Dead or Alive (franchise)/YMMV

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Christie, a Psycho Lesbian for Helena or a Badass Gay who fell In Love with the Mark? Or is she more Ambiguously Bi who is willing to go after Anything That Moves (that and there is the occasional scene where she acts seductive toward Eliot namely whether if she only does it just to fluster the boy or if she really is quite the cougar)?
  • There is also Lei Fang on whether if she has a strong Belligerent Sexual Tension issue with Jann Lee or she genuinely is annoyed by his Jerk with a Heart of Gold nature and their rivalry is platonic at best. That and due to how Lei Fang can be with the other ladies especially Hitomi have given her plenty of Ambiguously Gay moments as well. So in other words while all the ladies in the series have been in Yuri pairings, Christie and Lei Fang (and to a much lesser extent Tina and Lisa) are considered to be biggest cases of Ambiguously Gay or Ambiguously Bi in the series.
  • And that's before the introduction of Mila in Dead or Alive 5 who may just be an ascended fan-girl for Tina, or could have a celebrity crush on her.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced: After six long years, Dead or Alive 5 has finally been announced!
  • For some, toning down the Fan Service by several notches to focus on the more important fighting mechanics. For many, the inclusion of Virtua Fighter characters!
• Base Breaker:
  • Eliot. He might be good gameplay-wise but many people just don't like him. Possibly because his 4th costume looks like something by Square Enix. At the same time, many like Eliot because he isn't muscular and has a calm, nice personality.
  • Similarly, La Mariposa/Lisa also gets quite a bit of hate for her personality and fighting style.
  • Among the games themselves, the later games (especially Dead or Alive 4) can be considered this, especially with the counters getting progressively easier to do. A common accusation thrown by fighting game fans is that the counters killed off any sort of offense in the game since everything is easily countered.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Does anyone even remember that it was a Fighting Game?
  • The first Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball got quite a few good reviews for being a pretty solid volleyball video game.
• Broken Base: The fanbase is split into two main factions: Those that prefer the original fighting series, and those who prefer the soft-porn beach side-series. Similarly, the second faction is in itself split over whether or not to include an official nude option (which, aside from various hacks within those games and an April Fools Day joke from EGM, no such option actually exists).
  • And now there's a new split based on the announcement by Team Ninja that they're toning down the fanservice (and breast sizes) in Dead or Alive 5.
    • Well, at least the breast sizes don't look too affected…
  • The less obvious but arguably more important split is between competitive players who want the counter system from Dead or Alive 4 toned down and those who prefer the system from Dead or Alive 4 because it prevents people from using Combos.
  • There's also Hitomi's new look for Dead or Alive 5 ^{[dead link]}
• Complete Monster: Christie. Her theme in Dead or Alive 3 is even titled Monster. Despite this, however, Helena indicated that she forgave Christie for murdering her mother before her attempted suicide, and Christie seems to at least have some capacity of getting along with the other females in the Dead or Alive Xtreme series.
  • Donovan is even worse, seeing how he's the one who arranged for Christie to murder Helena's parents death, and is pretty much responsible for everything wrong in the series, and if Dead or Alive: Dimensions's stinger is anything to go by, he's also using the mask he created to become stronger.
• Crack Is Cheaper: As mentioned below in Internet Backdraft,buying all the costumes for Dead or Alive 5 will cost you more than a brand new Xbox One or PS4.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: A lot of the fan base puts Kasumi and Ryu together over any canon love interest either of them have gotten.
• Iron Woobie: Ayane. See her entry in said trope, and then add everything revealed in Dead or Alive: Dimensions, including her attempted suicide.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Kasumi, Ayane and, to a sightly lesser extent, Hitomi.
• Les Yay:
  • Lei Fang and Hitomi are shown to be very friendly to each other. Strawberries, anyone?
    • Odd, considering in Dead or Alive 4 they get into a street fight over... a piece of lettuce.
    • Slap Slap Kiss?
  • Also, in Dead or Alive 2's story mode: in both the cutscene before Lei Fang's battle with Helena and Lei Fang's winquote after, the game gives the impression that Lei Fang is flirting with her opponent.
  • The movie. Dear lord the movie. After the Kasumi\Leon fight trashes her room, Christie is thankful for Tina letting her sleep with her. When Bass comes around, Christie can't help but play it up to Tina's horror.
  • Christie's attitude towards Helena crosses into this at times.
