (at least 7 & 8, the only ones I looked up), as I said earlier you're right that the females artwork are on average more likely to either be cute or sexy compared to previous games, although cute posing doesn't bother as long as it fits the character (i.e. Nowi's pose). There's no reason we can't have more poses like the ones in Cynthia's or Florina's artwork though. So far, I think FE if's women's outfits/poses are suited for their character and not focusing on their femininity so much, with the exception that Hinoka seems like she'd be more likely either wear a longer skirt or pants.

And, as awkward as it was to do so I went and checked the pants on the same classes but different genders (promoted units only), you're completely right on in-game models either removing the female's pants (swordmaster) or giving them a Zettai Ryouiki. (BTW, I actually googled that and they look a lot more sensual on real women than anime girls.) Although this where I need point out that female classes not wearing pants when their male counterparts do isn't new to Awakening (ex: Marisa vs Joshua in FE8, plus my examples from my previous post.

I wasn't trying to call you ignorant. It's fine if Tellius is your ideal universe, I was just clarifying that your claim of women not wearing pants starting with Awakening is false, although they do definitely on average pose in more attractive ways in Awakening. Although Telius (referring to their artwork) has more women without pants than not, but their's definitely a noticeable difference in how they pose vs most of Awakening's females.

And yea, you perfectly understood my example with Nowi vs Cherche.

And I agree with your last paragraph. Except for the part about Panne. In my experience, humanoid characters that aren't actually human tend to be more loose with their clothing.

But no I understand you're opinion better now.

It may be true that not pants is not an awakening thing, I just don't like the fact that it seems to be a rule. So you're not wrong, but I just feel differently about how important the pants are.

And about the Tellius pants ratio, I see no problem with mages or healers wearing skirts and Calil's outfit really fits her character so I see no problem there. Myrmidons, pegi-knights and sodlier class female, okay could be. I would personally be very uncomfortable moving around like they do with the clothes they were XD but that aside.

And you can discuss about Panne, I agree that humanoid characters often care less about clothes, but I just don't think wearing something like that fits Panne's character. (I could once again reference to the Tellius games for that as well :P)

Glad I managed to elaborate my opinion a bit better

[Thor Odinson]

I don't really have a problem with Panne specifically (designwise, pose is a different matter) since it seems to just be how taguel dresses at large, if you look at what Yarne wears in comparison, it's pretty much the same thing. It's certainly not the best design-though I'm fond of the way he handled the ears-it's just kind of a thing.

Designs like Noire is kinda iffy because on one hand, it's not technically bad and I wouldn't bat an eye about that cleavage on a mage, healer, thief, or barbarian, but it's on an archer, who really wants to strap the boobs down with some kind or armor. I mean, that bowstring snap would hurt. Ow. This is what I meant by designing to class and character-while by itself it's definitely not terrible, it just doesn't suit the class very well--like, it's not about "eww sexy" but rather about "there's a lot of different ways this could've been a better design by having x y z that makes sense to be there and can look good if you just put more thought into this design". There's plenty of other opportunities for cleavage that isn't as detrimental to the design--could even enhance it if it really works for the character.

My favorite designs that I've seen are usually very tailored to the character. For example, there's a graphic somewhere that pointed out Izuminokani Kanesada's design in Touken Ranbu and how it relates to the insignias and looks and elements of the actual sword itself, and I was impressed. That shit's good design.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Yula]

I forgot who mentioned Kamui's thigh holes in his/her armor, but I would like to point out that it's a lot easier to strike the shin than the thigh in the heat of battle. Mainly because the thigh can be easily blocked with a shield, which is something that has been annoying me for the longest time in fire emblem. Lords(Rarely) get shields, knights(Ocassionally) get shields, but the only ones that have consistently gotten shields were generic, faceless mooks. The point is the thigh hole in the armor isn't a make it or break it flaw in the armor.

[Jagen]

So i'm sure others have already saw the new female armored knight. Is anyone else a little put off by the breasts that literally serve no other purpose than to be eye candy? Whenever I look at her, I can't help but think about just how much better the classic armored knights, like Sheema looked in the past.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Jagen

[thetiger39]

I really don't care about the breastplates. As long as she can tank well, its all good.