UPDATE: Joystiq claims this is fake, as the Voldo image is taken from a SoulCalibur IV promotional shot. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. If it is, then I officially rescind my "touche" to Namco Bandai and remain annoyed at their blatant boob usage. That said, whoever cooked this up should be hired by Namco Bandai to do all their Japanese advertising from here on out.
--
Perhaps you're already aware of recent grousing among those sensitive toward the use of women's ludicrously over-sized breasts to promote various video game entertainments in regards to a recent SoulCalibur V advertisement which featured an almost comically brazen close-up of series regular Ivy's gigantic boobs. For those unaware of the just-mentioned advertisement and subsequent outrage, here is the ad in question.
Assuming you are now appropriately outraged because of boobs, I now direct your attention to the other ad publisher Namco Bandai recently posted (then quickly removed) from the game's Facebook page. Perhaps as a direct follow-up to the outcry from those who saw the objectification of the female form as crass and lazy, the publisher then posted the below nightmare fueling image of other series regular Voldo, AKA the weird S&M bendy guy with the knives and the hypnotically transfixing codpiece.
Apparently the translation of the text across Voldo's discolored, fetid-looking stomach reads "curious?" How's that for a Monday morning boner groaner?
In direct response to Namco Bandai's Voldo ad, I simply say "touche." While I do think the blatant Ivy boob-leering in the original ad wasn't in particularly great taste, I can certainly appreciate a company that can look a controversy directly in the eye and thrust out its spiky, disquieting man-crotch as a response.
In direct response to the sure-to-happen influx of comments complaining that this is "not news," I'd like to point out that it's early January and nothing of value is really happening right now. Also, having just returned from vacation, I was just so anxious to get back to writing for you guys that I just up and grabbed for the first heaving man-crotch that crossed my desk. Yes, I know how that sounds, and no, I don't plan to correct it.
Seriously, I missed you guys.
(Thanks to PlayStation: The Official Magazine's Anne Lewis for sending this my way. May your trauma be swiftly forgotten.)