  • In Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, Rachel and Momiji's tag team win pose has Rachel saying "very nice" while looking over Momiji, making it seem as if she's checking her out.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Since Tecmo-Koei announced Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 will not get an official Western release much to various controversy, Play-Asia announced that they would be selling the localized-to-English non-Japanese Asian version, and ended up promptly gaining several thousand new followers.
• Non Sequitur Scene: In the final cut scene of Helena's Dead or Alive 4 story and Dead or Alive: Dimensions' story-line. Everything's going to hell. Then suddenly, there's this shot where some random woman who wasn't seen in any other part of the game is being shot in the head. Why it seems so out of place is because this was a cinematic cut scene, which none of the cinematic ones had any extras in up until this point. What made this shot even more jarring was that pretty much all other extras in the game are all blank-faced clones who all seem to shop from the same clothing store. Many character endings from the first four games could also qualify. Some even look completely out of character. Why does Kasumi dream of being a (naked) mermaid in what looks like a J-Pop music video?
• Older Than They Think: Some internet posters think Jann Lee's yellow tracksuit is a Shout-Out to Kill Bill, but it was actually first worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death which Kill Bill was referencing. Which makes sense, since Jann Lee is a Bruce Lee Clone.
• Polished Port: The PlayStation Vita port of Dead or Alive 5. It actually got better reviews than the console versions because it was able to run at a steady 60fps while maintaining good visuals within the handheld's limited hardware. This has been compared to other (ported) fighting games like Mortal Kombat.
• So Bad It's Good: The Movie, if you don't think it's awful.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: All of the girls, no thanks to Team Ninja and the Dead or Alive Xtreme series, plus Ryu Hayabusa.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: Dead or Alive has male characters. Common knowledge to fans, but if you told this to a non-fan, it would likely be news to them. In fact, even within the fandom, when someone brings up "who's your favorite male character?", a common joke is to say "...there's male characters?". This naturally is a point of contention to some. Ryu Hayabusa is almost exempt from this given Ninja Gaiden's own popularity.
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Some of the girls' outfits are skimpy enough that there's no way they could actually fight in them and not have a wardrobe malfunction. But no matter how bad you want it to, it will never happen.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: For a time Kasumi's backstory of being a runaway Ninja who left her village to seek revenge for her then-crippled brother Hayate and is hunted by the people of her village has been considered to be this. While this subplot was played up in Dead or Alive 2, it became a fairly minor detail in Dead or Alive 3, and the Dead or Alive Xtreme subseries kind of ruined the credibility of the subplot and made it rather pointless (you know for someone who is supposed to be on the run 24/7, Kasumi is awfully willing to be out in public). There were even accusations that Tecmo doesn't really know what to do with the Dead or Alive story anymore and is not taking it seriously enough. But fortunately, this subplot does get played up a bit more in Dead or Alive: Dimensions and Dead or Alive 5 in which Dead or Alive 5 even implies that there will even be some resolution in Kasumi's situation with her home village after all.
• Video Game Movies Suck: It took a full year for the Dead or Alive movie to be released in North America after being shown in Europe, and even then it quietly slipped in and out of theaters with zero promotion; given the nature of the game itself, this may be a Guilty Pleasure to some.
  • It turns down many an opportunity to go for copious jiggling, and clearly is just in it for the cheesy one-liners and the computer-game violence instead. And the shots of butts.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: A number of people thought that Eliot was a girl when he first debuted in Dead or Alive 4.
• Wangst: Ayane's Interrupted Suicide in Dead or Alive: Dimensions. She tries to take her own life only because Hayate got mad at her?! Really?! OK, Hayate overreacted too when he slapped her just because she made a bad comment about Kasumi, but still!
• What the Hell, Casting Agency?: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 includes the likes of Raine Sage, Sakura Haruno, Psylocke, Liane Cartman and Cyborg. Dead or Alive: Dimensions added Haruhi Suzumiya, Blaine Anderson, Sun Jian, Matt Miller and Vincent Brooks.
• Win Back the Crowd: Thus far, the response of Dead or Alive 5 is very positive and seems to be garnering fans who realize about this being more than a Fanservice fighting game. Although the later flood of DLC has tarnished the game as a product in the eyes of many.
• What the Hell, Costuming Department?: Even without going to the fanservice outfits for the female characters, there are some... questionable costumes, specially for male characters. Bayman in a fully equipped scuba diver suit, anyone? And let's not even begin with Eliot in Dead or Alive 4 or Zack in, well, any of the games.

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