Gaming
I hate this stupid ass knock kneed idle stance that plagues fighting games
EDIT: for the love of god people read the last paragraph in regard to toph being part of the images. Reading comprehension is a valuable skill.
Both of the first two characters are from granblue but there are plenty of other examples.
The latter being Meg which is particularly egregious because she’s supposed to be this super strong badass shark tamer fighter.
The stance is just poor form. It’s not sturdy, irl you could be pushed over with a light push. It’d be hard to generate any power in your strikes.
On top of that the stance is just there because they are pretty girls, as far as I’m aware there is not a single male character using this dumbass idle pose. Imagine if they gave ryu the knock kneed stance for the next SF game.
My last example is toph from the avatar fighting game as a good example of a fighting stance from a female fighter. She has a low square stance that is rock solid (pun intended)
That section is one of the heart wrenching moments in all of animated history. Some have stated his day was basicslly a fast forward in raising children from helping the kids to giving advice to a young man about their life and encouraging them.
Things he truly missed about having his own son and then raising his nephew as his own son. Zuko may not have been his son but nobody can tell me that Iroh wasn't the really dad to him.
Yeah he points out his stance is terrible, disarms him, teaches him the proper stance, then does the Iroh thing of completely changing the guy's outlook on life by just being a cool guy
Reminds me of scene from gone in 60 seconds. Dude trys to carjack somebody sitting in a POS car while he's working on heist of millions in luxury cars. "Anyone can pull a gun on somebody in a parked car, YOU NEED A ROLE MODEL".
Totally, those stances can be super distracting. It really takes away from the action when the characters look like they're posing for a picture instead of fighting.
We got absolutely robbed because you just KNOW Chie would choose to be posted up like Bruce Lee with her thumb and pinky out and everything. And also coiled like a spring instead of bouncing like an idiot
Who’s the karate girl from P2? I think it was Lisa? She was obsessed with Bruce Lee and her dad was pretty much a 1:1 parody of Steven Seagal. What a time for the series
TBF it wasn't Atlus (the creators of Persona) who made this fighting game, they basically let some completely different company do it at that time. That company often had to be kept from completely going off the rails (they wanted to add Nanako and Uncle Dojima as fighters ffs), so this sort of stuff is actually par the course.
On one hand, I kinda don't mind that it's impractical because it's very clear in game (and other parts of her moveset) that she doesn't actually know kung-fu, but I think she'd pick something cooler.
Nope, the Iron in blood is not in mineral or metal form, so It's not earth, refined or otherwise. Also, it makes up far less than .1% of the blood's mass, so extra no, even if you decided to count the sodium in the blood as well.
But Yeah, if she knew Iron was in blood she could probably imitate blood bending without the full moon requirement Katara has, and knowing her gremlin behavior, she'd probably challenge Katara to a puppet fight as soon as she found a pair of people she could convince her to be cruel to.
I will point out that using the iron in the cells themselves rather than the liquid of the blood would probably mean the applied force is much more concentrated, potentially even creating massive blood clots within the targets body, and almost certainly bursting the blood vessels en masse, so it's quite likely to be fatal for anyone she used it on in any significant manner.
It’s not, if you push the coat out of the way her knees are pushed inward slightly. And she attacks that way as well, falling back into that stance when doing strike raid attacks and the flurry of swings
Edit: Sora also has his knees bent a lot more and has his keyblade positioned with the point further back.
Edit 2: you can literally see in this photo that her feet are pointed inward. Meaning her knees are as well. She’s literally doing the knock knee stance in this picture lmao
Yeah, I’ve noticed anime tends to love having its female characters stand pigeon-toed. Not sure the WHY behind it, but I see it often enough to know it’s definitely intentional design.
It's just a Japanese culture thing. It's considered cute and feminine. Not much different than other completely arbitrary things that other cultures make up to define femininity, like thigh gaps or big lips or certain behaviors.
It's likely because when wearing traditional clothes you want to not take steps that cause the clothes to open up at the fold, and the fabric isn't stretchy, so you have to take smaller steps or angle your feet and knees so that your knees stay closer together while allowing you to maximize your stride.
The knees pointing inward causes the legs and hips to curve together, into one big arc. In the first two examples OP posted, start at the waist, and trace your eyes all the way down to the knee, to see what I mean.
Goddamn straight! I love GG and Blazblue, but your point really hits home with MC(ish) Noel Vermillion; much as I love playing her, she’s very blasé looking (though not as much as resident planet busting squirrel, and comedy cat, who gets a pass because…. Yeah).
it's obscured by her sleeve on purpose, but basically her arm was cut off so now it's "depending on what move she's using", but generally it's a claw on a chain.
other things include (off the top of my head)... giant folding fan, cannon, metal bandage thingy to wrap you in
It’s only really anime fighters that use it, I would allow if a particular is really inexperienced in fighting and anxious and that is their gimmick but otherwise I think it’s just dumb fanservice
This isn't even a fighting game specific thing it's something that girls do in fictional media and it just looks stupid and uncomfortable. That one genderbend Trunks image comes to mind because the DRINK wouldn't stance up like that at all.
