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A 3D Fighting Game franchise akin to Tekken and Virtua Fighter. Even though the male fighters outnumber the female fighters by a slim margin.
The actual story is about the dealings of the sinister DOATEC corporation, who hold the Dead or Alive tournament as a front to finance the genetic research in creating the ultimate fighter. A runaway ninja named Kasumi gets tangled in the struggle, using the tournament as a means of escape and to look for her lost brother Hayate, and take revenge on her traitorous uncle, Raidou. Other characters enter the tournament for their own personal reasons, but all get sucked into DOATEC's larger scheme. Ayane, who is also looking for Hayate, is required to kill her half-sister Kasumi (as desertion from a ninja clan is punishable by death); Ryu Hayabusa (remember him?) is looking for him as well; Hayate is trying to recover the memories he lost after being experimented on by DOATEC; Zack's just doing it for the money; and it builds steam from there.
Of course, nobody plays the game for that. They play the game for... well, another reason.
Despite the vast quantities of Jiggle Physics, the game actually has a great deal of independent merit of its own, being much more fast-paced and kinetic than the 3D fighters that it competes with while remaining technical and reasonably well-balanced. It's generally considered in the top-tier of 3D Fighting Games, along with Tekken and the Soul Edge series.
After the fights, they tend to get together and play beach volleyball.
The character sheet is under construction.
Though sometimes shortened to DOA, not at all to be confused with the Film Noir DOA (which is quite lacking in boobies in comparison), the 1999 Yakuza Dead or Alive film series by director Takashi Miike (likewise), or the Tom Clancy novel Dead or Alive (likewise, though there is one amusing bit about an attempt at steganography resulting in inadvertent porn). For the viewer's inconvenience, the 2007 film adaptation of the games is titled DOA: Dead or Alive, instead.
The fifth installment is currently under development and scheduled for release during 2012. So far (as of E3 2012) Kasumi, Ayane, Hayabusa, Hayate, Hitomi, Christie, Bayman, Lei Fang, Zack, Bass, Tina and Kokoro have been confirmed and shown to the public. The game has a deep graphic upgrade from DOA4 (not surprisingly, since it's been 7 years since then) and an aesthetic redesign that shows more realistic characters, with smaller and less anime-like eyes, the same to what was shown in Ninja Gaiden 3. Special mention to the girls, who have more realistically proportionate bodies, although the Jiggle Physics are still in full display. In collaboration with Sega, Dead or Alive 5 will also feature Guest Fighters from the Virtua Fighter series. As of E3 2012, Akira Yuki and Sarah Bryant are a part of the roster (and this list suggests that Pai Chan will also make the leap).
- A-Cup Angst: Downplayed example regarding Marie Rose. While she has little problem with her chest size in itself, and has even been known to boast "Bigger isn't always better, you know?" when winning, she is implied at times to be jealous of Honoka's breast size, and in Xtreme Venus Vacation, she admits that she wishes at times she had a more mature-looking body, although solely to stop everyone from treating her like a child.
- Action Girl: Every female character, obviously.
- Actor Allusion: The April Fools mini-event for 2019 has Fiona being a zombie, or at least playing the role of one, complete with grey skin and red eyes. Her voice actress, Kaede Hondo, played the lead character in Zombie Land Saga.
- A more straight example would be with Nagisa. Despite her being locked behind a paywall at the time, Nagisa got the main event episode arc for the Hestia event (the other girls got reruns of episodes starring them for that event), where she has to film something for the Owner. This is most likely a reference to her voice actress's role as the titular protagonist of that anime.
- Kanna helming the Uzaki-Chan Wants To Hang Out collaboration is an obvious reference to her voice actor also voicing the eponymous protagonist in that anime (incidentally, it was released around the same time as the crossover).
- During the Senran Kagura New Link collaboration, Misaki was wearing an outfit belonging to the Mikagura Sisters faction (with the standees and poses strongly implying that she specifically represented Renka). This is a reference to how Misaki's voice actress, Minami Tsuda, voices Renka in the Senran Kagura series.
- The Itaden collaboration has Elise wearing a paid-only outfit modeled after Piscalat's civilian attire from that series. Elise's voice actress, Asami Seto, voiced Piscalat in the anime adaptation.
- On a similar note, Mila's Senran Kagura outfit in Dead or Alive 5 Last Round being Hikage is most likely a reference to her sharing the same voice actress.
- All Just a Dream: Kasumi's DOA4 ending.
- The Zombienus Vacation April Fools Day event is treated as such in-universe if the tweet after the event had concluded is of any indication.
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: vs. Omega/Genra
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: In the story mode for Dead Or Alive: Dimensions, the first four chapters go over the events of the series from the point of view of the ninja characters. The fifth and final chapter re-tells the events from the second game on from Helena's perspective.
- Anime Chinese Girl: Lei-Fang
- Anti-Hero: Ayane
- Armor-Piercing Slap: In Dead or Alive: Dimensions we see 4 examples of this in the Chronicle mode cinematics. Considering this is a fighting game, the slaps paralizing effects look kinda weird.
- Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Jann Lee
- Art Evolution: In every game thanks to improving hardware, but DOA5 takes the cake for now: special mention goes to the female characters, whose new designs look much less generic anime, with smaller eyes and less fanservice-y bodies, or maybe fanservice-y in a different way.
- Auction of Evil: In The Movie; Donovan used Nanomachines to copy everyone's martial arts skills so he could use them himself, and planned to sell the data to the highest bidder.
- Badass Back: Ayane has a whole set of moves based on this, and so does DOA4 newcomer Kokoro.
- Brad Wong also has quite a few backward attacks as well. Then again, it's all part of the Drunken Master style of fighting.
- Badass Grandpa: Gen Fu.
- Badass Normal: Regular old teenagers who fight for fun can hold their own against ninjas, mystical superpowered beings and a genetically altered interdimensional clone of one of aforementioned ninjas.
- Banned in China: Dimensions is banned in Sweden due to the "showcase" mode, where you can pose the characters and take photographs of them because they knew it would eventually come down to people using it sexually and not all of the characters are of legal age in Sweden.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Both played straight and averted with the female fighters, depending on the game.
- Battle Butler: Christie, to Helena
- Battle in the Rain
- Between My Legs: Christie's ending in DOA4.
- Also in the fight between Christie and Helena in the movie.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Gen Fu is really a sweet old man. But if you cross him, watch out.
- The same goes for Kasumi, Kokoro and Elliot.
- Big Damn Heroes: Zack in Helena's DOA4 ending.
- Ryu in Dimensions during Kasumi vs Kasumi Alpha and Ayane & Hayate vs Omega.
- Big Eater: If the main episodes of Xtreme Venus Vacation are to be believed, Honoka's quite the eater, admitting she loves to frequent the food stands during festivals, yet has a tendency to overeat.
- She also speculates in one of her character episodes that her tendency towards this trope may be the reason why she has trouble being able to wear swimwear due to them constantly breaking off, although the focus towards her breasts as she's explaining this implies that the true culprit is closer to her trademark chest.
- Luna's apparently a bit of a glutton based on some of her comments. It's also implied that at least part of her motivation for partaking in the Venus Festival was to find the Owner's Roasted Sweet Potato stash.
- Kanna is also a pretty big eater herself. In fact, when asked her favorite food, she gives a whole list of them including Candy apples, takoyaki, and cotton candy with the list not even being finished before the Owner cuts in and tells her to choose one.
- Bloodless Carnage: characters give and take some pretty severe beatings with nothing to show for it. Unsurprising, given the aim.
- Averted to an extent in Dead or Alive 6, which does show some rather vicious blows and some blood.
- Boobs of Steel: Every singly female character.
- Book Dumb: Based on an in-character interview with Honoka in the March 13, 2018 issue of Famitsu as well as a Trivia entry for Dead or Alive 6, Honoka is definitely of this trope, as while she's obviously a prodigy in learning any fighting style she sees in a flash, she's clearly not as good regarding academics.
- Kanna is depicted as this in a School-related ranking event, being good at physical education, but academics, particularly math, not being her strongest suit. Fiona in the same event was an inversion, being pretty good with the academics portion, but lousy at physical education. This results in them working together to pass both courses, with Fiona helping Kanna with the academic portion while Kanna helps Fiona with the P.E. portion.
