I think the surest sign that this vote didn't count Western votes is, look at who made it and who didn't -- of the nine characters in the game, all seven Japanese or half-Japanese characters made it into the game, while only two of the non-Japanese characters made the list. I know many of the most popular female DOA characters are Japanese, but still, seeing all seven of them finish above all non-Japanese characters other than Marie Rose shows who was voting, not Westerners. I mean, Momiji is cool, but she'd never finish above Tina or Lisa in a worldwide vote, I think.
But more importantly, will DOA3 have actual decent gameplay this time? I have the first two games, they're pretty bad volleyball games. Beach Spikers for the GC absolutely
destroys DOA XBV as a volleyball game, and the second game isn't much better. And as for the other modes, the jetski racing in the second game is too limited to be as fun as it should be (you should at least be allowed to choose your track!), and there's nothing else other than some mediocre minigames and casino games I don't care about one bit.
Oh, and the "give presents to the other girls" thing is too obtuse for me to care about it much; I send them things, they often send them back, there is no feedback as to why. The clues about what to send are uselessly obscure unless you play the games far more than they deserves You can't really interact with the other girls beyond sending them gifts and trying to partner with other girls, it's ridiculously obtuse and awful. But that's DOAX in a nutshell, a collection of bad gameplay modes tossed together that's popular... why? Just the fanservice?
I like the main Dead or Alive fighting game series quite a bit, despite the overdone fanservice -- the DOA series is my favorite 3d fighting game franchise, or at least they're the 3d fighters I have the most fun playing. They have fantastic gameplay. But the DOAX games are kind of terrible, and I don't quite get why people like them -- sure, they have the DOA girls in them in bathing suits, but don't you need actual gameplay to want to play a game much? I've tried to play both games several times, but they are so incredibly boring thanks to the bad gameplay that they aren't much fun at all. DOAXBV and DOAX2 are bad games.
Of course, given that in my opinion DOA5 is a worse fighting game than DOA2 through 4 are, I'm not expecting too much; the new Team Ninja's got nothing on the old one. (To be clear DOA5 is a good game, it's just less good than the previous ones, DOA1 excepted. The graphics and art design aren't as good as DOA4, either.)
Funny you should mention that
According to the wikia
1. Marie Rose - Age 18
2. Honoka - Age 18
3. Kasumi - Age 19
4. Ayane - Age 18
5. Kokoro - Age 19
6. Nyotengu - Age 1018 (???)
7. Hitomi - Age 20
8. Momiji - Age 21
9. Helena - Age 23
Guess Tina, Lisa, and Christie being mid 20's made them a bit too old.
On the note of character ages, one of the few better things about DOA5 compared to the past games was the two-year timeskip -- Ayane being 16 and Kasumi 17, as they are by the ages stated in the games from DOAs 1 through 4, was a bit creepy conceptually even if the actual characters don't look anywhere remotely that young. (The Western versions of those games censor their ages out, but the Japanese versions list their ages.)