frankly i like the blocky models over the advent children models for especially cloud, aeris, and sephiroth. Aeris just looks like some homely whore in the new games. Trashy wavy hair or whatever. gross.
That model for the detailed version show's how much better looking the clothing and details are. The belt and straps are clearer and actually have the image on the belt, his chest and arms are more toned and buff, his boots have the zipper, his metal plate on his shoulder is more detailed and his wrist band too. Then the images I posted show the details on his face.
Yes, it's done in a silly manner. My point is that the sprite in its animated form wasn't so ambiguous that you couldn't figure out the mannerism they were doing, and I mentioned the "shame on you finger wagging" context as a reference to how a Westerner could recognize it.
In Japanese context, it's probably something you would see in an anime where silly stuff is happening.
Holy shit, I've never seen that either... would kill for a brand new FF to look like that (and it's a shame all the 2D cellphone spinoffs of the FF series have such awful sub-RPGMaker-grade 2D artwork).