Talim (Soulcalibur)

As a character introduced in Soulcalibur II, Talim's weapons, a pair of elbow blades, were decided upon before other aspects of the character were.[5] Originally considered for the first Soulcalibur, the weapons were selected to be unique amongst the others characters' weapons in the title.[6] Her design and concept were built to revolve around them, starting with gender, then physical measurements, and lastly background details. Once established her appearance and movement were fleshed out by the team's concept artist Aya Takemura[5] and rendered as a 3D model by a design team that worked solely on the character.[7] Talim was then animated by a motion designer using motion capture and working directly with the team.[5] During this phase the team additionally worked with the Soulcalibur story creators, refining the character's own role in the plot as needed throughout development.[8]

Talim's weapons were built around the concept of dual-weapon usage, with special emphasis that while bladed, the weapons themselves were not actual tonfa, intended more as ritual items used in ceremonial dances. During development it was considered to allow them to transform and be sentient, however the idea was abandoned.[9] In artwork of an early character lineup, her weapons were significantly larger and extending the length of her whole arm.[10] The weapons were shortened as development progressed, due to concerns that their length should cause her "stomach to be sliced open" when she used them and how they restricted her character movement.[11] However, this iteration made it farther into the design process, as finalized concept sketches of her outfit shown in The Art of Soulcalibur II feature the longer blades.[12]

Talim's character concept was designed around the idea of introducing a young female character that the developers felt the series lacked, thought due to her design some of the development team confused her for a boy.[9] Early character drafts also gave her a more "determined" personality, emphasized by her facial expressions.[11] Her outfits were based on a "Priestess of the Wind" motif, and meant to represent attire worn by her village during rituals.[13] For her appearance in Soulcaibur VI they focused on a refinement of her costume from Soulcalibur II, incorporating a large hat and ribbons into the design to better emphasize the wind theme.[14] She stands at 144 cm (4 ft 8 in) tall, making her the second shortest playable character in the series, and has a bust size of 70 cm (27 in).[15]

In the Village of the Wind Deity (Nayong Anito ng Hangin), Samar island, there lived a tribe of people who could control the winds. Talim was the granddaughter of this village's elder, Kalana, and daughter of its shaman, Lidi.[16] Due to turmoil caused by the influences of Spanish and Portuguese culture, she was reared to be its last priestess (babaylan). The day that the Evil Seed spread across the world, Talim felt the winds, and an evil aura that devoured everything in its path surged into her body, causing her to lose consciousness for days.

Years later, when Talim was 15 years old, a man from the west brought with him a strange metal fragment, claiming it to be a vitality amulet. Talim, however, recognized the evil energy as the same energy she had experienced years before and left on a journey, believing that if she were to return the fragment to its rightful place, peace would eventually be restored, despite the elders' misgivings. Having collected several of the fragments, she eventually learned that the source of the evil energy was an evil sword called Soul Edge. Sensing another source of evil energy, Talim traveled to a mountain range, eventually locating it in a sick child living at a watermill. A young man named Hong Yun-seong arrived later as Talim settled into the watermill to try to heal the child, also searching for clues regarding Soul Edge, and came to stay with her. Talim ultimately healed the child by releasing the evil energy from within him all at once into the wind.[17] She then left the watermill with Yun-seong and continued to search for Soul Edge in Soulcalibur IV. They met Seong Mi-na on their travels, and together she and Talim tried to convince Yun-seong of the dangers in attempting to attain Soul Edge's power. However, Yun-seong vanished the next day, leaving both of them worried but hoping he would make the right choice. The two parted ways: Mi-na to look for Yun-seong, while Talim carried on the search for Soul Edge alone.

In the rebooted timeline of Soulcalibur VI, Talim had to prove herself to her people, especially her grandmother, that she could return the fragment of Soul Edge to its rightful place. After passing her grandmother's test, Talim began her journey westward.

