It's not unusual for video games to be altered to appeal to audiences in other territories – look at how Kirby's expression was tweaked for some of his North American adventures, for example.
The process can work in the opposite direction, too – for example, the PS1/Saturn platformer Pandemonium was retitled Magical Hoppers in Japan, with the main characters given an anime-style facelift.
The same thing almost happened with Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, according to former Core Design staffer Paul Douglas:
"Victor [the publisher in Japan] wanted us to change in-game Lara to appeal more to a Japanese audience. Huge eyes/head etc. They faxed through examples really late in dev. Toby Gard really didn't want to alter Lara. As a compromise all that was changed was the manuals & guide. Not sure who did that render or illustrations."
As noted by NixieTube, the 'anime' Lara actually appears in the Japanese version of the game's manual.