YMMV / Senran Kagura

• Americans Hate Tingle: As mentioned elsewhere on this page, Yumi consistently tops Japanese popularity contests, leading the series' producers to give her more material for the fanbase to lap up... but western fans with different tastes resent her for her overexposure.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Only applies outside of Japan. Very early on in the series' reveal to the public, Takaki had high hopes to release Senran Kagura internationally as a way to reteach Western fans the concept of Moe, but many Western onlookers criticized the series' World of Buxom Fanservice and were cynical about it due to how such games usually don't sell that well outside of their relatively-smaller niche of an audience in Western territories due to Values Dissonance. The series has gone on to being one of the Marvelous AQL's most successful series, as well as one of the most successful Fanservice-laden franchises released internationally thanks to engaging storylines, interesting character interactions, and fun gameplay. On top of all of the Fanservice, of course.
• Ass Pull:
  • Estival Versus tries to explain the discrepancies in the timelines and lore by having Jasmine explain that there are multiple universes. After much theorizing and debate as to whether the main games and Versus spin-offs were linked or not, people felt that this was the devs' way of trying to tie the theories together. Both Western and Eastern fans thought they could've handled this a lot better.
  • Shinovi Masters belatedly throws a radical Retcon into youma lore by introducing sapient youma who consider themselves and their kind victims of Van Helsing Hate Crimes in the form of shinobi aggression, after spending the whole of the series up to that point establishing the youma to be a mindless, Always Chaotic Evil plague of The Heartless. While the idea has some precedent—Orochi and the giant youma of Deep Crimson are self-aware and capable of speech—they were all brutal and murderous creatures trying to destroy anything they could get in their clutches.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Due to the fanservice consisting of busty girls and Clothing Damage, there are gamers that refuse to give the series a second look. Takaki's stance on this is essentially apathy towards those alienated, as he wants to continue to make games that appeal to him and his fans.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Resolution of Blooms", the opening song of Shinovi Versus.
  • "Beyond Light and Darkness", the opening song of Deep Crimson, sang by the Hanzo Academy girls.
  • "Slash On Through To Mastery!", Homura's theme from Estival Versus is another one. It perfectly captures her Hot-Blooded nature.
  • "I Began To Feel It In My Heart", Hikage's theme from Estival Versus is a rockin' tune from beginning to end.
• Base-Breaking Character: Due the nature itself of the franchise, every single character on the series is this on some degree. Whether is due gameplay or plot reasons the fanbase doesn't seem able to reach an agreement about the likeability of the cast.
  • Yumi is adored by fans in Japan for her traditional Yamato Nadeshiko status, she is also disliked mostly by the Western fanbase due to her getting most of the attention out of the other girls as well as winning popularity polls of Shinovi Versus, Estival Versus, and New Wave. Recently in the Peach Beach Splash election poll as well. That and having no real development of her character despite her exposure.
    • Because of her consistent popularity, fans believe that Gessen as a whole are the Spotlight-Stealing Squad and win every fight they are in no matter how powerful their opponents are. Worst example being the ongoing Shinobi Master anime.
  • Ryouna is this for many. Some see her whole character as a boring, one-note masochism fetishist while other people enjoy her for her Hidden Depths and/or find her fetish hilarious. Likewise, her being confirmed as the third DLC character in Reflexions was met with high anticipation from fans who've always wanted to see how her fetish can be utilized and exploited in a Dating Sim, while other fans were equally upset that she was the next character over Katsuragi, not helped by her being the 2nd of the New Hebijo characters in the game (after Murasaki), while the game still lacked a member from the Crimson Squad at the time (who was eventually revealed to be Yomi).
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The Clothing Damage and being a World of Buxom are probably the best known elements of the games.
• Broken Base:
  • The first game's rather choppy framerate. Either it's bad or it's fine.
  • The game being localized also received this treatment from Beat 'em Up fans, as many saw it as a pointless fanservice game not worth the effort of bringing it outside Japan, while some actually like the story and characters and either appreciate or ignore the fanservice.
  • The announcement of male player characters being added to Senran Kagura 2 (starting with Ikaruga's brother, which some felt had its own issues due to how he was presented in the anime), since some saw it like ruining the franchise's appeal while others thought that it could do wonders for the series' reputation. These fears never really came to pass, seeing as male characters have remained firmly in the background since Senran Kagura 2.
    • Murasame has all sorts of this. His being a Joke Character and the fact that he goes through the same Clothing Damage as the girls are also points of contention.
  • Senran Kagura 2 was hit with this within its first week of release (in Japan). The fans were split between those who said that its increased difficulty (compared to the first game) and new mechanics are terrible and wish it was more like Shinovi Versus, and those who welcomed the changes as attempts to make the game less like it was solely made as a vehicle for fanservice.
  • Some fans weren't amused that the new characters from Shinovi Versus don't show up in SK2 at all. It was revealed that the two games were made along side each other, explaining it.
  • The Estival Versus thirty minute OVA's different art style, and the fact that it was being done by a completely different studio. Some thought it was fine, while others disagreed and say that the shinobi girls look like K-On! rip-offs. This also applies to some of the game's animated cutscenes.
  • Although a very minor one compared to the other entries, Estival Versus' release on PS Vita and PS4 made some PS3 owners a little disappointed that it wouldn't come to their system.
