Blame whoever renamed him to “Akuma”.
Akuma seems to be True Neutral. The thing is, one should never trust True Neutral characters.
Akuma/Gouki is simply the embodiment of the age old mantra “playing to win,” Ryu and Gouken are scrubs who think going all out to the point where you might kill your opponent is cheap.
You really can’t classify characters as alignments, especially with no absolute set of morals to relate a character’s actions to, unlike many DnD settings.
A better way to go about classifying characters would be by their affiliations and current goals/actions.
Killing someone doesn’t make you bad and saving someone doesn’t make you good. Things aren’t that simple. You need to look at the character’s philosophies. Is Gouki evil because he killed people? I would wager that Boxer is far more evil then Gouki even though Boxer hasn’t taken a life yet in the SF universe as far as we know.
Akuma killed his master in cold blood and hasn’t ever repented that - that makes him bad. His subsequent actions may seem slightly more honourable, but regardless, he is still killing people.
Cold blood? Repented?
Goutetsu smiled at his death for his student had surpassed him and now Gouki wears the beads of his fallen master out of respect. Gouki honored his master by doing exactly what Goutetsu wanted. Taking his art to the very limit and using it as it was meant to be used.
For taking the lives of other warriors.
As I said, killing people doesn’t necessarily make one evil. Especially for reasons such as Gouki’s who ONLY kills in battle and NEVER fights someone unless they want to fight or challenge him.
Fix’d.
many of those characters you consider “good” id say are more neutral in relations to the storyline of sf4, they basically aren’t really a part of it - for example dan and blanka have nothing to do with the main storyline and don’t contribute to the evil party or the good party, they are just doing their own thing
no doubt about it, that akuma is considered an evil character in the sf4 storyline and is definitely a villain
if you want to base your good/evil thing in morality it’ll become too conveluted, you need to see it in relation to the storyline, for example
sagat in sf2 = evil
sagat in sf4 = neutral
Not to mention, he never picks a fight. And out of the 4 people he’s killed 3 of them are back, and one of them was evil. Goutetsu, Gouken, Adon and M. Bison. Some how, Adon’s alive again…
And Akuma never killed Gen, he spared Gen’s life when he saw that Gen was dying. Gen didn’t really like that all too much…
Who cares if you base it on relation to main story or not. Gouki isn’t evil period. He does not delight in taking lives or harming others nor is he mentally unstable. Nor does he look down on others or seek to dominate others. He just wants a worthy opponent and when he kills someone he only kills them out of respect and only if they are near his level of power. He fought Ken and Gen and spared both of them. Why? Because Ken wasn’t near his level and Gen is sick. Gouki isn’t heartless. Not by a longshot.
Sagat DEFINITELY isn’t evil. Misguided and vengeful early on the SF story sure. Evil? No. Even when he was vengeful he didn’t want to kill Ryu he just wanted to reclaim his title as the strongest. He killed one person. Go Hibiki. Dan’s father. Well it was in a Muay Thai match where death does happen albeit rarely. That said Go was pretty pissed off that he lost to Sagat and tried to gouge out Sagat’s eye when Sagat was trying to help him off the mat. So, yeah Sagat lost it and killed him. Was it on purpose? Probably not and even then Sagat realized his error and tried to make up for it by letting Dan beat him.
And when Dictator tried to take over Ryu, Sagat held him off while Ken and Sakura confronted Dictator. Yeah, sorry I can’t see Sagat as evil in any way shape or form.
Where are you getting this from?
“Gouki isn’t evil period. He does not delight in taking lives or harming others nor is he mentally unstable. Nor does he look down on others or seek to dominate others.” - that is wrong and disturbing all at the same time 
Common sense and SF wiki.
dwd: How is it disturbing?
You guys seem to have a very black and white view of things. Nothing is that simple.
You got me!
Ok, lets try to apply the wonkiness of SF to real life. Pro boxers Vitali(gouken) and Wladimir(akuma) Klitschko. If Wladimir attempted to constantly kill his brother in training because “its his philosophy” thats fucking evil. Not only that, Vitali has a son(Ryu, yes i know ryu is not gouken’s biological father) and Wladimir wants to fight and kill him as well.Also in his 3rd strike ending he outright murders a ship and a submarine full of people! That nigga is evil! A badass, but evil.
Guys evil can still mean “Not good”. If they have good morals and a good attitude they’re not evil. But if they have a bad attitude or looks evil they’re probably Chaotic Good, to call upon DnD alignments.
Lawful Good Lawful Neutral Lawful Evil
—Guile-------- Ryu------Vega(Claw)
Neutral Good True Neutral Neutral Evil
-----Dhalsim-----Dan-------Sagat
Chaotic Good Chaotic Neutral Chaotic Evil
—Zangief------Akuma-------Bison
Sexy Good Sexy Neutral Sexy Evil
—Chun Li-----Sakura-----Juri
Fixed, that’s how I think it is.
glad i’m not the only one that feels that way. play to win son.
I’d be surprised if they didn’t try and kill each other every time they sparred, what with the steroids and shit they’re both taking. Although not as much as that 7 foot king mongoloid who fought David Haye. (bloody soviets and their cheating)
(3rd strike sub was just ironically named and was actually full of russians, so its cool that he blew them all up)
:wgrin: