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Trivia / Dead or Alive

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  • Acting for Two:
    • Kasumi and Alpha-152 share the same Japanese and English voice actresses: Houko Kuwashima and Lauren Landa. And in the last stage, Alpha-152 gains the ability to shapeshift into Hayabusa, thus the trope also works for Hideyuki Hori and Troy Baker, Hayabusa's voice actors.
    • Come Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate on the English side, Kate Higgins voices both Tina Armstrong and Momiji.
  • Actor Allusion: Mila dresses as Hikage during Senran Kagura crossover. Both shares the same Japanese voice actress, Ryōko Shiraishi.
  • Celebrity Voice Actor:
    • Dennis Rodman as Zack in Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
    • Darren Criss as Jann Lee in Dimensions.
  • Creator's Favorite: Tomonobu Itagaki has gone on record to say, several times, Kasumi is his daughter, while showing no personal or close concern from any other character he has created or directed during his days at Team Ninja / Koei-Tecmo. The man was very protective of Kasumi too, openly admitting she would never appear in Ninja Gaiden, claiming Kasumi was too pure (despite being canonically the one to kill Raidou) and wasn’t the type to engage in the same bloody works as Ryu Haybusa, allowing her less morally inclined sister, and almost as popular, Ayane to appear instead. Long after Itagaki had left Team Ninja, Kasumi started making cameos in Ninja Gaiden, becoming fully playable in Ninja Gaiden III, soaking herself in blood as much as Ryu and Ayane.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Eliot plays straight with his Japanese voice actor, but averted in English where he is played by a man.
  • Killer App: Not only were Dead or Alive 3 and 4 exclusive to the original Xbox and Xbox 360 respectively, but series lead Kasumi became something of a mascot for the Xbox brand in Japan, being used to promote it over characters like Master Chief and Marcus Fenix.
  • No Dub for You: While the fifth game as a whole is dubbed, the fighting game-related Guest Fighters (Akira, Sarah, Pai, Jacky and Mai) are stuck speaking one language regardless of settings; while Mai has new voicework done by Ami Koshimizu, the Virtua Fighter characters re-use voice clips from Final Showdown and it shows - they're noticably of a different audio quality when compared to the rest of the cast.
  • No Export for You:
    • Nintendo decided not to release Dimensions in three Nordic countries Sweden, Norway and Denmark, 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.
    • Koei Tecmo themselves decided to not release Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 outside of Asia. According to them, to avoid controversy in a time when the representation of female characters in video games have become a bigger concern than ever before in Western countries. However, given the non-Japanese Asian version of the game is localized to English (Except for voice overs), and given both the PS4 and PSVita are region free, this can be easily worked around by importing it from stores like Play-Asia.
    • Due to new censorship rules enforced by Sony in Japan, it appears Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet may suffer this fate. A shame, considering Ensemble Dark Horse Misaki from Venus Vacation makes her first console debut for the PlayStation 4. This is somewhat mitigated since Misaki will and the other unknown character will be DLC for Fortune. You'd just have to get a Chinese PSN card.
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Real Song Theme Tune:
    • Aerosmith songs were used as opening and closing themes for DOA3, DOA2 Ultimate and DOA4, but this practice was discontinued after Itagaki left Team Ninja, suggesting that it may have been Author Appeal on his part. (It sounds particularly jarring in Dimensions when the same cutscenes that had been backed with Aerosmith songs in previous games now have more generic-sounding instrumental BGM.) By contrast, DOA5 has a more hip-hop oriented soundtrack.
    • Meja's 1996 single "How Crazy Are You?" becomes the theme song to the Xtreme Beach Volleyball games. Also, B*witched's "If it Don't Fit" plays during the opening demos.
  • Role Reprise:
  • Similarly Named Works:
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Team Ninja originally asked Bungie for permission to use the Master Chief, which proved impossible due to storyline restrictions. But the staff at Bungie were intrigued with the idea and wanted to try something similar. As a result, Bungie developed the concept of a Spartan not entirely connected to the Halo storyline who could conveniently and somewhat plausibly be fit into the Dead or Alive universe. This concept evolved into the character of Nicole.
    • An early data leak suggests that Leon was originally meant to be in DOA5 before being cut mid-development due to time constraints. He returns in Ultimate.

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