  • Because of the series branching off into two different platforms, there's one side of the fandom that thinks the 3DS games are better, while another side thinks the PlayStation games are the best. Then there's another portion that prefers both games and feels the other two sides are being ridiculous in thinking either is worse.
  • The OVA bundled with EV, with its showing of fully bare breasts averting Nipple and Dimed, fractured the fanbase even more. Some were happy that the series had finally went past simple teasing while others thought that very same tease was part of the franchise's essential charm.
  • How emphasized should Daidouji's abs be? Her Estival Versus profile art gives her the most prominent set yet and the fandom simply cannot decide whether this is good or bad.
  • At first the addition of Legend Rare, LR, cards in New Wave G Burst sparked some debates as to whether or not they're even worth fighting for.
  • Should the New Wave characters be playable in the main games? Some think that they can be expanded upon in the Beat 'em Up format, while others think they're better off in their home game.
  • Expert route in New Wave G Burst. On one hand, some argued that defeating an expert-class boss can help for those who want to jump higher in overall and damage rankings; On the other hand, others thought that the expert route was introduced as an excuse to create a gap between F2P and P2W players, and make everyone pay for resources and more powerful cards.
  • Bon Appetit's difficulty scaling. Some find the harder difficulties reasonable enough and can be beaten with enough practice like most rhythm games on the market, while others thought that the higher difficulties are rife with Fake Difficulty, often featuring button presses that don't even match the rhythm, making the gameplay feel less "rhythmic" and more "frustratingly tedious".
  • The Dressing Room, aside from being where players can change the girls' outfits, also gives players the ability to physically mess around with the girls via the camera, as turning the character models still invokes Jiggle Physics.^note At the very least, most of the girls will call out players who do this too often. Simply put, it's usually seen as divisive by fans of the series; either you like the dress up and enjoy the fanservice or ignore those particular functions of it, or it's just completely unnecessary fanservice that the series' reputation doesn't need.
  • New Wave itself, purely for being a freemium mobile game.
  • Senran Kagura 2's story has become this for certain factions of the fandom.
  • Similar to SK 2, Estival Versus' story has also become this in certain parts of the fanbase.
  • The two branches existing is easily this in general with all the cases above detailed.
  • Whether it's the game's Dating-sim nature, Asuka being the only character at launch, or the fact that it's another side game, it's safe to say that the announcement of Reflexions also caused some divide amongst the fanbase.
  • The announcement of Peach Ball, however, only made things even more heated. Some had no issue with it whatsoever, while others resented it for also not being a traditional Senran Kagura hack and slash. It doesn't help that, with this and the above Reflexions game but no hack and slash titles, Switch players are left with nothing but side games.
  • Fans weren't very happy about Burst Re:Newal reusing assets from Estival Versus. As a matter of fact, they are just tired of the reused assets from EV in general and want a new set. On the other hand, there are at least a few, particularly those who don't own a 3DS and have a PS4, who were looking forward to playing Burst, because they'll finally be able to experience the story that started it all, but with better graphics and the improved playstyle they've adapted to from the previous Versus games.
    • It was revealed that after Burst Re:Newal's launch, the rest of Gessen and New Hebijo would be added as free DLC for two weeks afterward. Most fans were happy to get their favorite girls for free or that they were in the game; the others were disappointed as it now comes off as Estival Versus with Burst slapped on the title.
• Catharsis Factor: Ever needed to relieve some stress by wiping out a bunch of enemy shinobi while using ridiculous super moves and Jiggle Physics galore? Well, this is the series to do just that!
• Complete Monster: Dōgen shows himself to truly earn his title of evil shinobi in both the game and anime/manga continuities:
  • Game Series: Dōgen is an investor of Hebijo Academy and the true mastermind behind the first three games who seeks to Take Over the World. In Burst, having manipulated several troubled girls into serving him, Dōgen sparks a conflict between Hebijo and Hanzo Academy in order to get many shinobi killed. After sacrificing them to the yōma Orochi, he forces Homura and her friends to fight the Hanzo girls under pain of death if they fail, and sacrifices Homura's friends to Orochi, forcing Homura to fight Orochi to save them. In Shinovi Versus, he returns and kidnaps Miyabi's father to force her to work for him, then brainwashes four other girls into working for him and has Homura and her Crimson squad declared traitors, ordering them hunted down. After setting up the Shinobi Battle Royale with Hanzo and Gessen Academy, he kills Tsumuji in front of Homura, taunting her about it. In Deep Crimson, Dōgen begins raising yōma so he can sell them and cause war, and tests them on the Hebijo students; when initially thwarted, he instead takes the blood of the Hanzo and Crimson girls to create the yōma generals and unleashes them on Kyoto, intending to have them invade all Japan and power up Kagura so he can steal her Reincarnation Sphere to give himself ultimate power.
  • Anime & Manga: Headmaster Dōgen is the man who runs Hebijo Academy and the antagonist of Ninja Flash! and the manga adaptations. Desiring to Take Over the World, Dōgen manipulates several troubled girls into serving him. As Headmaster, Dōgen instills a brutal training regime intended to beat his students into obedience. He orders Homura and her friends to steal one of the Super Secret Ninja Scrolls, then once the Hanzo girls arrive to take it back, he invokes the yoke technique to force Homura and her friends to die if they fail him. Intentionally getting as many of his students killed as possible so he can feed them to the Yin and Yang scrolls, Dōgen powers himself with them and tries to kill the girls in a final battle. Upon failing, he activates a self-destruct device that will destroy Hebijo, admitting his complete lack of care that he will be killing many students in the process.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Almost every Senran that uses firearms is this in some fashion. Mirai, the Ryō sisters, and the Kyō twins being prime examples.
