A 3D Fighting Game franchise akin to
Tekken and
Virtua Fighter. Even though the male fighters outnumber the female fighters by a slim margin, it's the women who are the real stars of the show.
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.
Despite the vast quantities of
Jiggle Physics, the game actually has a great deal of independant 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.
This series provides examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield (vs. Omega/Genra)
- Anti Hero (Ayane)
- Arrogant Kung Fu Guy (Jann Lee)
- Badass Back (Ayane has a whole set of moves based on this, and so does DOA4 newcomer Kokoro.)
- Boobs Of Steel (Tina)
- Brother Sister Incest (Implied with Ayane and Hayate, but apparently they're Not Blood Siblings.)
- Bruce Lee Clone (Jann Lee)
- Cain And Abel (Ayane -> Kasumi)
- Canon Immigrant (Ryu Hayabusa, who actually pre-dates this series by at least a decade.)
- Cherry Blossoms (Kasumi's motif)
- Chick Magnet (Zack, who even buys an island that sets the tone for the Xtreme side-series. Why does he do it? Because he can.)
- Chinese Girl (Lei-Fang)
- Chinese People (Jann Lee and Lei Fang)
- Combos
- Contract On The Hitman (Kasumi and, from the third game onward, Bayman)
- Excuse Plot (Xtreme Beach Volleyball)
- Fanservice ("She kicks high", indeed. The only female character who avoids this is Nicole, the Distaff Counterpart of Halo's Master Chief.)
- Foe Yay (Helena and Christie; Kasumi and Ayane)
- Genre Shift (The two "Xtreme Beach Volleyball" games dispense entirely with the male combatants and put the women on an island with volleyball nets and the thinnest bikinis known to man.)
- Heroic Bastard (Ayane, the result of Kasumi's mother being raped by the boss of the first game, eventually fits this trope.)
- Husky Russkie (Bayman)
- Intercontinuity Crossover (Nicole's story in DoA 4 suggests that the Halo series occurs in DoA's far future)
- 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.)
- Juggle Fu (Christie In Name Only from The Movie, with her bra.)
- Kotono Mitsuishi (voice of Christie)
- Lady Of War (Helena)
- Les Yay (Lei Fang and Hitomi are shown to be very friendly to each other)
- 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.)
- Ninja (Nearly half the cast!)
- Old Master (Gen Fu)
- Professional Wrestling (Tina, Bass, and Lisa/La Mariposa)
- Red Oni Blue Oni (Kasumi and Ayane)
- Relationship Values (In the DOAX games, giving the other girls presents will make them more likely to partner up with you.)
- Ryu And Ken (Kasumi and Ayane)
- Slipknot Ponytail (Kasumi)
- Smoke Out (Kasumi can do this with cherry blossom petals)
- SNK Boss (All of the final bosses appear to suffer from this to varying degrees, the worst of which being Kasumi Alpha-152 from Dead or Alive 4.)
- Stripperiffic (Again, just about every female other than Nicole, who you can really only tell is female by her voice).
- Take That (Tomonobu Itagaki, Team Ninja's former lead designer, really doesn't like the Tekken or Virtua Figher series.)
- The Chazz (Hayate)
- The Rival (several: Ayane/Kasumi, Lei Fang/Jann Lee, Hayabusa/Hayate, Leon/Bayman)
- The Smurfette Principle (Subverted; there may be more guys, but the girls are clearly in charge here.)
- Vegeta And Kakarot (Ayane and Kasumi, again.)
- Video Game Movies Suck (It took a full year for the DOA movie to be released in North America after being shown in Europe, and even then it quietly slipped in and out of theaters with zero promotion; given the nature of the game itself, this may be a guilty pleasure to some.)
- Waif Fu
- Xtreme Kool Letterz (The Xtreme side series.)
- So Bad Its Good the movie very very much so.