- Boss Rush: Arcade course 6 in Dimensions plays like one of these, culminating with a battle against a Secret Character on a Secret Stage.
- Brainwashed: Ein, who after being dumped by the villains is revealed to be Hayate, Kasumi's brother and Ayane's half-brother
- Genra in DOA3. Though Dimensions revealed he was just evil.
- Ayane in Dimensions.
- Brainless Beauty: Downplayed example with Honoka, who is closer to being Book Dumb than truly brainless, and is at least perceptive enough to come up with the idea of a bonanza for the Owner when he reaches the highest level in the main episodes of Xtreme Venus Vacation. That being said, she is shown to be a massive airhead, which even she recognizes based on some comments made by her in Xtreme Venus Vacation.
- Brawn Hilda: Spartan-458, kind of (as her actual appearance is unknown due to being fully decked in armor).
- Breakout Character: Ryu Hayabusa, who at the time of the first DOA, was but a mere classic character that hadn't been seen for years; simply put a exotic Guest Fighter for old timers. Comes the Revival for the Ninja Gaiden series in 2004, and Ryu's popularity rises to the limit, many modern gamers came to know and adore him; success that would pass (or give it back) to Dead or Alive itself, now Ryu is heavily integrated to the plot, thus not being a guest anymore, to the point of arguably being a main character himself. The ninja reached a place where he makes The Protagonist Kasumi share a cover with him, as seen in Dimensions.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory - For a given value of victory. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 has you unlock clothing for the girls while you play it which serves no other function in order to make the already fanservicy sandbox-game more fanservicy. Too lazy to work for your fap? You can buy a girl's complete set using real-world money. Oh, and all of this only lasts until you reset the game's save slot - of which it only has one. So restarting the game on that particular account meant having blown your cash for nothing.
- The Gump/And That Little Girl Was Me/Adaptational Heroism: Kind of. Kanna in one of her debut event episodes claims to Luna and Honoka that she was the Oni from the Japanese folk tale Momotaro, and claimed she merely "helped him home" instead of the more antagonistic nature of the Oni in the tale. However, she later admits she was joking about that bit.
- Regarding The Gump, it's implied in Monica's level 50 episode that Zack was responsible for inspiring Monica to become a casino dealer.
- Bruce Lee Clone: Jann Lee.
- Considering Jann is an Ascended Fanboy of Bruce, it makes perfect sense.
- But Not Too Foreign: Hitomi is Japanese with a German father; Kokoro is the child of DOA sponsor Fame Douglas and a Japanese geisha. Likewise, Kokoro's half-sister Helena Douglas is the child of Douglas (who is implied to be American) and a French woman.
- Cain and Abel: Ayane and Kasumi, initially.
- Canon Foreigner: Loveable Rogue Max and Not-So Evil Genius Weatherby from The Movie.
- Canon Immigrant: Spartan-458, who was somehow allowed into the Dead Or Alive and Halo canon via Applied Phlebotinum Time Travel. Also notable as she was not only the first female Spartan to be depicted in a video game, but the first Spartan ever seen on the Xbox 360 (Halo 3 was released a year later.)
- Rio of Rio -Rainbow Gate!- was added to the PSP version of DOAX as both a dealer in the casino and a unlockable character. She originated as the mascot of the Super Blackjack series of Pachi-slo games (a slot machine designed to bypass Japanese laws against gambling). Also, Tecmo co-developed the Super Blackjack series with pachi-slo maker Net.
- Irene Lew from Ninja Gaiden finally made her long awaited, but sadly non-playable, appearance in 'Dimensions'.
- Cherry Blossoms: Kasumi's motif
- Chick Magnet: Zack, who buys an island that sets the tone for the Xtreme side-series. Why does he do it? Because he can.
- Convenience Store Gift Shopping: Played for laughs in Xtreme 2. If you're playing as Lisa and get a barbell, she'll consider giving it to Tina thinking she'll like it. Once Tina gets the gift, she politely refuses in a manner that implied he was not fond of the gift.
- Combos
- Contract on the Hitman: Kasumi; from the third game onward, Bayman.
- Counter Attack: If it's not the copious fanservice, this is what the series is most well known for. The game places heavy emphasis in attack interception and reversing an opponent's offense.
- Dating Sim: The Xtreme games are easily the best-known Dating Sim to the non-Japanese gaming market. (And most people don't even know that's what they are.)
- Demoted to Extra: Many characters in The Movie. Isn't it sad, Lei-Fang?
- The "Chronicle" mode in Dimensions manages to include every major fighter from the entire series, but many characters only appear in one or two scenes. Some of the females have even been demoted to little more than Ms. Fanservice.
- Dirty Old Man: The Player. Putting the player's age up to the maximum increases the Jiggle Physics.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Lei-Fang to an unlucky(?) old man in her DOA4 ending.
- Drunken Master: Brad Wong
- Dub Name Change: Or rather, Dub Species Change regarding Kanna. Kanna in the English version was listed as an ogre, when she was an oni in the Japanese version. While "ogre" is technically the correct translation of "oni", it generally brings to mind something like Shrek rather than what Kanna looks like.
- Eagle Land: Tina and Bass.
PossiblyProbably Zack too. - Enforced Method Acting: In-Universe example in the Xtreme Videoshoot Entertainment event episodes. At one point during filming, Kokoro proceeded to remove part of Ayane's dress in order to remove her mechanical heart (they were portraying androids). However, Ayane reacted with enough shock that she demanded they cut the camera before telling Kokoro off for the action, only for Kokoro to explain she thought she knew due to Ayane's response when she implicitly warned her about what was to happen. It turns out the Owner supplied them with two different scripts, Ayane's claimed that Kokoro would merely place her hand on her chest, while Kokoro's mentioned actually removing the dress. This resulted in the two confronting the Owner, with Ayane in particular being particularly furious over this.
- Explain, Explain, Oh Crap: Variation in Xtreme Venus Vacation. In Kanna's level 60 episode, she manages to participate in the Venus Festival, and is explaining what it entails in excitement, but then when she starts reciting how the festival will end, she then has a realization and becomes more solemn, even breaking down in tears afterward. Turns out she has an extremely lonely side to her, and she realized at that point that when the festival is over, she'll be all alone, which is heavily implied to be due to her extreme longetivity by all save for maybe Nyotengu.
- A one-sided variation occurs on Patty's first Birthday (or, technically, Special Day). When talking with the Owner, she explains she's excited because her Special Day is today, and gives details about how she gets treasures from her locals such as a pouch or a necklace made of seashells, a hamburger, and also a cake (with her briefly forgetting the name of the latter). She gives the explanation, but it's the Owner who has the Oh Crap reaction due to realizing that she was actually describing her birthday. Cue him rushing off to do last-minute prep work for her birthday party, much to Patty's confusion due to being unaware of how they were connected.
- Even Bad Girls Love Their Adopted Fathers: Ayane; see Manly Tears below.
- She also shows a more tender and emotional side around her mother in Dimensions.
- A darker example is Kasumi Alpha, who is shown to be extremely loyal to Donovan, her creator, to such an extent that she immediately attacked Christie from the mere implication that the latter was going to try and backstab Donovan.
- Evil Redhead: Kasumi Alpha, and to a lesser extent Phase-4.
- In the Xtreme series, there's also Kanna. However, she's more of a downplayed example as she's more mischevious and a Bratty Half Pint than genuinely evil.
- Expy: Bass and Zach are clearly based on Hulk Hogan and Dennis Rodman, respectively. Why a baseketball player is the basis for a character in a fighting is a good question, until you remember that Rodman wrestled professionally for a brief period.
- As Hogan's tag partner, no less!
- Exact Words: This trope is in play regarding the clue to open the second chest in the second half of the Venus Adventure saga. It specifically states that courage and wisdom need to work together to open the next chest, with the two concepts being capitalized. Turns out it means girls wearing both Courage armor (ie, Misaki and Honoka) and Wisdom armor (Hitomi and Luna) need to bash the chest with their swords to access the contents within.
- Fan Service: "She kicks high", indeed. The only female character who avoids this is Nicole, the Distaff Counterpart of Halo's Master Chief. She probably still has a smoking hot body under the power armor.
- Fan Service Pack: Irene Lew (confirmed to be Sonia from NG2 for the 360) in DOA: Dimensions sure has changed compared to her rather plain original design; now she's a Miss Universe like every other woman Team Ninja has ever modeled in 3D.