I think the problem is mostly that I only see this pose with female characters. So it lowkey comes across as a "haha girls can't fight" thing that makes me roll my eyes into the back of my head.
Also, for some reason, I can't see it as anything other than a horny pose, even though it's not. So this association makes it even more goofy in a battle context for me.
There's only one anime fighter gal I think gets away with this stance and that's Elphelt Valentine, because her whole schtick is trying to appear cutesy and overly feminine so she can find a husband
GGST is such a mixed bag when it comes to this stance because on one hand you've got Elphelt, May, and Gio (for some reason) who all have this knock-kneed stance. But then you get Ramlethal and Jack-o who are just stanced up (in the aura farming way) at all times, and Baiken (stanced up in the proper martial arts way).
I think it works perfectly for May too, as they're intending to make her look all cute. Which contrasts perfectly with the fact that something so small and cute is effortlessly swinging a fucking anchor as big as her
It's a japanese cultural trophe that apparently has been adopted by foreign artists as well. I think it's supposed to draw the eyes to the hips area, which represent femininity and fertility.
Pretty stupid, yes, but if you know something about fighting stances, you'll notice at least 90% of fighting games stances are completely unbalanced and would be useless irl. That goes for men as well.
I wouldn't say it's stupid; it literally does put a focus on the curves of the female form, and specifically the hips. Actually using that stance in a fight IRL is indeed stupid, but one can see why the designers chose to pose characters like that.
I'd say it's stupid because of the context.
It's a fighting game, the sex appeal isn't important to the point of detracting from the fighting aspect, and female fighters can still be sexy while still having proper form, ex: Chun-Li
It's ultimately comes down to artistic expression. Sure, the premise of a fighting game is to fight, but the point of a game in general is to be enjoyable. Focusing on the visual aspect, this generally means that video games should be nice to look at.
If the designers choose to achieve that through sexualized characters . . there's really only a problem if people don't like it. And indeed, many hate it, but most gamers are neutral or even slightly positive. Really, it's that they just like the sex appeal.
Not everything has to be realistic. Chun-Li is in the same game as Ryu & Ken, who can shoot energy blasts from their hands, and Dhalsim, who can stretch his limbs like rubber.
Hell, I could use your own premise of "distractions" against you, and say that Chun-Li is actually bad example of character design, because she has unrealistic proportions. An actual practitioner of her martial art may not look like her, so I could argue that designing her in that way is also "distracting from the fighting aspect" of a fighting game.
It's interesting how a lot of the female characters are based on this stance the post is about, but tweaked a bit to show character or itent.. the third one with the very princess character...it's heavily that for the "showing off female", but turned a bit toward opponent with guns drawn showing agression.
Clip shows the rest and all look amazing in motion, sidenote this series plot is barely a thing in favor or being a 2000s bonkers slice of life which actually rules.
Not to be that person but like..what do you expect lol. The first two are purely aesthetic games that cater to anime fans. Its not meant to realistically be combat accurate. While ATLAB takes a lot of inspiration from real martial arts like Hung Gar
Still allowed to hate it though. It's not about what you expect, it's about how annoying it is that I've come to expect disappointment, and the fact that it is so common.
I knew an IRL dude who was built like a horse, at least 6'3" and i saw him square up with someone else. He won, but another guy told me that if you were to knock him solid in the jaw he would crumple because he stood like this.
I think so...this thread reminds me of this pose...I don't even know what anime this is..I just googled anime kneeling pose and grabbed the first image showing what was in my mind from other ones.
It honestly looks like a toddler learning to stand for the first time, which sickening, might be the point. To make the women look more like children. Tommy from rugrats stands like that alot, with his feet pointed inward.
just a cultural thing. in Japan most female characters do that because they’re wearing skirt or expected to wear skirt. tilting the knees inward prevent too much outward movements oh thighs and then less likely to flirt the skirt upward. and that pose is then considered feminine and cute - so it’s popularized among female characters
but on the other hand if you ever read the manga Baki you’d know this is the perfect fighting stance.
Until I read the description, I was all set to write a dissertation on Toph's being good lol.
Yep, agreed. Those first two, and all those like it, terrible. Unless it is to convey that the combatant is untrained and generally incompetent at fighting, don't do that. Also, feels kinda sexist that so many girl characters are animated like that, even when they are supposed to be legit fighters.
i agree... specially using toph as a good example, she uses an stance you would normally expect of an orthodox/very disciplined fighter, while her move her doesnt quite support the same.
because Earthbending is about fundamentals, and Toph learned from badgermoles, once you have gotten the fundamentals, you ought to create/adapt it to your own style and like the story suggested, her style is about listening and waiting "Neutral Jing". her stance kinda show that, she is sitting there like a rock, waiting ont he oponent first.
I'm not a developer or an artist but I think the pose is so you can see the character a little bit easier because fighting games are 2D if they stood any other way they would probably look kinda like this
But idk I'm not a fan of fighting games I'm pulling this out of my ass
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u/UniverseGlory7866 hop on blazblue Sep 16 '26
FIGHTING GAME TALK IN MY SUBREDDIT?
LETS GOOOOO