Overwatch 2 recently went through a major rebranding, after which it was simply called Overwatch. Along with releasing “2”, five new heroes will be released at once tomorrow. Although this rebranding is already working for the game, with the number of players on the rise, the community is currently discussing the “Kirikofication” of one of the new characters, Anran.
The crux of it is that Anran's game setup looks completely different from the one shown in the movie. She looks a lot more like Juno and Kiriko and loses many of her unique facial features. The community has pushed Blizzard to make Anran's face look like the original movie version. Fellow voice actor Fareeha Anderson has weighed in on the debate, saying she feels the same way.
Andran himself wants to be redesigned
In a video posted to Twitter, Anderson said she had to “mourn” the version of Anran between the cinematic design and the in-game design. She said she took some time before expressing her opinion because she wanted to address the topic, but at the same time didn't want to step on the developers' toes.
“I had to grieve Anran between the design I had hoped for her and the design we ended up with, because I think in her comic and her cinematic Elemental Kin there was precedent for that,” Anderson said. “There was an unspoken promise that said, 'We will challenge the beauty standards that plague and pillage the media these days.' right? The osempic chic, contour your nose, you have no nose, the smallest nose. And I think because of that precedent, people understandably feel let down.”
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She added that Overwatch has a reputation for being a “trailblazer” in challenging traditional beauty standards and what it looks like to be heroic. However, she noted that “the result we got says something else. It says something that leaves a bad taste in our mouths. It's not the bold, optimistic swing that we know Overwatch is making.”
Speaking about Anran's appearance in the game, Anderson said that it doesn't seem to match her personality. “She looks like the younger sibling, she looks more docile, somehow, like a fire hero.” She said this is an important debate to have. “This is a hill worth dying on. It's worth talking about. Because I think the more we talk about things that really matter to us, the more we'll see ourselves reflected in the world around us.”
“I want you to know that I shared all of this with the development team. Not only that, I was encouraged to be as open and honest as possible, not to hold anything back,” Anderson concluded.
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