- The Faceless: Miyako, Kokoro's mother, at least in DOA4.
- Foil: About half of the newcomer cast in DOAXVV were deliberately made to act as foils to each other:
- Misaki and Luna: Misaki is a very shy girl, while Luna is a very eccentric, wonderless girl with a unique view of the world.
- Fiona and Nagisa: Fiona was excessively in love with the Owner and a huge romantic, even being made to emphasize the concept of Owner Love, while Nagisa has revulsion towards the Owner and can barely even stand him.
- To a certain extent, Momiji and Sayuri: Both have older sister demeanors, though the latter has a tendency to outright spoil the Owner. The characterizations were similar enough that Momiji acted as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for her in the English version of the White Christmas ~ Snowy Island ~ event due to it being released before Sayuri's debut in the Singapore Steam version.
- Patty and Tsukushi: Patty is a native islander who is an Innocent Fanservice Girl due to differing cultures from most of the other girls and especially possessing a very peppy attitude, while Tsukushi is a withdrawn and extremely shy girl (rivaling even Misaki in that regard).
- Foot Focus: Hitomi in her Karate Gi in DoA3 and Ultimate.
- Free-Floor Fighting
- Friendly Playful Dolphin: Helena swims with a dolphin in her ending cinematic from the third game. One even acts as a hazard in DOA6's Venus Islands stage.
- Gaiden Game: The two "Xtreme Beach Volleyball" games dispense entirely with the male combatants and put the women on an island with volleyball nets and the skimpiest bikinis known to man. The Dead or Alive series itself qualifies as this for the newer Ninja Gaiden series.
- Gainaxing: DOA's shtick since the first game, but in DOA Xtreme 2, each breast has its own physics, meaning both can jiggle independently. It look as ridiculous as it sounds.
- Genre Shift: In Xtreme Beach Volleyball; guess what they do instead of fighting...
- Germanic Efficiency: Downplayed example with Hitomi, who is shown to be very dedicated to training her Karate skills and is of German origin, but is otherwise shown to be very friendly and approachable.
- Played straight with Elise in Xtreme Venus Vacation, who often demands efficiency from the Owner and even state that he focus on his immediate duties as Owner as anything else is "a waste of time", and also cited her lack of hobbies (the closest thing to a hobby being her collecting stationery and achievements) and her favorite drink being jelly drinks as due to hobbies being a waste of time relating to work for her and very efficient to replenish and drink, respectively, and is implied by her favorite food to be of German origin.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Ryu impersonates Mr. Noah in DOA: Dimensions and delivers a backhand slap to Kasumi in an attempt to stop her from searching for Hayate.
- Also Hayate while being offended by some of Ayane's accusations toward Kasumi.
- Giant Waist Ribbon: Ayane, aka "The Giftwrapped Ninja".
- Good Is Not Soft: Kasumi. One of the nicest characters in the series? Check. Lethal fighting skills? Check. Seeks to kill Raidou after he attacked her brother? Oh check.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Again, Xtreme Beach Volleyball: they love playing with their enemies. It's even possible for you to play as Christie and get Helena to be your volleyball partner if you give her enough dolphin-related merchandise, completely ignoring the fact that you killed her mother (although to be fair, Xtreme Beach Volleyball was before DOA4, which is where Helena learned that information).
- Though Xtreme 2 takes place after the reveal in DOA4.
- Somewhat justified in Xtreme Venus Vacation, as Helena and Ayane stated that all the girls are required to put aside their differences and work together to help bring about the Venus Festival and similar festivals on the Venus Islands when explaining why they got along despite not being particularly friendly with each other ordinarily as Leifang noted. This was later given a nod in Kanna's debut episode, where her one-sided feud with Nyotengu pretty much had Momiji being required to act as peace-maker and making them swear to bury the hatchet from that point onward, or at least for the duration of the vacation (which was implied to be the reason why the Owner chose Momiji to guide Kanna), which worked... kind of.
- Gory Discretion Shot: fairly mild variation - if the player, as Ayane, beats Kasumi in Dead or Alive 2's story mode, she either leaves Kasumi for dead in the snow (the camera just focusing on Ayane as she glares down before muttering "...traitor") or finishes her off with a jutsu of some description, cutting away just as Ayane finishes "casting" it. Either way, you never see a corpse.
- Genius Ditz: Honoka and to a certain extent Hitomi qualify. In Honoka's case, she's shown to be well-versed in various fighting styles, and if Xtreme Venus Vacation is of any indication is an avid rock-climber (even acting as The Mentor for Fiona alongside Luna for this event) even trying to mimic them when she sees them, as well as the same game revealing she's a very skilled video gamer, though beyond that she's very much naïve (which was even given a lampshade in DOA6 by Leifang where she calls her strong, yet an airhead). Hitomi's better in that regard, although in DOA4 and DOAX2, she's also shown to not quite be the sharpest tool in the shed (in the former game, she ends up attacking Jann Lee for "hurting" a T-Rex, despite the fact that said T-Rex attempted to eat her and he saved her life; and in the latter, she's the only character to fall for Zack's hoax tournament trick twice.).
- Gratuitous English: In the first Xtreme game, Japanese is the only language available. Most of the time, the girls speak in Japanese (despite their nationality), but during matches you can hear them say random English phrases like "Nice spike!", "Nice serve!", and "Nice block!"
- Guest Fighter: Nicole, a female Spartan soldier, is playable in Dead or Alive 4 and Virtua Fighters Akira Yuki and Sarah Bryant will join the fray in 5.
- Heroic Bastard: Ayane eventually fits this trope, as she's the product of the first game's Raidou raping the mother of Hayate and Kasumi. She's a female bastard, by the way, because her sister killed Raidou.
- Highly-Visible Ninja: All four of them.
- Heroic BSOD: Fiona enters a minor case of this during her rock climbing episodes in Xtreme Venus Vacation early into her debut. When Honoka obliviously mentions that Hitomi's training regiment in Germany included fighting bears, Fiona briefly becomes depressed, thinking that there was absolutely no way she could get strong at all, let alone to the level needed to do the Venus Festival. Honoka and Luna make it up to her by cheering her on to do rock climbing.
- Marie Rose briefly enters this in the main episodes when, after repeatedly trying to tell off Misaki for her baby talk to her, she ends up wondering whether she'll ever be acknowledged as an adult, though she eventually gets over it very quickly enough to have the Owner buy her food using Misaki's paycheck as revenge.
- On the topic of Marie Rose, she enters this trope in Dead or Alive 6 after not only learning that Honoka and Ayane had been forcibly used as rechargeable batteries to revive Raidou, but she wasn't even allowed by Bayman to save Honoka and even bested in combat. Even after Honoka was successfully saved by Hayate and brought to them unconscious, she is still shown to be saddened afterward, even when Helena arrived and congratulated her for doing well with her mission.
- Kanna's more of an Anti-Hero example. After the Venus Festival concludes, she becomes solemn, even throwing a fit in sadness due to realizing she is going to be alone again, and even makes the Owner swear to never leave her.
- Marie Rose briefly enters this in the main episodes when, after repeatedly trying to tell off Misaki for her baby talk to her, she ends up wondering whether she'll ever be acknowledged as an adult, though she eventually gets over it very quickly enough to have the Owner buy her food using Misaki's paycheck as revenge.
- Hot Mom: Goodlord Kasumi and Ayane's mom looks young, heres a link, she's the brown haired one.
- Houko Kuwashima: Kasumi's seiyuu from the third game on.
- Husky Russkie: Bayman
- Leon is Italian in the US version of DOA, Russian in the Japanese and European versions.
- Identity Amnesia: Ein/Hayate
- Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: Kasumi? Ayane? Ryu? Hayate? Hell yeah this fits.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Nicole's story in DoA 4 suggests that the Halo series (or at least the ilovebees Alternate Universe thereof) occurs in DoA's far future.
- Ryu Hayabusa, the star of Ninja Gaiden, exists in the DoA world. Ayane, a ninja who first appeared in the original Dead or Alive, returns the favor by appearing in Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden games. To say little about Momiji and Rachel from the same series appearing in DOA5 (and the former even appeared in Xtreme 3 and Venus Vacation, and some in-game data for the latter game even implies that Rachel might appear in the future.).
