Some of the alternate costumes use different animations, like Inkling for example or, more recently, Byleth. Inkling's idle animation is different depending on if it's a female or male Inkling for example. Wouldn't that mean that their hurtboxes behave differently in their idle animation? Is there an actual theoretical/practical gameplay difference (however minor) between alternate costumes?
Because some people seem to have trouble seeing very obvious differences in animations, here's an example grabbed from Sakurai's Direct:
Notice how they hold their swords over their right shoulder. Let's say you had a Fox fire his Blaster from the left at the same height as their heads. If hurtboxes and hitboxes follow the animations (which is what I thought would be the case), wouldn't that mean that Fox would hit female Byleth in the head, while male Byleth's right hand would be hit?
Best Answer
Agreeing with senpai, alternate costumes and associated different animations do not change the hurtboxes (and hitboxes) for the characters. However, I want to back this statement with a quote from the Smash Wiki page.
And also this previous Arqade answer, which states that it is mechanically impossible for alternate costumes to have different hurtboxes (and hitboxes).