  • The Mikagura sisters absolutely shape and mold this trope.
  • The final boss of Peach Beach Splash, DJ Ryoki piloting a giant mech!
• Creepy Cute: Murasaki, the Hikikomori with sister issues and darkness powers.
• Critical Backlash: Most reviewers often bash the series rather harshly and give it low scores, or flat out say it's not worth the price. However, looking at the much more positive user reviews and 4.5 star average on the eShop quickly turns this into a case of...
• Critical Dissonance:
  • Western critics were mixed or really negative about Burst, while audiences thought it was a really fun brawler. Heck, most of the ratings on the Nintendo eShop are 4/5 or 5/5 stars.
  • Shinovi Versus has surprisingly averted this with critics generally giving the game more positive scores.
  • And now Deep Crimson has been hit with this. The game has started off getting a few lower scores than Burst, despite many fans noticing and praising the improvements Deep Crimson has over that game.
• Critic-Proof: While some gaming news sites have tried to demonize the series for its fanservice elements, this has never affected Senran Kagura's growing popularity in the slightest.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A good amount of the fanservice within the games gets so over-the-top that it just becomes too funny to be titillating.
  • Katsuragi's perverted antics sometimes reach this level. An example is her story in Shinobi Versus where she seeks out new breasts to grope, because the Hanzo girls have gotten used to her groping. Katsuragi feels half the fun of groping is getting a reaction out of the other person.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The crossbow-wielding shinobi in French Meido outfits. Their shots will cause you to flinch, ruin your combo, and cause you to be left at the mercy of the entire mob you'd just been attacking. Oh, and a single string of shots from them is enough to make you as good as dead in Frantic mode.
  • There's also the fire/poison spewing shinobi. They don't do much damage, but they ruin your clothes so fast that you won't know what hit you. In Crimson Girls, the designers put these guys in the worst possible locations, such as Haruka's (a character who's dependent on the status of her clothes) timed run in Chapter 2 and of course, her battle against Homura in Chapter 4.
  • EVERYTHING is this on Frantic Mode, specially on Hebijo's story in Burst.
  • Greater shinobi and Assassin shinobi in Shinovi Versus. To elaborate, greater shinobi are tall sword-wielding ninja that can tank nearly anything you throw at them and do some serious damage should they ever land a hit. What also makes them deadly is the fact that they can perform a small combo if said hit is landed. Assassin shinobi are ninjas dressed up as animals of different sorts. Tanuki Assassins attack directly from the ground as soon as they spawn, giving you only a split second to dodge them. Crow Assassins will, as soon as they spawn, dive directly into you so fast that it's lot a harder to dodge them then the Tanuki Assassins. Their group dive attack can effectively deal huge damage, or kill you instantly in Frantic Mode, if you don't react in time. Not only that, but they also have the ability to inflict poison status.
  • By far the worst of the lot are the Bear Assassins. They're large shinobi that have a lot of health and can perform a roll attack that does a lot of damage and inflicts burn status. Worst of all, you need to perform your stronger attacks just to make them flinch, and once they start their attacks they're completely immune to flinching. There are moments in some missions where you have to fight them in enclosed spaces with barely any room to evade or recover.
  • In Estival, the new enemies including women dressed in pink and white bunny outfits can be really annoying, for they can almost dodge every move you make. Another new enemy is the new Ram Assassin. Not only do they make the Bear assassin run for its money, once you damage it enough it turns into a human who fights with electrified ram horns. It can then teleport at will and paralyze you, which makes them really irritating to beat.
  • The Lamias on Senran Kagura 2 are one of the toughest enemies to face due their poisoning attacks, obliterating the players' health in a matter of seconds. Many Yōma Nest runs have come to an abrupt end after facing packs of them.
• Ending Fatigue: The final chapter of Senran Kagura 2 is essentially a giant Final Boss Rush. You fight Dogen in a super-powered form. Then two giant Yoma together. Then another giant Yoma. Then yet another giant Yoma (specifically True Orochi). Then Kagura and Naraku together. And then finally True Kagura, but at least that fight also unlocks Asuka's and Homura's Super Modes to really up the finality of the battle.
• Even Better Sequel:
  • Deep Crimson to Burst. Not only does it improve the framerate, it also has more polished and entirely different mechanics, a considerable increase in difficulty, a better story and greatly improved visuals in comparison to Burst
  • New Wave G Burst to New Wave.
  • Estival Versus to Shinovi Versus thanks to remarkably improved visuals, new gameplay additions, more characters and seeing release on two systems rather than one... mostly due to a few annoying enemy types.
• Fake Difficulty: the final fight in the Hejibo arc for Peach Beach Splash has this. You're down a squadmate, getting only three supporting characters instead of four, the arena is a very close-range venue while by default the team is equipped more for long range (though this can be changed), and the targeting assist won't lock onto the boss at all, making aiming much more difficult than in any other mission.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Femtaro, Jotits, or Daijotaro for Daidouji, since her transformed state is essentially one giant expy of Jotaro Kujo.
  • All the girls in the series are referred to as 'Senrans', while the male characters are known as 'Menrans'. Some do use the latter to describe genderswappened versions of the girls.