- Also with Super Black Jack/Rio Rainbow Gate, if Rio Rollins Tachibana's cameo in Paradise is of any indication.
- And now, this trailer for Dimensions seems to suggest that the Metroid games possibly take place in the same universe as well, thus making Haloid's existence Hilarious in Hindsight.
- And now, DOA5 carries on the tradition with the inclusion of Akira Yuki, not to mention Mai Shiranui and Naotora Ii (though the last one is somewhat justified due to her being based on a real life historical figure in Japan). DOA6 one-ups it by having Mai return, and also bringing in Kula Diamond.
- Let's not forget Ayane's role in the Nintendo versions of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. That particular crossover is implied to be canon due to one of the Xtreme Venus Vacation episodes alluding to that crossover with Ayane's fear of ghosts.
- In Xtreme Venus Vacation, So far, there have been ten crossover events in that game (eleven if one counts the April Fool's mini-event involving Fiona that was a direct reference to Zombie Land Saga): Destiny's Child (twice), Haruhi Suzumiya, Hestia, Shinobi Masters Senran Kagura New Link, Atelier Ryza (twice), Alice Gear Aegis, Uzaki-Chan Wants to Hang Out, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14. Of the ten that have been released, only two don't have any in-universe acknowledgements: Haruhi and Hestia. The others have in order, Tamaki getting the idea to do Destiny Child-related cosplay costumes due to a broken TV mysteriously activating to Channel Evil in the relevant event episodes in the first DC-crossover; the Owner ordering a huge supply of an implied aphrodisiac lollipop for promotion purposes that the girls eventually ate, causing hilarity to ensue for the second DC-crossover; The New Link crossover had the Owner at the behest of a teacher (heavily implied to be the one from New Link) setting up a tournament and having the girls stand in as members of the various schools; the first Atelier Ryza event has Fiona and Misaki reading an alchemy book that's heavily implied to be the same one that the titular character from that game used in order to create a fatigue-eliminating potion at the Owner's request (despite Luna telling him not to do so); The second Atelier Ryza event had Marie Rose and Patty hunting for ingredients for an alchemy session; the Alice Gear Aegis crossover having a similar situation to the New Link collaboration's plot, only replace "teacher" with "captain", and them basically wearing the armor to promote an anime based on that game; the Uzaki-Chan collaboration has all the girls, Kanna especially, acting like Uzaki-chan at the owner's request; and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms event has Luna, Honoka, and Sayuri trying to lull the owner to sleep in order to investigate his sleepless nights, and eventually discover it was due to him doing late-night gaming binges of Romance of the Three Kingdom 14. Also, during the Hestia event and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 event, the TV screen shows clips from the trailer for the Hestia movie and Romance of Theee Kingdoms 14 owing to it partly promoting the release of that film and game, respectively. Sakuta even implied regarding RoTK14 in particular that a DOA girl was going to cross over into that game, which was ultimately confirmed in May (which had a sort-of reissue of the collab suits to promote the full release of ROTK14) to have Kasumi, Ayane, Marie Rose, and Misaki as the DOAXVV representatives in the game. Then it had a collaboration with The Itaden Gods Who Only Know Peace, which involved their doing a cosplay of the characters of that anime (with 2/3rds of the girls cosplaying as Gil, while Elise likewise is cosplaying as Piscalat, or more accurately her civilian attire), as well as Elise having to investigate odd gusts that mysteriously end up always invoking Panty Shots of the girls not wearing Gil's attire (ie, Misaki, Nagisa, Luna, and presumably Sayuri, Honoka, Tsukushi, and Nyotengu), also obliterating Elise's Piscalat outfit, only for it to be revealed that Kanna as well as the Owner had been doing that as a prank (with the Owner inadvertently giving away the con due to always sitting down just prior to a gust), although another gust came about independently of them (with it being implied that the eponymous Itaden deities had been responsible).
- Insult Misfire: During Fiona and Nagisa's heart-to-heart chat after helping the latter out with rock climbing, Nagisa ends up using her usual insult of "Erotic Dog" in reference to the Owner when the subject is brought up, especially after Fiona for obvious reasons implies that even Nagisa ultimately has some romantic feelings for the Owner, much to Nagisa's chagrin. Fiona, hearing this, ends up somewhat amused, and even thinks the insult was a cute petname for the Owner, partly because of fondness for her own pet dog John.
- Interrupted Suicide: Ayane appears ready to commit suicide, preparing to plunge a kunai into her throat while believing that Hayate hates her until her mother walks in on her.
- In the Blood: It is heavily implied in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round and All Star Warriors, and later confirmed in Dead or Alive 6 that the reason Honoka is capable of learning various fighting abilities just by watching as well as her aura was because she inherited those traits genetically as a result of being the daughter of Raidou.
- I Am Not My Father: Honoka's personality as a nice, sweet Genki Girl is very much a stark contrast to her birth father, Raidou.
- I Play It For The Combat: A good portion of the fandom. That said, there are indeed fans of the series (this includes the Volleyball spin-offs) who enjoy the games beyond the Panty Fighter appeal, believe it or not.[1]
- Apparently, DOA 5 is being geared more towards this crowd with Team Ninja toning down the fanservice aspect of the game and taking player suggestions and impressions to heart.
- The first Xtreme Beach Volleyball game got decent reviews as a volleyball game. (If anything, some reviewers took points off for the gratuitous Fan Service.)
- Japanese Christian: If Honoka's helming alongside Luna the Rivals Festival on late April 2019 is of any indication (especially when the Event Episodes relating to it explicitly state its connection to the Easter holiday), Honoka's possibly of this trope (as Easter, unlike Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Halloween, is not commonly practiced in Japan).
- Jiggle Physics: Not only is the series sold on it, but the series takes the ball, runs with it, and spikes it in the end zone... to cause even more jiggling. While the fighting genre has plenty of examples of large breasts, this series is often deemed the Queen of Hotter and Sexier in FightingGames. The Xtreme Beach Volleyball series helps.
- Not to mention the fact that DOA1' was the first 3D game ever to have jiggle physics.
- Juggle Fu: Christie In Name Only from The Movie, with her bra.
- Justified Trope: In The Movie, Donovan manages to display Life Meters for the tournament contestants during their fights, thanks to the nanomachines he injected into them. The justification is that the machines are also a vital part of the Big Bad's master plan.
- Kotono Mitsuishi: Christie's seiyuu.
- Kuudere: Luna is a sort-of example. While not actually having an apparent cold demeanor to anyone, she is shown to have a more eccentric nature to her and can come across as somewhat self-absorbed as a result. Despite this, however, she is capable of caring for the well-being of others, as she attempted to befriend Ayane, apologized to Hitomi after she misled her during a treasure hunt, and she also got along very well with Honoka, and also helped Fiona do rock climbing, even giving her some advice on getting through it.
- Christie is an example in the Xtreme series, as she is capable of getting along with the other girls and befriending them, yet has a very cold disposition overall (that, and her being hated by most of the other girls barring maybe Leifang.). Hints of this also exist in Dead or Alive 4, 5, and 6 via her interactions with Eliot and NiCO.
- NiCO is closer to this trope than Luna. She is shown to have an exceptionally cold demeanor, even to her allies, and is a bit too eager to do experiments. That being said, she did have genuine empathy for Kokoro's abandonment issues due to her own mother doing something similar to her, and she apparently empathized enough with Helena's sadness over her mother's death to possibly successfully revive Maria. Also, in Kula Diamond's episode, after dragging Kula from another dimension and briefly sparring with her, she supplied her with a lollipop as a reward for the latter giving her "interesting data", although she made clear that she is not to tell anyone about what happened.
- Lady of War: Helena
- Large Ham: Tengu
- Special mention towards Bass, too. "YOU BETTER EAT! EAT SOME MEAT!"
- Zack, of course.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: NiCO pretty much tells Kula Diamond this after giving her a lollipop in her chapter.
- Love at First Sight: Fiona has this in spades with the Owner. Heck, this trope is pretty much the only reason she's even AT the island at all.
- Love Triangle: Downplayed: While all the girls have this to a certain degree with the Owner, Fiona alongside Lobelia definitely are shown to vy for the Owner's hand (well, mostly Lobelia). That said, however, Fiona seems to show absolutely no concern regarding Lobelia trying to rival her for the Owner's affections in the latter's debut episode, same goes for Lobelia herself regarding Fiona.
