Have you seen the way gamers reacted when Tifa's outfit got changed to be less sexualized?
people on gaming forums everywhere, here included, would cry censorship.
This Mai situation seems to be an inverse of the Tifa one.
The changes made to Tifa were pragmatic and "necessary", because it was the developers emphasizing the importance of the character beyond her physical appearance. If anyone was following her appearances beyond the original game they would have already seen this "course correction" take shape, from Advent Children to Kingdom Hearts and onward. Square Enix wisely acknowledged that Tifa's main traits and appeal as a character go beyond her physical appearance, and they struck a perfect balance imo. The angry gamer crowd, as loud and obnoxious as they're being, represent an extremely small minority in the grand scheme of things.
With the decision to leave Mai out of Smash, it feels like the exact opposite sentiment: it's an open acknowledgement that Mai's jiggling jubblies
are the defining traits of the character, and to scale back that sexiness even a little to meet CERO practices would have gotten more angry responses from fans than placating them. Basically "I'd rather have nothing."
Correct me if I'm wrong, with respect to anyone who legitimately likes the character beyond sex appeal, it's always looked to me that Mai truly is a character marketed for her massive bouncing breasts and flirtatious demeanor with no other defining character traits. Even her consistent story motivation seems to be nothing more than wanting Andy to crush her puss. Subsequent appearances just seem to pile on the T&A more and more, which makes her a really unique outlier where other characters like Lara Croft scaled back from the sex-oriented marketing. Basically, Mai is a borderline hentai character and SNK and the fanbase seem perfectly content with that.
It's honestly not a surprise at all that they couldn't make her work in Smash, even as a cameo.
i don't why you guys kept citing Chun-Li but she's just 'thick thigh' lady and that's about it, nothing too sleazy (SFV alt costume notwithstanding) but Mai's outfit is literally stripper level........with DoA level of boob bouncing (no surprise she guest starred over there).
The exception being Street Fighter V, where Chun's honkers are so massive that the current iteration of the DoA ladies look modest by comparison.