  • Hibbers (Hibari), Yaggers (Yagyu), Snake (Hikage), Cat/Flatcat (Mirai) and Sweetie Neetie (Murasaki) are some notable mentions.
  • Ditto "Tanlines Seven Swords/G" for Homura. She even has Trans-Am!
  • Fans took one look at Peach Beach Splash and immediately declared it was "Splatoon with Boobs", and even joked about it being a sequel to the first Splatoon before that game got an actual sequel.
  • Burst Re:Newal, due to it's reusing of assets to remake an earlier game, has been referred to by fans (particularly on the Western side) as Senran Kagura: Kiwami.
• Faux Symbolism: The Hebijou Academy logo is an upside-down cross with snakes entwined around it. Nothing says Morally Ambiguous and Dark Is Not Evil like quasi-blasphemy.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With the Neptunia, Ikki Tousen, High School D×D and Dead or Alive fanbases; SK has had plenty of cross-promotion and crossover content with them in some way or another.
  • The franchise has a strange relationship with the Valkyrie Drive fandom despite essentially being Senran Kagura's little sister. Some fans are very interested on the series due Takaki's involvement, other are extremely critical of it due the excessive amounts of fanservice it has (conveniently overlooking ''Senran Kagura'''s own fanservice-centric nature despite Takaki's involvement). Between the postive response to Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni-'s gameplay, and Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid becoming a Cult Classic among Yuri Genre fans, a lot of people have since changed their initial impressions on the franchise.
  • Senran Kagura fans have also formed a friendly fandom surprisingly with Overwatch, due to the fact that both series have a character named Hanzo in them and Senran Kagura fans like to include Overwatch's Hanzo in some crossover fan art◊.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Queen's Blade, albeit in less degree.
  • Oddly enough, the Neptunia fandom had this towards the SK fandom because of both sides wanting a spot in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. This sort of died once the fifth fate was revealed to be Arcana Heart, though it started up again after a sixth fate was teased. Said sixth fate was revealed as SK proper (representing Estival Versus).
  • A bitter one sprang up between series fans and fans of PlayStation as a whole, due to many fans of the series viewing Sony's censorship policies as being at least partially responsible for the series going on ice. Meanwhile, fans of PlayStation either don't acknowledge the series at all, or if they do, act dismissive towards it, which doesn't help the rivalry.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The unlockable Daidōji. Her fighting style is nothing special or game breaking, but her stats are several magnitudes higher than the other girls, and this allows for much easier A-ranks. Her stats are generally as such that frantic mode's downsides are downplayed while enabling her to hand out easy one shots to mooks.
  • Frantic mode in Shinovi Versus increases attack power far more than it reduces defence.
  • Hibari in Burst. Specifically, her strong air attack. While her combos are nothing noteworthy, her strong air attack shoots out 3 ridiculously powerful Kunai, can be launched several times in the air, and has no landing lag, letting her jump immediately afterwards and attack again. Combine with frantic mode and make sure to avoid any French Maid Shinobi and watch as Hibari slaughters everything in her path.
  • Deep Crimson has plenty of these:
    • Mirai's grenade launcher can obliterate anything on its path on higher levels
    • Daidōji is this by design but she's also the only character with access to Super Armor on the game, making her able to shrug off all enemy attacks
    • Haruka's Death Kiss not only inflicts Charm status (rendering the enemy unable to attack), it's also one of the most damaging ninpos on the game.
    • Shinobi Stones, special equipment unlocked by clearing special missions. They come on many flavors that can range from inflicting status effects to boost your character stats. With the proper set up they enable one hit kills on any boss in the game.
    • Frantic mode can also be this during boss fights, you can spam ninpos like crazy and not lose one scroll, and attacking enemies can give you your health back. Combine this with a proper arrangement with the Shinobi Stones, so much for True Orochi and True Kagura.
  • Slayer cards in New Wave G Burst come with multiplier bonuses that can boost your deck's attack, defense and health values to astronomical heights◊.
  • Estival Versus:
    • All of Renka, Imu, Shiki, Rin, Ryona and Kagura have ninja arts that hit a wide area of effect and rack up enough hits to allow them to level up multiple times per attack if they can hit a full group of enemies. It can be at least justified with Kagura, with story lore dictating her to be Purposefully Overpowered.
    • Imu deserves special mention for her ridiculously overpowered Ultimate Ninja Art, which can one-shot every boss even on hard mode.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Rin and Daidōji have a pretty sizeable fanbase in the west. It's likely due to them being older shinobi and extremely badass even by the standards of the main cast. Rin even won the top spot of XSEED's Waifu Wars poll in 2019.
  • Hikage is already big with the fans, but if the few Western based fan polls done by Marvelous and XSEED are any indication she's pretty much Yumi's equivalent in popularity overseas. Fans even joke about her specifically being the "Western Yumi".
  • The male characters (Kiriya, Hanzo, Murasame, Kurokage and even Dogen) have had a warmer reception in America. Murasame in particular has many lamenting that he hasn't been playable since Deep Crimson. And in the case of Hanzo and Kiriya, the fact that they still aren't playable (despite coming very close to being so in Shinovi Versus).
• Goddamned Bats:
  • More examples from SV, Middle shinobi are armed with bows and will shoot at you constantly until they hit you. To make matters more annoying, their arrows can make you flinch when hit.