- Luck-Based Mission: Literally in DOA Xtreme 2. You have to get 9 Jackpots to earn a Secret Ticket, which makes your character perform a poledance. The problem is, the machine you have to get the 9 Jackpots on is notorious for taking away anywhere between 100-500 times what you bet.
- Xtreme Venus Vacation as a whole has this in spades, thanks to it being a gacha game. Even moreso with the flashback gacha, many of which are required to even unlock the episodes in question.
- Made of Iron: Everyone. Thrown down some steps? Knocked off a multi-story building? Blown up? Meh, just keep on fighting like nothing happened. Even by fighting game standards, some of the damage the fighters can sustain and keep on rolling is ridiculous.
- Manly Tears: Ayane's Dead Or Alive 3 ending.
- Manchild: Owing to her physical appearance, Marie Rose is shown to behave like a very overgrown child, such as crying like a little girl when she loses a match, and in Dead or Alive 6 when being carried over the shoulder by Bayman she actually ends up kicking and screaming in an apparent tantrum (though in her defense, she was angry because Bayman didn't let her rescue Honoka beforehand), to say little about some of her behavior in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation. The Japanese version actually emphasizes this trope with her by having her speaking in the third person. It's left ambiguous as to whether she actually is a manchild or simply exploiting her lolicon appearance, as DOA5U/LR's losing animation for her implies that her crying was fake, yet Xtreme Venus Vacation depicts her as being easily distractible (which the Owner actually exploited once) and very much prone to tantrums.
- Her friend Honoka is better overall, though even she has some moments in this trope, like how one of her point loss animations for Xtreme 3 and Venus Vacation is her throwing a tantrum.
- Vaguely played with Tamaki. At one point in her debut episodes, Tamaki, when Momiji points out that Tamaki's older than her when she insists on calling Momiji "Big Sis Momiji", claims she wanted to be pampered like a little sister. It's implied that this was mostly her being a Troll to Momiji. That being said however, Helena heavily implies in some of her statements to the Owner both before and afterwards that Tamaki may actually be emotionally immature (although not to Marie Rose's level), citing she is a bit troubled of an individual.
- Kanna is shown to pitch massive fits either whenever her rival Nyotengu is involved in some manner or if she doesn't get her way, and actually ends up making Marie Rose come across as very mature by comparison several times. Bear in mind, her age is listed as 1014 years (though it's left ambiguous as to whether she ages at the same rate as humans due to her being an oni).
- Meganekko: Tsukushi, alongside Nerds Are Sexy. In fact, with the exception of shower scenes, she never takes off her glasses.
- Tamaki to a much lesser extent, as her second birthday episode had her wearing glasses in the beginning, with it being implied that she wears them when doing intense research into new swimsuit designs.
- Meaningful Name: Dead Or Alive is so named as it was an All or Nothing effort to get Tecmo out of the red, similar to another video game series.
- Mighty Glacier: Spartan-458. She is one of the easier characters to play because she quickly pounds enemies into submission.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Helena is convinced that Ayane was the assassin that killed her mother, but it later turns out that Christie did it, and she was sent to kill Helena, as well.
- Mistaken Identity: The end of the E3 2012 trailer for Dead or Alive 5 has Zack pouring on praise to Tina practicing blows on a punching bag... only to get put into a head lock by the real Tina, while "Tina" is revealed to be Sarah Bryant.
- Mistaken for Gay/That Came Out Wrong: In the Colorful Owner's Room event, Honoka is tasked with doing the "Naked Heart" interviewing elements, and tries to ask Kokoro to be interviewed for it since she had previously done it. Unfortunately, due to Honoka really badly wording her request, Kokoro initially thinks Honoka's asking to see Kokoro naked, causing her to be taken aback slightly for understandable reasons until the misunderstanding was resolved.
- Something similar happened with the "Naked Truth" arc on Kokoro's end. When about to chat with Momiji, Momiji initially declines due to her just getting ready to take a bath. Kokoro then expresses a lot of enthusiasm, causing Momiji to be taken aback, causing Kokoro to clarify that the stipulation for the survey she was tasked to conduct required them to be scantily clad due to it requiring them to be "naked" in their opinions.
- Mood Whiplash: Anything having to do with Zach - especially his victory movie in Dead or Alive 3, which was out-and-out slapstick. With a mummy. Dimensions has him coming in as comic relief at times in the more serious and ninja-focused Chronicle mode.
- Ms. Fanservice: While any girl can fit this for individual taste, the series does seem to favor Kasumi in terms of fanservice. She and Christie are the only two characters to actually be seen fully nude in the series (well, sort-of regarding the former).
- Averted by Spartan-458, who due to being a Space Marine is covered head to toe in armor (in fact, the only thing even pointing to her gender is her voice and to a lesser extent her name of Nicole).
- Mythology Gag: In Dead Or Alive: Dimensions Irene Lew, Ryu's Love Interest from the original NES trilogy appears as his CIA contact during the story mode cut scenes. Hayate and Ayane both wonder if something is going on between them.
- In Dead or Alive 6, NiCO in one of her taunts asks her opponents if they've checked their health gauge, which most likely referenced how the film adaptation had the fighters' life gauges playing an important role in Donovan's evil plan.
- Ayane is shown to have a fear of ghosts that wasn't hinted at before or since[2] in one of the Event Episodes for Xtreme Venus Vacation, which may have been a reference to her story role in the Nintendo versions of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water.
- Ninja: A lot of the cast.
- The Napoleon: Downplayed example with Marie Rose in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation. While in her debut game she doesn't particularly mind her being underdeveloped compared to most of the other female fighters (Honoka nonwithstanding), and has even been known to exploit her child-like appearance and demeanor in a fight, she gets extremely annoyed when various characters mistake her for or treat her like a child. Misaki in particular learned this the hard way when Marie Rose ended up requesting for the Owner to pay for Marie's meal using Misaki's paycheck as revenge for Misaki's constant baby-talk to her. She was also shown to be a bit jealous of the attention her mistress Helena was giving to Fiona in one of the latter's debut episodes. Her opening episode in Xtreme Venus Vacation was even given a new narration that indicated that Marie Rose went on a vacation specifically to prove that she is indeed an adult after Helena treated her as a child too much for her taste, and her interview with Kokoro has her admitting that she at times wishes she had a more mature-looking body like the other girls, although solely so she wouldn't be mistaken for and treated like a child. Averted with Honoka, who doesn't seem to particularly mind her short stature and is one of the more girly and kinder characters in the franchise.
- Played slightly more straight with Nagisa, who, while not quite as short as Marie Rose, is still a bit on the small side, and is also very petite, and is also shown to be particularly vicious to the Owner (though to be fair to her, she had other reasons for her treatment of the Owner aside from her short size which barely factored into it).
- Also Kanna, who is shown to be a short Oni[3] who behaves like a child to such an extent that she made Marie Rose, of all the girls, come across as a mature young lady by comparison, and like Marie Rose, she also complained when Nyotengu inferred she was a child.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Zack = Dennis Rodman. Which became funnier when Rodman himself played Zack in Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
- No Export for You: Nintendo decided not to release Dimensions in three Nordic countries due to concerns about some of its content raised by a small-town blogger. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, said blogger aimed at Nintendo's heart, and by accident he hit the company in the stomach.
- Not Me This Time: In Kanna's first free episode (at least, first in the DMM version), she receives a package containing a festival outfit for the Summer Festival. After putting it on, she thanks the Owner for giving it to her, only to learn that he wasn't responsible for giving her the outfit. After running into Nyotengu during the festival, she accused Nyotengu of giving her the outfit due to her wearing the same outfit, yet Nyotengu denied it in turn, and that if anything, she got the outfit the exact same way Kanna did. It's never revealed who was responsible.
- Kanna herself was the subject of the trope late into the Itaden collaboration. She was exposed as having caused unnatural gusts to occur on the island and invoke Panty Shots among all girls not wearing Gils' outfit via Nyotengu's stolen Uchiwa fan, but then another gust occurred the exact same way towards Misaki, causing her to promptly tell off Kanna only for Kanna to explain she wasn't responsible for that gust, with Elise confirming it as she had already confiscated the fan beforehand, and aside from that kept her eyes on both Kanna and the Boss (her co-conspirator) the entire time. This caused Misaki to speculate that the Itaden deities was somehow involved.
