We should keep in mind that the series already moved away from making all the characters totally obvious ethnic/racial/national stereotypes. Plenty of them are references to earlier video game/anime/literature/whatever characters way more than they represent a country (see Rose, who putting her obvious Lisa Lisa reference aside leans way more towards representing Gypsies than she does Italians). With that in mind:
West Africa-Like javert said, some vodun practitioner would be an obvious angle to take a character from the region (easily iconic element of culture and also derivative cultures, can provide flashy enough visuals and easy gimmicks). The only character from earlier FGs I can think of like this is Raven from Eternal Champions. If antagonistic he/she could also be a rival to any of the more mystical characters (Rose, Dhalsim, Menat).
United States’ Northwest to Canada-A man/woman who’s all about taming the wild be it hunting, cutting down trees, etc. Can provide a rival for Blanka as the hunter hunting the beast man.
Gen’s Disciple-Gen’s art must live on and Gen obviously didn’t teach Chunners all he knew about assassinating (obviously she’d be way more broken if he did). Frankly I wonder if Zetsu’s youthful form was modeled on the drafts they did for Gen’s Canned Disciple. You can give the apprentice a dao if you wish to set him apart from Gen.
Scandinavia-A Nord who’s all about the sea, mastering it, getting it to fight for her/him. Whether a diver, a captain, or even a fisherman. I also don’t recall SF having a solid hydrokinetic before.
Central Europe-A character inspired by Vlad Dracul III. I say Vlad instead of Dracula since rather than do the route of making the character a vampire or pseudo-vampire (granted he/she can still evoke vampirism or otherwise being a creature of the night in super moves) make the character more of a radical “terror hero” (think Batman) who’s all about enforcing the proper order. Obvious rival in Juri.
Mongolia-Just an archer. Even today there are Mongolians practicing traditional horse-archery.
I don’t get why stereotypes are considered a bad thing. Especially early in fighting games, where any semblence of story you had to piece together from contradicting endings and the character designs and moveset. The manuals would give a little backstory, but that wasn’t possible in the arcade. So if you include an Indian, anyone from all over the world should be able to tell he’s Indian, same for Native Americans, same for Arabs, same for Japanese or US Americans. As long as you’re not making fun of said stereotypes it’s fine… or as long as you don’t fall into things like making any black guy a thug or any Islamist a terroist, which SF at least has balanced well.
It’s really such a dumb issue to bring up, since the supposed veild racism in these designs is never brought up with characters like Eagle and Birdie, clearly British (a gentleman and a punker, very synonymous with 80’s UK) or the Japanese cast like Retsu and Geki (a ninja and a monk, no explanation needed). And those are only from the first game! I’d surely be HONORED if a future Romanian Street Fighter were to use some traditional motifs into his design and have the personality of a rulal bumpkin so you can tell from first glance what he’s about. It doesn’t matter the majority doesn’t dress and act like that, because that’s what most of our literary and mythological heroes do act like and it’s easy to anyone knowledgable about this stuff (or who looks into the motifs after the character’s introduction) to click with.
Adding up to my fanfiction post recently on SGS and Gouken as another example other than the DC’s Final Crisis reference would be from Giorno
Is the Gold Experience Requiem from JoJo Bizzare Adventure
Something that Giorno used against Diavolo.
So Gouken attaining MU makes him transcend his self from any subconscious traps made by SNH spirit.
The it makes him fight several astral warrior like entities that would try to kill him then again fight another different astral warrior that would again try to kill him and it would repeat. Like an endless battle-mode, Until the spirit of the victim is break and exhausted from the eternal cycle of destruction and defeat.
This can be also a good reference for Akuma speak during SGS in SF4:
It’s Senegal, but Laamb could work well for SF, it’s a big fight sport there, but also something with deep tradition/culture and even esotherism
Yeah, ever said i will like a romanian rep playing on vampire figure without him necessary be an actual one. Like pale af, retro vibe clothes, dark type of ki etc
Will like to be indipendent and hate Illuminati (just like Vlad hated Ottoman empire), in that way darkness based ki could represent further his opposition to them (the “enlighted ones”)
Since you brought up Mu again I thought I might share some pretty interesting info regarding it.