  • Wolf Assassins. You'd think these girls would count as Demonic Spiders just by hearing the name, but you'd be wrong. They attack in packs and will swarm you, as their M.O. is to run in a circle around the player and attack from all sides. They defend the boss by circling them if they ever appear, and are tricky to land a hit on most of the time, as they move to keep a circuit around the player. Not a huge threat due to their low attack power, but the Wolves briefly stun with each attack, making them irritating to deal with.
  • The goddamn Turtle Assassins absolutely take the cake. They're Stone Wall ninja who'll block eighty percent of the time and attack the other twenty. Luckily, they're offense isn't very good, but disposing of them can still make missions drag on and on because of their high defense alone. Breaking their guard makes them spin out of control for a long time, and they can't be attacked until they stop due to the spin-out counting as an attack.
• Goddamned Boss: In New Wave G Burst, certain Hard or Expert route bosses can be an absolute pain to fight the more times the player defeats them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: One of the many character customization options allows you to make both Yagyū and Mirai wear eyepatches in both eyes, which is rather funny. Cue Shinovi Versus where it is explained why the two of them wear their eyepatches and it suddenly takes a dark turn, especially with Yagyū, who would seriously wear an eyepatch over her other eye if Hibari would die.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the first game, Asuka states that she has no clue what going out on a date is, or what it's even like. Guess who's your date in New Wave G Burst's third training event, and guess what is the point of Reflexions?
  • Anybody who's played Warriors Orochi will know that this isn't the first time Ayane has been featured as a guest character in a hack-and-slash game.
  • Keiji Fujiwara (Kiriya) would later go on to voice a guy named Kagura who, in stark contrast to Kiriya's personality, is a huge pervert who'd likely love to be in this game named similarly like him.
  • As mentioned in the Trivia section, the fact that the newest upcoming 2017 release shares the same name as a certain race course from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Peach Beach) can be this for players who remember playing that game.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Yagyū has been stated few times to have a pot belly (which she calls her "charm point"), but she is never drawn to really have one.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Peach Ball was derided by fans for being very anemic, with only two pinball tables and five playable story campaigns, each of which can be cleared in less than an hour. The launch price of 60$ didn't help.
• Jerkass Woobie: Homura. If one starts the game playing the Hanzō storyline, they've already bought the whole "good" ninja are in the right, "evil" ninja are in the wrong. Homura's backstory takes that entire premise, flips it on it's head, and spins it like a top, before crushing it in rage. Homura comes from a long line of "good" Shinobi, and as such, was raised with the expectation to become one herself. Pushed into school at a young age, she fell in love with her tutor, who was the only light in her life; keeping the girl emotionally stable during her stress-filled life of regimented training and lessons. When he appeared concerned for her, she confessed everything to him, telling him about her entire past and that she comes from a family of shinobi. As it turns out, the man was an evil shinobi who had been told to wipe out her family. Feeling betrayed, but also in self-defense, Homura killed the man. Due to the fact that she hadn't officially become a shinobi yet, and had killed someone, she was rejected by "good" shinobi, no longer able to attend Hanzō Academy. In addition to that, her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. When a recruiter from Hebijo Academy found her and took her in, Homura jumped at the chance to simply belong somewhere again.
• Les Yay: Plenty of examples to go around so much so that it now has its own page.
• Magnificent Bastard: (2013 anime}: Lady Fubuki is the main antagonist of the Shinovi Master season. A Half-Human Hybrid born to a human shinobi father and yōma mother, Fubiki swore revenge when the shinobi took her family away from her. Taken in by the yōma Rasetsu and Gessen Master Kurokage, Fubuki bonded with them and Yumi, eventually recruiting Rasetsu to her cause. Manipulating the siblings Gekko and Senko by turning them against the other schools, Fubuki has them kidnap the Hanzo girls, sans Asuka, and use them to force the others into the Shinovi Masters tournament. While Rasetsu guards the captives, Fubuki reveals her true plans at the tournament's conclusion and launches a yōma invasion, intending to kill all shinobi. Sending her minions to surface in a faraway island to divert the top shinobi, Fubuki defeats even the powerful True Kagura and corners the other heroines several times, nearly reaching her goal. Though defeated in the end, Fubuki accepts her loss and gives up on her hatred, befriending Asuka and rekindling her relationship with Yumi.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Life and Hometown.^Explanation The producer of Senran Kagura, Kenichiro Takaki, wrote a special message to the fans of Senran Kagura that promised the games would continue to grow, ending with the infamous phrase "Tits are life, ass is hometown". This phrase is often used by fans to refer to the endless fanservice.
  • Yomi's bean sprout obsession.
  • Alright now that's what I call sexual kicked-her-assment.
  • HORA!
  • Although SK 2 was where Diorama mode originated, Estival Versus' Diorama mode is especially this.^Explanation The more "inventive" players of EV used its Diorama mode to make explicit pictures of the various girls.
  • DOKAN!!^Explanation Hanabi is known for three things; being really enthusiastic about fireworks and explosives, yelling DOKAN (which the English localization translates to KABOOM) during her attacks, and then yelling that word again when she blows up after thinking too hard.
  • Joke theories stating that a SK game or New Wave event will get more attention if Yumi is added to it.^Explanation A tongue-in-cheek reference to Yumi's aforementioned high popularity in Japan.
  • From the preview stream of the English version of Estival Versus, BAHONKAS quickly caught on.^Explanation Asuka's grandmother, Sayuri, constantly refers to breasts as BAHONKAS in the story of Estival Versus. It helps that it's an Inherently Funny Word to English speakers.