- Noodle Incident: An unintentional example happens in Xtreme Venus Vacation. In the "Secret Labyrinth" event, Misaki and Luna directly reference the events of the Valentine's Day event immediately beforehand when Nyotengu hypnotized Misaki and to a lesser extent Luna into acting like cats. However, because the Valentine's Day event, as well as the Christmas and New Years events, were postponed to another date in the Steam version (presumably due to it being released in March, well after the aforementioned holidays occurred), this resulted in Misaki and Luna invoking the trope in "Secret Labyrinth" where they reference an unspecified incident involving Misaki and at least one cat, and that apparently Nyotengu was to blame for the event.
- A more out of view example occurred in the Golden Tower event episodes. Tamaki in the beginning of the episode talks with a person (later revealed to be Nyotengu) in order to show off an outfit. The next episode has her waking up the next morning in Nyotengu's room and barely able to remember how she got there, and it being left ambiguous as to whether she engaged in Lesbianism with Nyotengu while tipsy or if she strictly was professional in her interactions with Nyotengu (due to there being conflicting testimony from both girls).
- Notable Commercial Campaigns: The beloved/infamous "She kicks high." commercial for Dead or Alive 3.
(Scene: Two Gamers on a Couch.) |
- The Ojou: Helena, and to a lesser extent Fiona.
- Old Master: Gen Fu
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Christie is psychotically devoted to protecting Helena, so she can kill her herself.
- Only Six Faces: Despite being the focus of the cast, the female characters have very identical facial and body structures. If it weren't for their varied hairstyles and eye colors, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Slightly justified with Ayane and Kasumi, due to being half-sisters.
- This part might get some attention from what we've seen of 5 so far. Ayane, Kasumi, Hitomi and Christie, while as well endowed as ever, have distinct enough facial features.
- Misaki and Nagisa also have the same face, though in that case, it's somewhat justified since they're both sisters.
- Ornamental Weapon: None of the ninjas use their swords except in cutscenes. Averted with Omega and once you've fought him, you'll understand why other characters can't.
- Bayman doesn't use his gun, knife, grenades or who knows what hidden weapons he keeps on him.
- Justified as most fights in the series are part of a formal hand-to-hand tournament that most likely forbids the use of weapons.
- Averted with Nicole, who uses plasma grenades.
- Averted with both Nyotengu and Mai Shiranui, both of whom utilize fans (and in the case of the former, an adequate substitute for certain costumes) as weapons. Though in their case, it's closer to Improvised Weapon.
- Bayman doesn't use his gun, knife, grenades or who knows what hidden weapons he keeps on him.
- The Other Darrin: Non-actor variation (or at least, not voice actor-related): The Shinovi Masters Senran Kagura New Link collaboration has the Venus Island girls up to Nagisa wearing outfits that belonged to various factions, with the life standees and poses strongly implying the specific character basis for the various girls. Although most of the veteran[4] kept their character bases from the Senran Kagura from past games and by extension the factions they belonged to,[5], Helena and Momiji have noticeably changed their representative characters/factions, representing Souji from Hebijo Clandestine Girls' Academy and Kagura from Mikagura Sisters, as they originally stood in for Haruka and Homura, respectively. Incidentally, Homura is represented in the game... by Fiona this time around. Possible justified example, in this case, at least with Helena, as there were supposed to be 15 costumes, one for each of the free girls, with three going to each of the five factions represented, so having Helena keep her usual basis would cause some imbalance (as Haruka belonged to Homura's Crimson Squad).
- Panty Fighter
- Parts Unknown: Xtreme Venus Vacation, unlike past Xtreme games or, heck, any games in Dead or Alive, neglected to mention the girls' nationalities in their bios. While it isn't too much of a problem with the nine girls from Dead or Alive Xtreme 3[6] as well as Leifang since they had their nationalities stated in prior games in the franchise, and even the likes of Misaki, Tamaki, Nagisa, Kanna, Sayuri, Tsukushi , and Nanami are implied tor in the case of Misaki, explicitly stated in several Event episodes) to be Japanese or at least Japanese-based (confirmed via Dead or Alive 6 with Tamaki and Scarlet in the case of Misaki, and indirectly Nagisa and Nanami by virtue of them being Misaki's older sister and childhood friend, respectively) due to their names being transcribed in Hiragana instead of Katakana (and in the case of Kanna, her being a literal Oni from Japanese mythology), as well as some allusions to specific Japanese cultural elements they had prior participation in.[7], this results in Luna, Fiona, Monica, Lobelia, and Elise having unknown nationalities. Fiona and Lobelia[8] can both safely be assumed to be European due to comments she made about living in a stone castle as well as her explicit occupation of princess, with ten possible places she could have hailed from,[9] with the United Kingdom being the most likely due to her name[10] as well as her mentioning off-handedly that she based the Holy Snow SSR designs in one of the Christmas episodes on the Christmas tree fairy[11] as well as implying that the schools where she came from, at least what she had heard of them, utilized morning and noon tea parties as activities;[12] Monica is implied to be Eastern European, possibly Romanian, due to her one of favorite foods,[13] Lobelia is implied to hail from either the same nation as Fiona, or at the very least a neighboring country due to being a friend/rival to her as well as her status as a noble daughter, and Elise is implied to hail from Germany due to her more efficient-based demeanor as well as her favorite food being Stollen.[14] while the only concrete aspect of where Luna originated from barring maybe extraterrestrial was an impoverished and cold country that cooked Roasted Sweet Potatoes.[15]
- Averted with Patty in the same game. She is explicitly stated to hail from a neighboring island to the Venus Island in close enough proximity that she can walk between the two places and even claimed that her house can be seen in the distance, which is explicitly stated to be located in the South Pacific.
- Perpetually-Shiny Bodies
- Will be averted in Dead Or Alive 5 where the fighters sweat and get dirty.
- Playing Gertrude: Tamaki's an example, as despite her being the second-oldest girl in the Xtreme Venus Vacation roster (only being younger than Helena, not counting either Nyotengu or Kanna), her voice actress is actually one of the younger voice actresses in the game. Same goes for Kanna and her voice actress.
- Professional Wrestling: Tina, Bass, and Lisa/La Mariposa. Also Honoka, kind of.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kasumi and Ayane.
- Nagisa and Misaki in Xtreme Venus Vacation arguably qualify as well, since Misaki tends to be a bit more emotional compared to Nagisa who's generally more mature... at least when not discussing the owner.
- On that note, Ayane and Nagisa, as noted in Tsundere below, arguably fit this trope, with Ayane being more reasonable and even-headed with the Owner.
- For a more literal example (kind of, as Kanna is an actual Oni, while Nyotengu is a tengu), there's also Nyotengu and Kanna, as the former generally is, while seductive and trollish, also fairly cool-headed and collected, while Kanna is more childish and prone to emotional outbursts. Incidentally, Kanna also has flaming red hair, while Nyotengu, while technically having black hair, tends to have blue highlights in her hair.
- Nagisa and Misaki in Xtreme Venus Vacation arguably qualify as well, since Misaki tends to be a bit more emotional compared to Nagisa who's generally more mature... at least when not discussing the owner.
- Relationship Values In the first two DOAX games, giving the other girls presents will make them more likely to partner up with you... Provided you give them something they like. Some items, like all Stripperiffic swimsuits, will make them less likely to partner up with you. This is largely downplayed in Xtreme 3 due to there barely being much interactions between the girls in that game as a result of the game emphasizing more of a relationship between one of the girls as well as the actual player.
- Ironically, this trope is cited to be the reason why, Leifang aside, they were reluctant to add in more of the cut girls despite acknowledging that they had significant demand in the third anniversary of Xtreme Venus Vacation, as they were having difficulty figuring out how to keep to their canonical characterizations and yet still have them be in a romantic relationship with the Owner, even specifically citing Leifang as an example regarding this difficulty.[16]
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Initially played straight with Ayane, who had a murderous grudge against her half-sister Kasumi, although from Dead or Alive 4 onward it's more of a subversion due to her gaining a relatively nicer disposition and a much better relationship with Kasumi. Averted outright with Honoka, as despite having the same red eyes as Ayane, and especially that, like Ayane, she also was one of Raidou's offspring and inherited his abilities, she's actually among the nicest girls in the series.
