Ohhhhhhh boy, a variety of opinions today. Fortunately, it seems like most people
do agree with her chances being low, even if they completely disagree with the factors that do(n't) make them low.
I'm just going to approach this as a stream of consciousness today; and decide her rating once I've made all of my points out loud.
-One thing about Bayonetta is that it's hard to truly call her
truly sexualized. She's
sexual, it's part of her personality. She actively tries to be sexy and playfully seductive. That's not an argument in her favor at all, no. She's not just from an M-rated game. She is a vibrantly mature character, from a game with lots of sexual and religious themes.
-As others have stated, however, it is possible for her to be "toned down," by remaining faithful to the character, and making her playful. Palutena has a very playful taunt and overall smug goddess attitude, does she not? But she's not in any way revealing or seductive at a simple glance. Conversely, a character can be "sexy," as some would call ZSS, while not being playful whatsoever.
-Bayonetta is a third party character, specifically one that is not a gaming all-star on the level of Mega Man/Sonic/Pac-Man/Snake/Ryu, which greatly lowers her chances in general.
-Nintendo did actively publish, strongly advertise, and incorporate tons of Nintendo references into her game, however. Nintendo directly is involved with and cares about the Bayonetta IP. and while it wasn't a system seller for most, it sold well enough to justify it and at least the brainstorming of a third game, and was critically acclaimed (similar factors were enough for Shulk, right?)
-She does have vocal fans, being a popular, critically acclaimed cult status character.
This game is rated E10+, Brawl was rated T. It was OK to include Snake in a T rated game, but including an M rated character in an E10 game, especially one like Bayonetta who is much harder to censor, would be much more difficult to implement. DLC has to be within the boundaries of the ESRB rating given, which Bayonetta fails in this regard as she would reference an M rated game. Snake's presence in Brawl was probably what made Brawl T rated in the first place, because it referenced an M rated game. Also, Snake's censoring is a lot different from censoring Bayonetta. Real world weapons were removed, but explosives were kept in, which did match with his character. Bayonetta would still need to be censored, and even more so thanks to her provocative moves.
I agree with most everything you said, but to be fair, Melee was rated T as well.
Melee was rated T for "Comic Mischief, Mild Violence" and Brawl for "Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor."
Meanwhile, Sm4sh is rated E10+ for "Cartoon Violence, Comic Mischief, Mild Suggestive Themes." This leads me to believe Snake being in Brawl neither raised it to a T, nor did Snake not being in Sm4sh lower it. It just seems like, based on the content indicators, that society now has a more tolerable threshold for exposing kids to violence at younger ages now. The games aren't any more violent than they were before now, but "Mild Violence" has become "Cartoon" and unlike in Brawl, there are even "Suggestive Themes" now.
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Will post chances, want, predictions, and nominations soon.