Yeah people didn't even have that white guilt concept of "gooners" yet and hot women in video games were just hot women in video games because sex sells.
Back in 2003 a bunch of Japs we're sitting around in a boardroom somewhere saying "Oh, we have this decent fighting game, it's never going to live up to street fighter or mortal kombat but it has a pretty big fan base. Marketing and developing tells us that the reason it has such a big fan base is because teenage boys think the characters are hot as fuck. Now since fake ass, Trad larping shame hasn't been invented online yet I think we should make a volleyball game of all those beloved characters in skimpy bikinis."
The guy who came up with that game got a raise. Which in Japan means he gets a 20 minute lunch break instead of a 15 minute one now. The moral of the story being there was no such fucking thing as woke or anti woke back then. There was "PC" which only the most hardcore Christian conservatives who weren't allowed to have fun railed about.
Tecmo never gave a fuck about woke, they still don't in 2026. They just want you to pay as many micro transactions as they can get you for to customize your favorite babe.