- This trope can actually be invoked in Xtreme Venus Vacation with the bloody makeup option for the Bloody Kiss outfit for all the girls, and Fiona's Zombie Idol outfit from April Fool's Day 2019, which gives them red eyes (or in the case of Ayane and Honoka, even brighter red eyes than before) as well as pale-gray skin. Justified in this case, as the costumes were supposed to invoke vampires and zombies, respectively.
- Retcon: Dead or Alive 6 pretty much retcons the interactions that certain characters had with each other (namely, Honoka and Marie Rose's interactions, having them explicitly meet for the first time in 6. That being said, however... the library section's first entry revealed she apparently had some memory loss from the prior tournament after she lost control of her powers and got disqualified, so it's possible they had met earlier, yet Honoka didn't remember it.).
- Remember the New Guy?: Minor example with Honoka. Although Honoka debuted in Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, she did not actually factor into the story alongside other characters added into the game's roster, DLC or otherwise, with Ultimate onward. In the Dead or Alive 6's DOA Encyclopedia, however, it mentions Honoka's role in the fifth tournament and revealed that she actually ended up disqualified in the second match of the fifth division of the Asian qualifiers when she lost control of her secret powers.
- The Rival: Ayane/Kasumi, Lei Fang/Jann Lee, Hayabusa/Hayate, Leon/Bayman.
- In the Xtreme series, Nyotengu has two rivals, Tamaki for a more friendly rivalry, and Kanna for the most hostile form of rivalry (sort of).
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Helena. She wants it because Ayane went on one to stop Helena from going after ninja, which resulted in her mother being killed. Kasumi willfully incurs the wrath of becoming a renegade shinobi by going on one of these after a fight between Raidou and Hayate.
- Pretty much the plot of DOA4 with the ninjas.
- Rule of Cool: When the DOA4 ending movies aren't shameless Fan Service, they are this. How could blowing up a tower while playing an electric guitar on a skate-board not qualify?
- Ruthless Modern Pirates: A group of modern day pirates run afoul of Tina in her introduction in The Movie. And the same pirates have the misfortune to encounter the heroines when they're stranded at sea at the end.
- Ryu and Ken: Bayman and Leon.
- Recycled Script: Fiona's method of getting to the Venus Islands is the same method that Kokoro used to get to New Zack Island in Xtreme 2. Kokoro in one of Fiona's paid costume episodes even lampshades this at one point.
- OOC Is Serious Business: In Dead or Alive 6, Kasumi is genuinely surprised to learn that Ayane included her in the SOS butterfly familiar.
- Referenced in DOAXVV during one of Leifang's debut episodes, where she notes that Helena and Ayane are working together, despite not exactly being friends at all, before learning they put aside their differences to help bring about the festivals.
- The beginning of the episode arc The Ogre Does It Too has Leifang noting that Kanna was acting oddly withdrawn, something that she isn't exactly known to do. Ayane then deduces that Kanna's feeling down due to her just learning that despite the island being nowhere near Japan, it still celebrated her least favorite holiday, Setsubun.
- A more heartwarming example occurs in Nagisa's White Day episode, where Nagisa upon receiving a gift from the Owner is shown to be genuinely thankful of the Owner without even a stealth insult (as her usual interactions of the Owner show her to have barely any tolerance for the Owner and tending to view the worst of him), showing just how grateful she was.
- A humorous example was shown in the second Destiny Child Collaboration. After Luna licks the lollipop that the Owner supplied her and Ayane, Luna starts feeling ill, and then all of a sudden has a completely different demeanor from her usual emotionless and eccentric self regarding the Owner.[17] Ayane then quickly realizes the lollipops contained an additional, unwanted ingredient and started to tell the Owner off while Luna's continuing to flirt with him.
- Sequel Hook: Dimensions has one at the end of the Chronicle mode.
- Shout Out: Kind of. Fiona being a princess who is looking for her true love sounds similar to another Fiona. In addition, while not a deliberate reference, the April Fool's Day event in 2019, both proper and the opening, has her becoming a zombie at dusk, similar to how Fiona from Shrek becomes an Ogre at sunset (the event was actually meant to be an allusion to her VA's prior role in Zombieland Saga.).
- Kanna's backstory as divulged by her reluctantly in her level 70 episode in Xtreme Venus Vacation is very similar to Skull Kid's backstory in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
- Smoke Out: Kasumi can do this with cherry blossom petals, Ayane with iris petals. Ryu smokes out with leaves, Hayate with raven feathers.
- Some Dexterity Required: While a given for the Fighting Game genre, Hayabusa and Hayate both posses combo throws that, while devastating (knocking off as much as a quarter of the health bar when pulled off), are done in three parts, requiring precise timing and inhuman precision with D-pad rolling.
- SNK Boss: All of the final bosses appear to varying degrees, the worst being Kasumi Alpha-152 from Dead or Alive 4.
- Sound Effect Bleep/Symbol Swearing/This Trope Is Bleep: An example of sorts exists in the Japanese version of Xtreme Venus Vacation with the "Rabbit is Lonely" event episode arc. Luna's strategy for the covergirl team as well as Theme naming for the episodes are derived from the expression "if the rabbit is lonely, it will die". However, the Japanese symbol for death, "死", is censored in the text, and is replaced with an "〇". The English version foregoes this whole trope altogether.
- Stock Scream: The infamous Wilhelm scream shows up in the movie, when Hayabusa throws a ninja off a balcony.
- Straight Man: Marie Rose is apparently this compared to Honoka and Misaki based on what they told her whenever they hang out (well, technically, they called her Boke, but it translates to the same thing in Japanese), based on her interview with Kokoro. She also speculates that Kokoro is this as well, although Kokoro takes some offense to that.
- Stripperiffic: Again, just about every female other than Nicole, who you can really only tell is female by her voice.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Venus Islands in Xtreme Venus Vacation is very similar to [New] Zack Island in past Xtreme games, with the only noticeable difference being that the Venus Islands are implied by Misaki to be backwater (that, and several of the veteran girls implying they hadn't actually been on the islands before).
- Momiji acted as this to Sayuri in the White Christmas ~ Snowy Island ~ event in the Singapore Steam version. Somewhat justified since aside from both being of the big sis archetype with slight variances, the Steam version was released before Sayuri was formally announced in the Steam version.[18]
- Suspiciously Vague Age: the localized games refuses to give away the ages of the girls (and in one case, guy) who are obviously minors: Kasumi, Ayane, Kokoro and Eliot. This because they're exploited to extreme cases of Ms. Fanservice by wearing revealing to downright fetish clothing, due Values Dissonance in the west it wouldn't stick well for 17 and 16 year-olds to be seen this way. This eventually got them into trouble with Sweden and Scandinavian countries with Dead or Alive Dimensions where the game was banned in large part because of child pornography laws at the time, which eventually led directly to the two-year time skip in DOA5 to avoid that issue altogether.
- Take That: Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja's former lead designer, really doesn't like the Tekken series.
- He later said he expects good things from Tekken 6.
- On a similar note, it's heavily implied that Marie Rose being from Sweden and having a child-like appearance regardless of whether she's 18 or not was meant to be a stealth response to Dead or Alive Dimensions' banning from Sweden.
- There Are No Therapists: Ayane and Helena have both attempted suicide. And Helena has (or had) more than enough money to afford professional help. To be fair, however, Ayame does stop Ayane from doing suicide.
- Throw It In: In-universe example in Dead or Alive 6. During the sixth tournament, while Zack is making a speech, Nyotengu ends up abruptly gatecrashing the event. Zack, while clearly shocked at her presence, nonetheless compensates for the unexpected arrival and announces fighting her as being the half-time show for the event.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Even considering this trope spits in the face of physics, Kasumi's sword flying in a straight line for at least 100 meters in the opening scene of the movie looks extremely jarring. Of course, considering the entire movie relies on the Rule of Cool to a ridiculous degree...
- Took a Level In Badass: Jann Lee's backstory. He spent his childhood as a weak, bullied kid that can only escape the harsh reality by watching Bruce Lee films. Then he became an Ascended Fanboy. And the rest is history.