Since Mu in SF is based on Muso Tensei from HnK I thought I might look into how it functions in that story to see if there are even more parallels between the 2 techniques. So how the wiki describes it in the first paragraph
The ultimate secret technique of Hokuto Shin Ken. It is said that only one who embraces the true nature of sorrow can awaken its power. Kenshiro was the first man in Hokuto Shinken’s 1800 year history to master Musō Tensei during the epic struggles against his friends and great rivals. Musō Tensei allows the user to achieve a state of “nothingness”, impervious to attacks, and commune with the souls of fallen rivals (Toki, Ryūga, the Nanto Roku Seiken and later Raoh) in order to use their techniques.
Raoh also learned Musō Tensei when his feelings for Yuria unlocked the profound sadness within his heart.
What stands out to me are the fact that in order to unlock the technique one must know the true nature of sorrow or profound sadness. Profound Sadness sounds pretty familiar in the SF universe correct?
Guy’s KO quote from SF4 is “Profound Sadness” in English. In Japanese, he says Munen 無念 which translate to regret, though if you break each kanji apart it turns out to mean “No thought”, and Munen as a Buddhist term means free from obstructive thoughts. Being free from thought is the state of mind needed to acquire Mu.
As far as SF media goes, Guy is the first character to be depicted in such a state. In the Nakahira manga Guy is able to block all of the hits from SGS with one hand. After that, Gen is seen blocking SGS in his SFA3 pre fight intro with Akuma, then Gouken in SF4.
As Yagami said, bitches bitching even if they maybe are’nt even into SF lol
Wich will not be much a problem in her final 3D model, as the zip is closed much higher, at stomach height.
I think i said to me was’nt about get less virtua tits
The windows were surely fanservice, but skin color there was supposed to work for color scheme too.
If they known it was’nt going to get approved they probably will have come up with some other visual solution
Btw even if retard censorship i liked the back undersuit on legs though, the black link with her hair color. But the huge cover on the tits ruin the color scheme completely, it becomes too black/dark purple heavy and uniform.
Whatever, best look she got still is her nostalgia one
Yeah, in SF6 I hope she returns to the SF4 look or something similar. Having the SF5 jacket alt is a nice touch if they want to change it up (keep the code to switch it on and off).
Personally will like it to be exactly like SF4 one(removing some gratuitous tryhard shit they added in V), then the code to eventually ADD the jacked
They did it right with Alex
Funny thing is SFV standard already was a development of her SF4 alt, wich was’nt that good
Juri’s fight pose was designed around her having these large TKD pants, it was what made her interessing to see
How her lower half was “heavy” instant tell you these kicks were going to wreck shit
Plus of course it tell you a story without need words:
The overall design will have make you guess she does TKD and her power it’s mostly on kicks
TKD and her skin/hair colors will have you guess she’s Korean
That color scheme and details will have you guessing she probably a villain or at least not “good”, maybe a bit slutty while at it
And you will have been correct on all of these lol
Honestly think SF4 Juri it’s best female SF design behind holy monsters like Chun Li and Cammy
If i could save only 3 female designs, they will be for sure
Cammy was complementary to Chun, Juri feel complementary to both of them
SF3 still did an awesome great work on Makoto and Ibuki though. Elena was good too, just a step behind them
@Cestus_II
Love Vincent. Cowboy Beebop has so many incredible characters it’s astounding. And I don’t mind the pseudo-vampire idea in general at all, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. Maybe I’ll share my Ro character concept when I have more time, but to sum it up it’s a girl, fencing as her fighting style and is a rival to Vega.
Regarding Juri’s design, while neither the original concept or the finished design are all that good, especially compared to her original one (even with V’s jacket), what I really hate about it is the boob increase. And that’s coming from a boob man! It was kind of a point of her that she was quite frustrated due to her flat chest and the ‘loving boobs’ tidbit from… somewhere (that exists right? I’m not crazy?) was a nice little reference to both that and a nod to her sexuality. I like that more for the same reason I prefer Poison to have a dick: makes the cast more diverse. Juri is clearly supposed to be a cock tease, beyond an evil cunt, so developing that more with these kind of (very modern!) frustrations enriches her character further than just another hentai bait.
I guess I must’ve correlated her flat chest and big boob liking to get that kinda head-canon idea then… which isn’t really working against my point tho… the simple fact you can impose those kind of tidbits into a character based on so little details only enriches him/her. Something the V design misses either way. So she likes big boobs and has big boobs… Well no duh, she’s already an arrogant ass who uses her sex-appeal in battle so why WOULDN’T she like big boobs then?
