Capcom states that they removed R.Mika's buttslap animation from the upcoming Street Fighter 5 because they didn't want to offend anyone.
A recent update by the studio revealed it was altering some of the animations of both Cammy and R.Mika. The developers removed animations showing off butt slaps and close-up crotch shots.
A YouTuber by the name of ThisVideoAnnoyedMe compiled video comparisons with before-and-after shots of R.Mika and Cammy.
Speaking to Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono (translated on NeoGAF), the developers did so to make the game accessible to as many players as possible.
"We want the professional players and the casual fans of the series to return, but we also want to reach those who have never even touched a fighting game," he said in an interview with UOL Jogos. "So we can’t have something in the game that makes people think, ‘This is not acceptable’.”
Ono clarified that the studio wasn't any external pressure to make the decision and simply made the call on their own.
“We didn’t make any change because of external influences”, he said. “Those changes came up internally. We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable”.
“Probably we won’t be able to remove everything that could offend someone. But our goal is, at least, to reduce that number as much as possible so that they think ‘Ok, there is this issue here, but it is within the limits’. We want that everyone can play and enjoy without worrying about anything else.”
Street Fighter 5 will be out on February 16 for the PC, Xbox One and PS4.
