"Both male and female characters have to be sexy, since if we sexualize only female characters then that's not fair."
In MK9 Liu Kang was as sexy as Sonya Blade. Sonya did have some major cleavage action going on, but Liu Kang was running around half naked, while flexing his muscle. Both their outfits had zero functionality. She wasn't dressed as a soldier and he shouldn't be fighting half-naked against Nosferatus with sword-arms.
While the sexyness in MK9 and also older MK games was an obvious design choice, that design choice was scrapped in MKX to a great degree. In MKX both these two characters lost ALL of their sexyness.
Which is the question of this entire thread: Should NRS bring back a little bit of sexyness across the board in MK11. That would mean some cleavage action for Sonya and more skin and muscle for Liu Kang.
I personally do think that the sexyness and fan service are a big and important part of the medium and western pop culture in general. Look at female superheroes. Almost none of them wear functional and practical outfits. But again, the same can be said for male superheroes. No man is as ripped as Captain America, Batman or Thor. And these characters are half naked all of the time as well. Look at comics. There are countless scenes, where these characters have no shirt, while they're working out or fighting or whatever.
