Jump Force – almost a boys only club

A reader worries that anime crossover Jump Force will become the latest fighting game to suffer from not enough female characters.

With the recent reveal of Boa Hancock from One Piece joining the roster of Jump Force, the occasion marks a perfect opportunity to scrutinise the state of the upcoming game. Namely, this is an opportunity to briefly reflect and consider how there appears to be very few female characters available as playable options in the game.

In case anime or fighting games are not your forte, Jump Force is a 3D fighting game in development by Spike Chunsoft and published by Bandai Namco, scheduled for release on February 15, 2019. It’s a game that pits anime baddies and goodies from different franchises in an ultimate clash.

With that brief introduction sorted, my concern with Jump Force is the apparent lack of playable female characters. Since the game’s announcement back at E3 of this year we’ve steadily received cinematic footage of character reveals, but in those past six months (on the female side of things) we’ve only been shown Rukia from Bleach and Hancock just now.

Without getting too bogged down into names, where is My Hero Academia’s Tsuyu, One-Punch Man’s Tatsumaki, Reborn!’s Chrome, or Beelzebub’s Hilda?

Granted, characters from the shows listed above may appear later, but even if we eliminate those shows and focus solely on the anime that have been approved it still doesn’t answer why we haven’t seen more female characters; where is Sakura, Hinata, Tsunade, Android 18, Caulifla, Kale, Yoruichi, Rangiku…? The list goes on.

No matter which female protagonist or antagonist we want featured I would like to think that some of their inclusions are inevitable, and if I adopt such a thinking, the next problem lies with how and why, barring Rukia and Hancock, have none of them been given a reveal or been used to market the game’s growing roster? Ignoring the original characters, we currently stand at 32 confirmed characters and only two of them are female. To say that’s problematic would be an understatement.

We’ve been shown five male characters from both One Piece and Dragon Ball, and four from Hunter x Hunter. Are females going to be revealed later, or has marketing them been deemed unnecessary? Are they being kept as DLC, or is a special type of reveal event being planned for them? Ultimately, it’s hard to say.

This situation is made even more puzzling when you consider the fact that the game is being published by Bandai Namco, who are veterans at developing and/or producing fighting games (Tekken 7, SoulCalibur VI, Dragon Ball FighterZ, etc.), therefore they have the history and background of overseeing balanced rosters.

In an interview with Kotaku the game’s producer, Koji Nakajima, did confirm the availability of female characters, but that interview was six months ago and since then we’ve had nothing to ease concerns.

For those of you who think the lack of playable female options isn’t a big deal, unfortunately you miss the point. Apart from being integral cogs to their respective anime, or being welcome alternatives to the males, fighting games and anime also have a female fan base who would like to see their favourite heroines clash, just as much as there are males who want to see Goku vs. Luffy.

Video games have always been an oasis for diversity, inclusivity, and escapism (albeit there is still a lot of work to be done if we want games to be more representative than Hollywood). Here is to hoping that something is done to ease concerns about the female roster, or that the final game surprises us in a good way.

By reader Maxwell Kamlongera

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