In anticipation of the latest entry in the Devil May Cry series, Capcom presented fans with brand new renders of Devil May Cry 5’s cast of characters at last year’s Tokyo Game Show 2018. The renders featured main characters Dante, Trish, and Lady, and were presented along with a set of high quality screenshots of the game in action. Yet a point of contention soon emerged, as some fans began to criticize Lady’s new look for what they believed to be a more masculine depiction of the series favorite, while others accused critical voices of being transphobic, misogynist, and bigoted.

Devil May Cry 5 - Lady Comparison

Lady’s original design from Devil May Cry 3 (left) and Lady’s new design in the upcoming Devil May Cry 5. Many fans list Lady’s strong jaw, broader shoulders, less-distinctive eyes, and the jarring switch from stylized models to a more realistic approach among complaints regarding the design. While Lady did receive a new costume in Devil May Cry 4, it is not a significant deviation from her DMC3 appearance.

In one particular instance of this debate a Twitter user known as Layna Lazar found herself the target of harassment, supported and accelerated by a developer at Insomniac Games, due to her opinions on Lady’s new design. On December 28th, Layna voiced her dissatisfied thoughts concerning Lady’s design:

Almost immediately after this tweet, Lazar began to receive replies not only attempting to have an open dialogue and engage with her opinion, but also replies accusing Lazar of harboring transphobic, racist, and misogynist attitudes:

Lazar clarified that her criticism was based on the fact that it was what she perceived to be a radical alteration of a pre-existing character, and that she would have had no issue if the design was applied to a new character:

Lazar soon received backlash due to her opinion, prompting Lazar to post a statement to her Twitter account, denouncing her critics and defending her opinion.

In response to these tweets by Lazar, an Insomniac Games 3D Character Artist, Xavier Coelho-Kostolny began to retweet replies insulting, belittling, and misrepresenting Lazar’s opinion en masse:

 

Coelho-Kostolny later explained why he decided to support and facilitate Lazar’s harassment, an explanation that appears to stem from a previous social media disagreement between the two regarding the presence of  adult artwork on the artist’s portfolio platform Art Station:

Coelho-Kostolny would then proceed to directly accuse Lazar of transphobia, based solely on his perception of her opinion:

However, from Lazar’s point of view regarding the prior incident, Xavier was insulting artists by not only leading a campaign to get adult works removed from Art Station, but also by insinuating that said works do not belong on a portfolio site because adult works are not professional:

Lazar later replied to her statement by calling out fans of Coelho-Kostolny for their role in the conflict:

What do you make of Lady’s new design for Devil May Cry 5? Do you agree with Layna Lazar that they’ve fundamentally altered the character? Do you think she deserved the harassment she received for simply critiquing the character’s design? What do you make of  Xavier Coelho-Kostolny’s behavior?

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    About The Author

    Spencer Baculi
    Spencer Baculi
    Editor

    Spencer is the Editor for Bounding Into Comics. A life-long anime fan, comic book reader, and video game player, Spencer believes in supporting every claim with evidence and that Ben Reilly is the best version of Spider-Man. He can be found on Twitter @kabutoridermav.