  • Due to Peach Beach Splash's team-based multiplayer and water gun-based gameplay, fans have dubbed it "Splatoon WITH TITS!". Some have even gone further by calling it a sequel to Splatoon before the game got an actual sequel.
• More Popular Spin-Off: The Vita spinoff Shinovi Versus has outsold both versions of the first game combined. The reasons are rather clear as a Dynasty Warriors style 3d brawler is easier to play, far more fanservice (clothing damage doesn't stop at the underwear/swimsuit anymore!) and more characters. The release also coincided with the slashing of Vita's price in Japan. XSEED Games actually localized and released Shinovi Versus over to North America in Fall 2014 due to the sheer demand for the game over there and the success sales of Burst, which they also localized. Then Shinovi Versus becomes the first Senran Kagura to be released on PC, with Steam release in June 2016. This ended up having a side effect on the reaction to Senran Kagura 2. It initially wasn't received well upon release, and some of its detractors were expecting the game to be more similar to Shinovi Versus than it was. This sentiment was strong enough that sometimes talks about Senran Kagura 2 turned into debates about the Vita and the 3DS.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Anytime a character announces that they hit a 500, 1,000 in EV, hit combo.
  • The jingle that plays everytime a character levels up.
• Narm:
  • Yamato no Orochi is rather nightmarishly portrayed, but the way its voice is rendered in the subtitle text... suffice it to say iItt-looiTloLOok-looKs moRe li-OrE liLikEliKe iTeIt's'iT-'S GlgLitCHitc-GliTcHIngtChiNG uP-Ing Up-uP. ^Translationit looks more like it's glitching up.
  • There's one instance in Burst where Haruka has no choice but to kill her "dogs" after they had been possessed by Hanzo's ninja art scroll. Of course it would be a sad moment if it weren't for the fact that said dogs are a bunch of masochistic man servants. Haruka's reminiscence of all the times she had with her "dogs" shortly after just makes things a little more awkward to sit through.
  • The Clothing Damage can make almost any serious moment this trope. Taken even further if the characters happen to be half or fully naked.
• Nightmare Fuel: Now has its own page.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • New Wave G Burst gets hit with this hard. While it is understandable that 84 characters can be a bit difficult to keep track of, the fact that certain characters are more likely to receive cards than others have caused some players to cry foul at Marvelous for using popularity as a means of choosing which characters get cards and which ones don't.
  • While it's been said before that her popularity is the reason for this, Marvelous has been using Yumi as a means of advertising the series, producing merchandise and give her more platinum cards, in New Wave G Burst. This hasn't gone on unnoticed by some, however.
• Player Punch: The Hebijo storyline in Shinovi Versus has you go around and vanquish every other Elite Class Ninja. No power of friendship staves off defeat for any of them.
• Porting Disaster: The PC port of Shinovi Versus is a case of "works on my machine". It's a very barebones port with no graphical settings other than resolution options, the presence of texture glitches on certain characters and major framerate drops in certain levels, causing massive slowdown for no reason whatsoever. This last one is a gamble for some players, since it can occur in certain machines, even on high-end setups which have no issue running a port of a Vita game. To this day, no one knows what causes this and XSEED didn't even bother fixing this issue.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Imu was finally able to ditch her scrappy status thanks to repairing her relationship with Murasaki and showing concerns over her health too. That and Estival Versus showing her as the one who tries to keep the group on track.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Stamina in New Wave. As the player progresses through the story, their stamina will start to deplete at a faster rate. Once it's all gone, the player has no choice but to wait an hour or refill it with food items.
  • The A.I. characters' blatant cheating in Estival Versus. Facing off against computer-controlled Shinobi can become an exercise in frustration due to them being Immune to Flinching. In one stroke, this breaks the back-and-forth flow of combat: it prevents the player from using long combos without fear of being interrupted, makes parrying pointless as computers can't be caught in an ensuing combo, and can make some Ninpo arts useless due to the A.I. escaping out of an attack that they shouldn't be able to get out of. And this doesn't include making the Super Mode Shinobi (Asuka, Hikage, Homura, Yumi, and Miyabi) nearly pointless since they would spam more Ninpo arts and/or guard frame attacks to wind down the clock of their transformation.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The player's first fight with a yoma.
  • Ryōbi and Ryōna have their own brand of craziness, but Ryōki takes this even further with her One-Winged Angel form using her coffin instead of her shotgun and shield; and while the act of using a coffin in battle may sound a bit strange, Ryōki managed to surprise players at how said coffin is used. Not only is she capable of bashing enemies with it, she can also use it as a rocket launcher and gatling gun!
  • Every team leader, excluding the ones from New Wave, gaining a super form throughout the course of the series came as a shock to some fans. While Asuka's form had mixed reactions to it (since it's basically just a Slipknot Ponytail and Battle Aura), Homura, Yumi, and Miyabi's forms played this straight.
• Signature Scene: From Portrait of Girls and Burst, the scene where Asuka and Homura first meet each other.
• Tainted by the Preview: The Playstation 4 exclusivity for Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars has fans worried about the game, given Sony's Executive Meddling with the franchise in the past. There is also a small group of fans who are disappointed with a crossover spinoff instead of Senran Kagura 7even, which was teased at the end of Peach Beach Splash. That said, most are happy the series is getting a new console game period.
• Tear Jerker: Also has it's own page.
• That One Achievement:
  • The "And You Were Never Heard From Again" Trophy from Shinovi Versus. Without instructions, you'll have no idea how to get it.
