Dead or Alive 6 stage presentation temporarily pulls Evo Japan stream offline

And thus a new meme is born. A Japanese promo for Dead or Alive 6 courted a voluntary suspension of last weekend’s Evo Japan stream, after a pair of gravure models mimicked the game’s infamous jiggle physics with very real body parts.

The Evolution Championship Series (Evo) is a high-profile fighting game tournament spanning the world. Evo Japan 2019, held in Fukuoka on 15-17 Feb, hosted a lineup of six games. As Dead or Alive 6 isn’t out yet, developers Team Ninja lined up their promotional efforts with the event, securing an advertising spot and announcing a new demo.

The Evo organizers had already tolerated sexually suggestive segments from the DOA6 spot prior to pulling the plug – you can probably imagine how the presenters put the game’s free-camera view to use. Yet it was the stage play between invited models Saki Yoshida and Yuka Kuramochi that proved the point of no return.

After seeing Dead or Alive 6’s jiggle effects in action, the gravure models began readjusting their clothes to better emulate the motions in real-life, all while getting a little handsy with one another. It was a bit of eyebrow-raising fanservice that wouldn’t seem out of place for domestic audiences, and Kuramochi herself is a familiar promoter among the Japanese fighting game community.

However, Evo was being viewed by more than just Japanese, and Twitch chat being Twitch chat, the comments train basically exploded.

Shortly after pulling the stream offline, Evo co-founder Joey ‘Mr Wizard’ Cuellar posted in a now-deleted tweet that the ad “does not reflect the core values of Evo or the FGC.” That immediately sparked controversy and spawned its own Core Values meme.

When the stream restarted, Evo business developer Mark ‘MarkMan’ Julio appeared on camera to apologize, rewording the official statement to say: “does not reflect the content and intention of Evo.”

It did little to douse the now-raging fire spreading across the web, with many re-hoisting the now-battered banner of western gaming’s double standards on sex and violence.

Unfortunately, the fire also drowned out news of the demo and the reveal of King of Fighters guest character Mai Shiranui, with some fans lamenting how observers would simply dismiss the fighting game chops of Dead Alive 6.

Optimists, on the other hand, are pondering whether this was an inadvertently genius PR move by DOA6 director Yohei Shimbori, considering how much attention the game is now generating this close to launch.

Whatever your views, Dead or Alive 6 releases on 1 March for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.