Her movement and fighting style were designed around her culture and a bird-theme, emphasizing close horizontal strikes upon opponents as well as freedom of movement.[9] In Soulcalibur III, these weapons, and Talim's "Wind Dance" fighting style are available under the discipline Soul of Talim to characters created under the Saint class. The names of her moves are mostly in Tagalog. According to 1UP.com, Talim is a difficult character to master as the player using her "has to rely on tricks, gimmicks, and stuns to really apply any damage, and these need a bit of time -- and timing -- to set up."[18]

Publications such as PSM have utilized Talim's image with a focus on sexuality[19]

Talim was received with positive reception, and in 2015 was voted the most popular Soulcalibur character in the West in an official poll by Namco Bandai.[20] In 2018 for the release of Soulcalibur VI, Bandai Namco Entertainment released a 90 mm (3.51 in) as a pre-order bonus for Best Buy, featuring her in her primary outfit.[21]

GameNOW described her as "profoundly unique not only to SC2, but to fighting games in general."[22] GameSpy's Christian Nutt stated Talim's "unpredictable nature" made her interesting, though added "she's almost too cute to fit in with the rest of the SCII crew."[23] Tim Rogers in a review for Insert Credit called Talim "the cutest of the young girl characters [in Soulcalibur II] by far," and stated a preference for her symmetrical outfits.[24] PSW called her the game's token teenage girl, though added she "shouldn't be underestimated or thought of as a joke character no matter how big her eyes are. [...] Talim is the girl with hidden strengths."[25]

She has also been cited as the first visible Filipino character in video games, and has been described in a study of the series' characters as "created for the Philippine market".[26] The book Open World Empire: Race, Erotics, and the Global Rise of Video Games noted that her appearance and ability to control the wind gave her ethnic background "a campy cultural 'fragrance' that invites humorous parodies and irreverent performances as well as objectifying gazes," but due to the race's scarcity in video games, she also garnered pride.[27] Game writer Pat Miller in an interview for Polygon stated regarding her cultural background he "was really stoked to see that...I like having those points of identification". Himself part Filipino, he added that her inclusion made it easier to bring new people into the fighting game community.[28]

Some criticisms however have been levied against the character's sexualization. Brazilian Professor Georgia da Cruz Pereira stated that despite representing "a bit of differentiation compared to most of the characters in the game" due to a lack of breasts and hips coupled with her young age, "she is still inserted within a context of sexualization and standardization of the female body" in the series.[29] The Village Voice described her as "mixing it up in see-through pants and a bra top", further calling her a "troubling" example of over-sexualization and costume fetish in the game.[30] Maddy Myers in an article for Kotaku echoed these concerns, stating in Soulcalibur VI she "wears a tiny X-shaped tube top that criss-crosses over her nipples and a string bikini bottom that pokes out of low-slung shorts. Putting the series’ [...] youngest and most innocent characters in bikinis seems unnecessary."[31] In a review for VideoGamer.com's Italian branch, Valentino Cinefra cited Myers' statements, criticizing the use of fanservice in the game and stating "thirteen-year-old Talim is also dressed in a flirty way, and the little screams she makes when hit certainly don't help."[32] However, Talim has also been utilized in material revolving around her sex appeal as a female character,[33] and has been praised by Matt Sainsbury of Digital Downloaded in multiple articles for providing fanservice in the series, in particular in regards to her "harem outfit" in Soulcalibur IV.[34][35]

Contrary to both viewpoints, University of Delaware professor Rachael Hutchinson noted elements of her design suggest innocence, namely the pink ribbons in her hair, and her observation that Talim's costume was not as revealing as other female characters within the series. While discussing her design, she stated that as the series progressed Talim's black hair shifted to a more blue hue, and believes this was meant to signify her as the "Other" to Japanese viewers: Asian, but not Japanese.[26] In another study, Hutchinson emphasized Talim's height against the series' much taller male characters, stating that being able to fight them with her "inverts stereotypical gender expectations and provides entertainment through deviation from the norm", due to the expectation male opponents should win due to their superior size.[36]