  • There's also the "Combo Addict" Trophy. This requires you to achieve a combo of 7,777. This is made worse by the fact that combo-centric characters like Imu or Ikaruga can only go as the 2,000s.
  • A New Wave update added an achievement system for each event type.
    • Raid Boss Events: Deal more than 60 million damage on your first attack using only 1 AP. If the player manages to be that, they'll be given much more jarring 300 million to beat.
    • Rank Battle Events: Defeat 15 opponents with a comprehensive strength of 5 million.
    • Tower Events: Reach Extra Fever level 50.
  • Stripping Orochi on Senran Kagura 2 becomes quite the difficult task due to the many different parts you have to break.
• That One Attack:
  • Asuka's breach art is incredibly annoying to avoid. She'll dig underground and pop up on you, sending you flying. She can be on the other side of the stage and still get you. The only way to avoid it is to dash like hell
  • True Orochi in SK 2 has one attack where it'll rain down six huge beams of energy from the sky that, not only takes out a huge chunk of health, but also covers almost the entire stage.
  • In Burst Re:Newal, Haruka's DEATHxKISS is extremely dangerous at point-blank range. If you're unlucky enough to be directly in front of her when she pulls the secret ninja art off, it is a guaranteed One-Hit Kill, no matter how much health you have.
• That One Boss:
  • The mission "What Doesn't Kill Me" in the Hebijo storyline has you fighting Homura as Haruka. She will not allow you to just keep your distance and hold her down by repeatedly throwing neurotoxin at her. If you try to do so, she will rip your clothes off so fast that you will not even have time to think before your neurotoxin is gone.
  • The battle wouldn't be nearly as difficult if she didn't have a dozen or so goons whacking you as you try and battle her.
  • Heck, any mission where you fight Homura or Miyabi is bound to be harder than normal due to both of them being extremely fast Lightning Bruisers.
  • Same goes for Mirai, unless the player has learnt to dodge her bullets consistently (a skill which is required by no other boss in the game). Homura at least can be locked down if you have the reach to do so; Mirai has a tendency to lock you down instead with her constant barrage of gunfire. To make matters worse, that also gives her ample opportunities to use her Ninja Arts.
  • Mirai's battle against Hibari in Chapter 4 is also really hard. Here's the setting: Mirai; a long range combatant, is fighting Hibari (a very close range combatant) and her goons in a very tight arena with no power-ups at all. If you take damage, you're going to keep that damage. Even at Level 23 (20 is about where you'll be if you're doing only the story missions), you're doing Scratch Damage to Hibari, and she can hit back really hard.
  • Hebijo's 5-14 pits you against Daidōji...and four strengthened robo-dummies at once. If you get careless either the dummies will stun you to death or Daidōji will wipe the floor with you using her ninja arts, is even worse on Frantic Mode where a single hit from Daidōji is enough to kill you.
  • Chapter 3-04 of Hanzō's story, in Shinovi Versus, has you go up against Miyabi, Ryōbi, and Ryōna. The problem? It's a 1 vs. 3 fight. Miyabi can inflict serious damage with her combos as well as chase you down if you ever try to fall back. It's also followed by the problem of having to deal with the Ryō twins and their constant intervening. Combined, all three can be a threat and will not give you any breathing room whatsoever. What makes this all the more irritating is that this is the only time where you fight three bosses at the same time.
  • Chapter 4-05 of Gessen's story in Shinovi Versus has you fighting against Homura as Yumi. While Homura herself isn't all that hard, the real challenge comes from the Mooks she's surrounded by which happen to be the strongest enemies in the game, the Greater Shinobi and the Bear Assassin Shinobi. Both of which can tank your attacks and deliver devastating damage, with the former able to inflict paralysis and can chain combos once they land a hit, and the latter able to inflict burn status with their rolling attacks that gradually drain your HP. Taking them out first is critically essential for beating this fight and while you can make them flinch with Yumi's fully charged breach art, doing so will leave you open to Homura's attacks. Thankfully defeating them rewards you with ninja scrolls and healing onigiri but still, this fight is tough.
  • Chapter 6-05 of both Rin and Daidōji's stories in Shinovi Versus. Both are tough as hell. Being the quickest character in SV, Rin will chase you down and not give you any time to react to her attacks. She'll pretty much pummel you from the very beginning of the fight with her breach art and speed. Daidōji, however, is quite slower, but hits significantly harder. Attacking her with every last bit of power you have does little to nothing.
  • Any mission with Asuka, Ryōna and Haruka as the boss count as well, as they all wield combos that can cover a wide or long range around themselves and can keep you locked down if your get caught in them, letting them easily follow up with an art.
  • Any tier 4 raid boss in New Wave for their astronomical health and offense. It's not uncommon to see lots of cooperation request anytime they appear.
  • Yagyū in Shinovi Versus courtesy of how she absolutely loves to spam kunai at every possible moment for every second she's in the air. Of course, if you can handle that, that instead makes the fight boring as all hell.
  • From Senran Kagura 2:
    • Yomi's first fight has been a brickwall for many players due the different mechanics introduced on the game.
    • Any fight with Dougen becomes this due his tendency to ram the player from off-screen, invincibility frames and the considerable amount of health he has.
    • Kagura/True Kagura is this for some players due to her teleporting skills.