- Training From Hell: It's shown in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation that Hitomi goes to rather extreme lengths to hone her Karate training (and to a certain extent Momiji and her Hayabusa-style Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu training). For starters, Misaki's meeting with Hitomi and Momiji and attempts to train with them resulted in them doing aerobic exercises for the abs and spine, as well as push-ups, all three of which are done 500 times each. Hitomi and Momiji don't look worse for wear afterward, while Misaki is left so exhausted that she can barely even speak after doing all the exercises. Hitomi and Momiji also indicated that they do nimba runs across the entire perimeter of the Venus Islands as part of said training, with Hitomi in particular apparently doing 10 laps of this based on a comment she made to the Owner in one of her episodes. Also, in one of Fiona's debut episodes, Honoka implies that whenever Hitomi is in Germany, she actually picks fights with Bears as part of her training regiment.
- Leifang is also implied to be as extreme as Hitomi and Momiji regarding training. In Kanna's este episodes, after Leifang did a (rather painful) Chinese massage on Kanna, she invited her to train with her and Hitomi and have a big lunch afterward. Kanna's reaction at the offer indicates that even she realized such training was too much for her, even with her being an Oni.
- Tsundere: Following the trend of their Red Oni, Blue Oni personalities, Ayane is a Type A and Kasumi a Type B.
- Nagisa is an even bigger tsundere than even Ayane, to the extent of barely having any respect for the Owner at all.
- Troll: Nyotengu is shown to have quite a mischevious sense of humor if some of her actions in Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation and Dead or Alive 6 are of any indication. Kanna's even worse in that regard, actually managing to trick Nagisa into thinking the Owner was seducing her [though in her defense, she had no idea that Misaki and Nagisa were unaware of her true status as an Oni, or that Nagisa would have been exceptionally infuriated at the inherent implications of her actions].
- If Tamaki's apology to Kasumi and Momiji is of any indication, her... extremely friendly treatment of the girls is her embracing this trope since she mentioned she needed to find another excuse to "tease" the girls. She also seems to jokingly claim that she wanted to be a little sister to Momiji despite her obviously being older than the latter.
- Uncle Tomfoolery: Zack in Dead or Alive 4. Taken Up to Eleven in his victory movie, to cringe-worthy levels.
- Waif Fu: Taken to an Egregious extreme. All female characters are skinny and look like models, yet are capable of blowing wrestlers twice their size across the arena in a few punches. Slightly justified regarding Kasumi, Ayane, Tina, and Hitomi, since it's implied they had been trained extensively in their art by their fathers (or father figures, in the case of Ayane).
- Dead or Alive 4 adds a skinny teenage boy who can kick anyone's ass as well, though he does practice a specific form of martial arts popular for having a lot of physical power without requiring beefy muscles.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist - Helena threatened to shoot Kasumi dead just because of she was in her way, or more likely so that more likely DOATEC could no longer use her to create another Alpha-152.
- What the Hell, Hero? - Marie briefly gives one to the Owner when she learns the reason the Owner was too tired to effectively helm Then-current festival was because he had spent the entire night playing video games with Honoka beforehand, having her call him out on his irresponsibility. It is left ambiguous initially as to whether it was indeed video games or code for sex, although the second episode reveals it was indeed video games.
- Wild Teen Party: Tamaki is apparently notorious for setting these kinds of parties up, to the extent that in her debut episode, Helena actually volunteered to do the party planning and set-up specifically to prevent Tamaki from going wild with the setup.
- World of Buxom: Duh!
- Not so much in DOA 5 and to a certain extent DOA 6 (the latter game arguably reducing the breast sizes even further). While the girls still have above average breast sizes in the former, they are somewhat smaller than before. And that's not even counting Marie Rose. In fact, there are only five female leads in the series who outright avert this trope: Marie Rose, Nagisa, Kanna, and Lobelia in Xtreme Venus Vacation, and NiCO in DOA 6.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield? Played straight with Rachel, where her bio lists her as originating from the Vigoorian Empire from Ninja Gaiden (making her the only fighter to actually hail from a fictional country). That said, however, in her home series, it is implied that the Holy Vigoor Empire is located within Russia.
- Averted in Xtreme Venus Vacation with the Venus Islands/Patty's home island. It's repeatedly stated to be located somewhere in the South Pacific, and Kanna implies in the English version of "Bonding Festival - The Ogre Does It Too" event that the Venus Islands specifically is located at the Southern Islands planning center near the Central Region of Singapore (though it should be noted that originally, she merely said "southern island", as in, "an island in the south").
- You Can't Go Home Again: Kasumi, as a result of her quest for revenge. Averted in DOA5, which implies the possibility that she may actually be able to go back home.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Mostly averted, although exceptions exist with Ayane, Honoka, NiCO, Tamaki, Fiona, and counting company crossovers Rio Rollins Tachibana (who have purple, salmon-pink, neon blue, green with a hint of red, wisteria, and hot pink, respectively). In the case of Ayane and Honoka, it is heavily implied that their unusual haircolors were the result of being the bastard daughters of Raidou after his becoming demonic.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The Xtreme side-series.
- ↑ Quite a few of these fans were pleased to learn that Dimensions was going to attempt to flesh out the characters and the storyline more so than in the past.
- ↑ Unless one counts the Zombienus Vacation joke trailer on April Fool's 2019.
- ↑ It should be noted that generally, oni tended to be twice the height of humans, so she's a literal midgit by Oni standards, barely being a few inches taller than Marie Rose.
- ↑ ie, all girls who either previously appeared in Xtreme 3 or, in the case of Leifang, past Dead or Alive games as a whole
- ↑ Specifically, Kasumi is Asuka, Honoka is Hibari, and Ayane is Yagyu, all of whom are from Hanzo Academy; Kokoro is Yumi and Nyotengu is Murakumo from Gessen Girls' Academy; Hitomi is Yomi and Marie Rose is Mira from Homura's Crimson Squad; and Leifang is still Ryobi from Hebijo Clandestine Girls' Academy.
- ↑ Kasumi, Marie Rose, Honoka, Ayane, Nyotengu, Kokoro, Hitomi, Momiji, and Helena
- ↑ Specifically, Tamaki referencing Hanami festivals in a context that indicated she previously celebrated them where she came from in her debut episodes (with Hanami festivals only occurring in Japan), Nagisa expressing familiarity towards Marie Rose's reference to Maid Cafes in Japan, and Sayuri mentioning when Patty asked why she yells Tamaya upon a firework going off that her hometown does that frequently during the game's third anniversary, referring to the Sunido River Fireworks Festival, with the term itself referring to one of the fireworks creators that existed during the Edo period in Japanese history, and Kanna alludes to having participated in various Japanese festivals in the millennia prior to the game.
- ↑ Lobelia is made clear to be a noblewoman from the same country Fiona hailed from
- ↑ Specifically, the United Kingdom, Principality of Andorra, Kingdom of Belgium, Kingdom of Denmark, Principality of Liechtenstein, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Principality of Monaco, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kingdom of Norway, Kingdom of Spain, and the Kingdom of Sweden. And that's not even counting Vatican City.
- ↑ Fiona is a name of Gaelic/Welsh origin
- ↑ While the Christmas tree fairy as a concept existed in Scandinavia as well as what would become Germany during the 15th and 16th century, the tradition itself was popularized in the United Kingdom in 1841 largely thanks to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert having one and it being publicized in newspapers at the time.
- ↑ This is considered a cultural norm in Great Britain, and to a certain extent British Commonwealth countries such as Australia
- ↑ Papanasi, her three-heart favorite meal, is a dessert of Romanian origin. On a similar note, Romania also happens to be a country with casinos.
- ↑ Stollen is a type of bread that is traditionally served within Germany, and is a shortened name from Weinnachtstollen, meaning Christmas Bread, or Christollen, meaning Christ Bread.
- ↑ Since Roasted Sweet Potatoes are known to be a staple in East Asia, this alongside her name hints that she may have originated from a former Soviet bloc country.
- ↑ As Leifang has a canon love interest in the form of Jann Lee, though that being said, it should be noted that Tina, Mila, Rachel, Christie, and Lisa don't have any confirmed romantic interests.
- ↑ To put it in perspective, how she acted upon licking the lollipop is closer to what you'd expect from the likes of Fiona in the same game.
- ↑ In the DMM version, it was part of Sayuri's debut events.