Bridget from Japanese fighting game Guilty Gear -Strive- might just be one of my favorite trans girl characters of all time.
She is the total antithesis of the dour, melancholy trans woman that tends to permeate the kind of realistic (if not slightly depressing) fiction that my fellow trans feminine writers and I tend to create. Peppy, spunky, and playful, Bridget wears a nun-themed hoodie and uses a massive yo-yo and sentient teddy bear to damage her opponents. She’s always down for a fight, and very little gets her down.
Bridget, in other words, is the picture of trans female joy. Now she’s getting a plushie. And I want one SO BAD.
Earlier this week, Nendoroid creator Good Smile Company announced a 200mm (approximately 7.8in) Bridget plushie starring the character “in an adorable sitting pose.” The toy, which is priced at Â¥5,500 (or around $42), comes out this June. Pre-orders are already open, so you can go ahead and reserve your Bridget plushie right now.
Here’s what she looks like.
Interested Guilty Gear fans have until March 1 at 9PM CT to pre-order, so make sure you save up your cash before you miss your chance to grab Bridget for your gaming desk.
Who is Bridget, you may ask?
Bridget has a unique backstory in Guilty Gear, especially as a trans girl character. First appearing in 2002’s Guilty Gear XX, Bridget was one of two twins born to a wealthy English family. Bridget and her twin were both assigned as male at birth, but due to a feared local superstition about male twins, Bridget’s parents decided to raise her as a girl. Nonetheless, Bridget grew up perceiving herself as a boy.
Across the Guilty Gear series, Bridget becomes a world-renowned bounty hunter. Yet, while her success essentially destroys the superstition’s hold on her town and family, she begins to struggle with her gender and question whether she’s a boy at all. In Guilty Gear -Strive-, Bridget comes to terms with the fact that she is a girl, and the game ends with her accepting and embracing her gender.
Transphobic Guilty Gear fans have tried to argue their way out of Bridget’s gender identity, but Bridget is canonically a trans woman. In September 2022, Guilty Gear designer and creator Daisuke Ishiwatari confirmed Bridget “self-identifies as a woman,” and “the correct pronoun for Bridget […] would be ‘she’.” In a followup interview, -Strive- game director Akira Katano stated “the message of the character and the drama” for Bridget’s storyline was “decided for a long time.”
“Nowadays, transgender people are much more widely recognized,” Katano said, “and it seems like the times have caught up with Bridget’s story, which we had been thinking about for a long time.”
That’s pretty awesome. As a teen, I looked up to Bridget, in no small part because I grew up surrounded by fan art of her in the gaming communities I frequented online. It’s great to see Bridget change with me as I transitioned, too, and it’s why I’ll happily buy this plushie, as soon as I can scrounge up the cash.
(feature image: Arc System Works)