  • In Estival Versus, there's Kafuru of the Mikagura Sisters. Combine Mirai's long-range fighting style with the multi-dash benefit from characters like Ikaruga and a "dive" attack similar to Asuka's, and you'd have one HELL of a tough opponent. Not only do her water projectiles have insane range, but travel in unpredictable arcs and will stun-lock you dead still with little chance of recovery if you take enough hits from the barrage. And fighting her always consists of a Wolfpack Boss with her other sisters. So while she's busy stun-locking you, she's also giving her other sisters a chance to lay a beating on you as well. You should always prioritize on taking her out first before going after the other sisters.
• That One Level:
  • In Shinovi Versus, any mission that takes place in the interior of Hebijo Academy. You are fighting inside small and enclosed rooms with ceilings so low that it actually disrupts Aerial Raves and mid-air maneuvers, making it difficult to either pull off some attacks from the air or make a quick escape. This becomes grating especially when you're fighting elite mooks like the Bear Assassins or a boss (or both!) as they can easily lay a beating on you in these tight spaces.
  • The smaller stages in Burst become this when confronted with a number of large enemies as it allows them to gang up on you easier while making it hard to get out of the way of some of their attacks. Hebijo's 5-14, mentioned above takes place in such a stage.
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Some of the shinobi turnovers absolutely scream this, with Shiki and Haruka being the worst offenders.
• Unexpected Character:
  • As far as future dating candidates among the franchise's Versus roster to be included into Reflexions goes. After starting with Asuka, and later adding Yumi as DLC, one would expect the other team leaders, Homura and Miyabi, to follow suit for that consistency, or other characters in the franchise, such as Katsuragi and Hikage, to follow Yumi's own popularity. The second DLC character the player can date ended up being Murasaki. This makes more sense when one remembers that Murasaki is one of Takaki's favorites, and having the largest breasts in the franchise makes her the premier representative of Takaki's World of Buxom Signature Style.
    • For those who thought characters would be added to game going by a cycle of one girl per team, you'd be wrong, because the third DLC character to be added is none other than Hebijo's Ryouna, right after Murasaki. Considering her Too Kinky to Torture masochist nature, and having that in a Dating Sim, however, this was very likely intentional, as well.
  • Then, as the fifth and final character to be added, many fans were expecting a Crimson Squad girl to finally appear, especially either Homura or Hikage. Ultimately, it ended up being Yomi, who wasn't quite as anticipated as her two aforementioned teammates, but like Murasaki, she is known to be another one of Takaki's top favorites.
  • The Burst remake included, surprisingly enough, the Gessen Girls along the New Hebijo ones, none of whom ever appeared in the original game.
  • It's doubtful anyone expected that Neptune, the series protagonist of Neptunia, would appear as a DLC character in Peach Beach Splash, particularly in her normal petite form.
  • Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars has as a Guest Fighter in the form of a female version of Goh the Crow, a protagonist of the Shinobido series. Few could expect Spike Chunsoft to reference such a little known past IP of theirs.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Gekkō and Senkō of Senran Kagura Shinovi Master -Tokyo Youma-hen-, which clearly expects the audience to pity them when Fubuki betrays them.
    • Unfortunately, the girls spent the first half of the series ruthlessly assaulting and kidnapping the Hanzo girls, traumatizing Asuka, disdaining Yumi and the Gessen Girls, and unironically preaching Kurokage's long-abandoned extremism (frankly a waste of time after the Gessen chapter of Shinovi Versus put Kurokage's extremism to bed).
    • On top of that, Gekko and Senko weren't that sympathetic to start with, not only lacking the same Dark and Troubled Past as others, but for being a couple of edgelord middle-schoolers and arrogant, delusional Kurokage fangirls — an in-universe Misaimed Fandom — who subject high-schoolers to The Worf Effect to prompt cheap drama.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • The Puppeteer-Demon Doll from New Wave. This thing will absolutely annihilate any beginner player unless they grind their team. It doesn't help that it gets to attack you twice while you only get to attack it once.
  • Yomi is this in Deep Crimson for those who think using the previous game's tactics will work again. It should be noted that is also the second mission in the game.
• The Woobie:
  • Most of the girls qualify because of their backstories, but Mirai takes the cake when the anime shows just how horribly she was treated by the people who bullied her, i.e. her entire school!
  • Murasaki qualifies the most out of the second generation characters: forced to become a shinobi against her will, gravely injuring her own sister and a Hebijo scout with a power that scares her to death, and becoming a shut-in because of how much she fears that power. The fact that she wants Imu to forgive her so much she's willing to commit atrocities if they'll make Imu happy shows just how much it torments her. And if that wasn't bad enough, her power causes her father to treat her poorly/suspect her of plotting.
  • Ikaruga in Peach Beach Splash. In the Hanzo story arc, she's torn between wanting to stay with her friends in the academy and impending graduation. She keeps her feelings to herself for fear of the others thinking less of her, because she's always been the mature leader of the Hanzo team, and if they see her bawl her eyes out over it, they'll see it as childish. Thankfully, that's not the case, because everyone else felt the same as Ikaruga, wanting their time together to never end. Cue Team Hanzo's massive waterworks.
• Woolseyism:
  • Quite fair bit of it. Ranging from every girl announcing combos from 100 to 500 & other quotes said in engrish but changed to other words.
  • On 4chan, some people were worried when multiple instances of "sexual harassment" comments were changed to euphemisms, fearing Nintendo may have censored SK2. Someone responded "I think that's just XSEED being XSEED."