I ask Tanabe if the fact that Samus is female changed his approach to how she interacted with that world, and he reponds that while they were careful about the way they animated her, it wasnt specifically because she was female but more that they were reticent to simply make her feel powerful by using powerful looking or barbaric animations.
Through the discussions with Retro, he says, we came up with keyword elegant. Shes beautifully elegant, but also powerful. Tanabe demonstrates what he means by suddenly grabbing his translator by the collar, pantomiming a hand-gun to the translators head, and explains that one of the scenarios they ran through with co-creator Sakamoto is how Samus would react to a Space Pirate taking someone hostage.
What we heard from him is that she would not yell hold on! She wouldnt show any emotions at all, shed just bring up her gun and hit the pirate with a head shot. Tanabe loosens his grip on the surprisingly unfazed translator and brings his fingers in one slow sweep up to his own head, and with a verbal bajoooom fires dead-eye, leaning back in slow motion, his hands showing us the arc and splatter of Space Pirate viscera spilling from the cap of his skull. Shes very calm, very professional in killing. She doesnt show any emotions on the surface, but shes very passionate inside her.
