I remember when I first saw Hotaru's MKD mugshot and thought it was Fujin, I was so happy.

Then I found out it was some Hotaru guy. Oh the disappointment...


However, I do like Hotaru anyways, cool looks, fun to play as.

Hotaru is one of the characters who I think would have really benefited from having their alternate costume as their primary design (Mavado, Drahmin, Kobra, and Li Mei in MKD are the others). The helmet definitely makes him stand out more.

Either way, he's still one of my favourite MK character designs.

Them looking the same always bugged me. I think Hotaru should have pupils in his eyes at the very least. I mean, why are they white? He's mortal. Everyone else with white eyes is either dead, a god, or at least blind.

. . . Clearly because he was made to look like a god in order to have legitimacy!

But it failed, because his eyebrows are still black!

That's what happens when the Senate of Orderrealm tries to fool with nature!



-overthought-

Or is old Shang in MK9.

Or is young Shang in MK2 and 3.

Or is Nightwolf in MK3.

Well okay, dead, blind, a god, or a powerful wizard.
Still, Hotaru's none of those.

There's no good reason it should bother you. Has it at least occurred you that his white eyes could be characteristic to his kind? Just like some humans have blue eyes, and others hazel, some Seidans might have completely white eyes.

As for the similarities between Hotaro and Fujin, they do not bother me. They still look different enough. It's not like they're palette swaps of one another. Just because they're not related doesn't mean they can't look alike. As long as they do not outright look like each other, with the same clothes and the same hair. Or act the same.

They do nearly have the same facial features and hair though. That's kinda the problem, if someone only saw his portrait on the select screen and couldn't tell he's wearing that armor from the neck down, they would potentially mistake him for Fujin. They need more to differentiate them, like one of them should grow some facial hair and/or Hotaru should have pupils in his eyes.

And if white eyes were common in Seido, you'd think lots of Seidan NPCs in Konquest would have them too, like how lots of NPCs in Chaosrealm have flesh missing in places the way Havik does.

For starters, people who immediatly assumed Hotaru on MKD's character select screen was Fujin are guilty of jumping to conclusion. I do not think very highly of such people. What if a new blonde gal was introduced, and she had some similar facial features to Sonya but was otherwise a completely different character? Is there any rule forbidding the creation of any blonde gals other than Sonya in the MK franchise? That's how unimportant those similarities between Hotaru and Fujin are to me, provided they differ enough from one another. And they do.

I also never said white eyes were a common Seidan characteristic. These could be rare among them. Another possibility is age. As for those Havik look-alikes you've just mentioned, you do realize that the MK team is well known for it's laziness, right? Why would you expect other Chaos realm inhabitants, all of them completely minor characters, to look unique and memorable? Maybe such a look is common among them. Nowhere was this stated though.

Take a look at the nameless Tarkatans in MK:SM and MKD's Konquest mode. In both games, they all look alike. But we know they're not all the same, as evidenced by the female Tarkatan in Baraka's MK9 ending, and the darker-skinned one right behind him. They made a better effort in individualizing minor characters this time. If the Chaos realm inhabitants had benefitted from the same effort, there would have been much more individuality. Bloody hell, they're supposed to be against conformity. Yet most of them look like Havik? Definitely laziness on the MK team's part. Or these random characters are just unimaginative and lousy at being chaotic. Havik would be so disappointed.

So, with all of that said, Hotaro having white eyes shouldn't be that big a deal. I don't care if either him or Fujin are given a mustache (Though it'd look funnier on Fujin) for the sake of individuality, but I also do not care about their similarities, as they're still different enough.

I don't think 2 guys with long white hair is a big knock against character diversity in a series with a million ninjas running around. Also the only game they both appeared in was Armageddon, which had everyone at the time.

As for no pupils, Razor, white eyed characters only being gods/sorcerors/undead is a rule YOU made up to justify the characters' appearances, not something NRS ever said themselves. So that means they can and will give them to whoever they want and it doesn't mean they're violating their own canon. People's fanon, yeah sure...

It could be as simple as they think white eyes make Hotaru look cool. Look at SF....Bison, Sagat, Dhalsim, Gen, Rolento, Hakan...all have the white eyes and have nothing else in common.

the that was most striking is that fujin was found in Seido in MKD with some authority like he made himself the realms protector because he was jelous of raiden.
I know he isnt but thats the impression i got.
And Hotaru is a Seidan so i saw a connection, exept fujins voice was made very different to hotaru's.
But seems the Seidan city is on a giant wheel in the sky of orderrealm, it makes sense that a wind god enjoys the odd visit lol

I didn't make it a rule, I just pointed out that everyone else who has them HAPPENS to be magical or has a reason to have cataracts. It was an observation.

Hotaru (and maybe Tanya in Deception, but she looks like she's wearing a domino mask so her eyes could be the superhero effect) is the only dude in the games whose eyes are just...white for no reason and it, combined with his strong resemblance to Fujin, is weird to me. That's all I'm saying.

Y'know, you guys are being weirdly super-defensive about Hotaru's appearance for what a minor character he is. Would having normal eyes hurt him any? I really don't think so. They gave Nightwolf normal eyes in the 3D games and no one seemed to notice or care.

Hotaru and fujin are the same character. I only played mkii, but i played it a heck of a lot and used hotaru alot. Mkii is awesome with shoa kon as boss and kintaro is cool Just kidding about the above (I'm not that much of a newborn). They do look similar though. Never used Hotaru much in deception, my main was always Noob-Smoke despite how cheap (sorta) they are. Sub-zero i used ally.

I'm sticking with my answer. If it doesn't make sense, make up fanon for it. Although being the only guy in Seido with white eyes isn't really living up to the conformity standard. The other Seidan characters have normal eyes - Dairou and Darrius, I mean.

I agree with most people, though, I think it was just to look cool.

You don't have to try to justify Hotaru's white-eyedness. Scorpion is undead and his eyes are white. Is that alone justificable? White eyes are common to blind people in the real world and they are white because they don't work. Scorpion can see. Don't try to dig a deep reason out of that. Thing is, the cool factor goes above reason in the design department.