A topic which I've discovered has flared up on other FF forums recently.

Forgive me if someone's already started raving about this, but don't you think theres' something fishy about Stella's similarities (aesthetic) to Aerith. She shares design elements with Rinoa too. Before anyone goes flaming me I'll say what I'm already aware of:

* People jumping to conclusions to 'link things' in Final Fantasy because it is exciting. Yes Reno and Axel were based off the same character refs, but does that mean Reno has ANYTHING to do with KH?

* Nomura has done the character designing since FFVI/VII, and of course it's going to be hard to have enough varation between characters, with archetypes the artistic style, the public and he personally favours creating limitations...

BUT! I still think the likeness is deliberate. (I won't start on the SasukexCloud-ness of Noctis, lol. The multiple swords techinique and dress/haircut is similar though ^^)

1) Because it has already been stated that Lightening was deliberately intended to be reminiscent of Cloud Strife

(When I saw the FFXIII video and saw Stella for the first time I immediately thought 'WTF, Aerith?!' Then I went to watch AC again before I jumped to any conclusions and compared tapes.

2) If you overlap the videos of Stella and Aerith from the final scene in AC, the timing and position matches creepily, as if Nomura traced the frames of Aerith intentionally for Stella.

Stella at 42 secs

YouTube - FInal Fantasy Versus XIII NEW Trailer

Aerith at 17 secs

YouTube - Cloud and Aerith - Final Fantasy VII Advent Children

I'm not trying to sound like a crap-stirrer or a know it all, I'm just trying to provide you with the information on which I based my opinion so I don't get a whole load of replies saying 'BUT! You forgotted thish!!!!' I'm not saying the similarities are a bad thing. I'm not hinting that Nomura is losing his touch or that his designs are too 'samey'- if anything, familiar character designs are what endear us, right?

So yeah... Um, what do you think? Any extra information?