But they were changed into guys because of concerns against violence against women, correct? Technically it would have been violence against transgenders, which I don’t think their community was as relevant as it is nowadays for them to have caused an uproar about violence against them at the time. Alhough, it’s like you said, Westerners wouldn’t have known this just by going off looks and just seen a woman character being beaten up thus the whole violence against women.
Honestly given the time it would have been worse. Video games were still seen as “children’s toys”. Having a transgender character in the game at all would have caused a fit. Sega was far more lax on censorship at the time and they changed the first boss in Streets of Rage 3 because of he was either gay or trans. I can’t remember which, I do remember that Street of Rage 3 came out years after Final Fight 1 and that the very same game had no issues with the player beating up female NPCs or male NPCs beating up Blaze.
Edit: SoR3 released an 1994. He looks to be a stereotypical gay man.
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And the defence to that being: “wait, they’re not women, they’re transgender!!” was probably something they would want to avoid.
Seriously, why people want Poison to be a woman, or her being trans be a retcon or something baffles me. I want her to be trans for the same reason I want more nationalities: diversity in the cast.
I mean, I know why people want Poison not to have a cock… for the sake of their own cocks… but I don’t give a shit about those people and no one should either.
If anything, the worst thing about Poison to me isn’t this controversy but the fact she’s just a thug who goes down in two hits in the Final Fight games and her inclusion just opens the door for all those other shitty thugs to become main characters. Her place isn’t earned in the cast. Much less throwing fireballs…
So to me, if you’re going to have this piece of shit character in the game, at least have her bring something to the table and if that means she gets a cock to stand out, make it a big veiny one.
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Haha the most - and only - fun I had with a gay man … As 10yr old boy
I actually thought of this point too when she was announced as a character. I mean she was basically character fodder during FF and then becomes a viable playable character, as far as FF villains she was basically a common enemy. At least with Hugo you could understand as he was a mini Boss so actually took some effort to defeat so his transition into a a fighting game character made sense. Then Sodom, Rolento, and Abigail were all former bosses in the game as well and most of their signature attacks came from FF as well. Since Poison was just a common character she really didn’t have any real signature attacks aside from her flip kick that really stood out when compared to the bosses thus they had to add a lot of stuff to make her into what she is now.
So now she has a riding crop and can throw fireballs at people which makes you wonder why she wasn’t such a big threat in the original FF when every other FF character doesn’t really need anything else added to them. Though to say that she opens the door for the rest of the common FF thugs I don’t think that to be the case. Being that she appeared in SF3 as an NPC for Hugo, and the fact that she’s unique given her history of being trans I see her as the exception of all the FF thugs. Though in terms of her moveset, I think they should have done more to make her feel like a combination of multiple FF thugs instead of giving her a riding crop which throws fireballs. I feel like they should have given her a molotov projectile to reference the molotov throwers in FF like they give Cody a steel pipe to reference Haggar’s weapon of choice. Maybe give her a charging headbutt like one of the fat guys in the game. Idk just give her more references in her moveset to how the thugs fought in FF.
As for gay they just need it to be treated as normal but not something as a spotlight or something that need to be discussed in a cartoon.
The romantic relationship that should be discussed in an SF cartoon that is important is Ken with Eliza and Guile with Julia because it’s significant to the characters journey throughout the series. Then the rest including Ryu and Sakura should not be important. While Viper is the only character that also need to discuss about her daughter, not Guile and Ken.
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It depends of what cartoon it is. For SF, I don’t think so.
Its just simple there gay and just dont make those something complicated and important in the cartoon, by avoiding doing a tease and romantic moments.
We don’t even bother or notice how many romantic moments Ken do with Eliza or Guile do to Julia since they are not the important part because the important part is that those areas are significant to the character development that divide their attention to their goals and motivation. Besides the two character that never really needed those why should the irrelevant stuff in the story get tease, attention and romantic moment when those that were weren’t relevant even in the game or the character motivation to be involve in the conflict has never been that need of much romantic moments in the first place.
Because they want a broader audience.
It’s funny, cause I remember thinking somewhere in the middle of season 3, “Man, forget Bolin, and Mako. They should put Korra with Asami.” Never dreaming that would actually happen.
So I pretty much flipped out over the ending.
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My quick take on Poison and Roxy:
They are the work of several people, from game planner to character designer to sprite artist to marketing guy, and you could argue that any of them had just as much authority over the characters as the others. As such it’s impossible to give a single answer since there have been contradicting opinions from them, so, whatever. It’s probably best to keep it as a mistery forever.
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Agree they just don’t need to make something to be discuss, tease, flaunt around or shown. Since it is a cartoon and other romantic relationship isn’t that important either for the minor stuff to get into the screen. Since romantic relationship isn’t important in SF that the most talked is Ken and Eliza which is also a example that is not something important even in the narrative.
Yeah, they are on record asking nickelodeon what’s the farthest they could go. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind seeing Juri and Cammy walkaway holding hands, if you know what I mean
To me that line was already crossed in SFA when sakura joined SF, that was the specific moment you did’nt had anymore to be a world-tier fighter to have a slot
Btw imho Poison could have been there as god tier dirty game, the part (was an ultra iirc) with he/she kicking opponent hard af in the balls was the right direction imho
Think Dampierre in Soul Calibur… he’s not a great warrior, not much skilled or strong. Even kinda coward.
Still despite being a bit a joke char, somehow managed to join the scrap vs knights, samurais and ninjas.
He was unfair, tricky, unpredictable, ruthless…
The dude that smooth talk to put a blade in your eye socket, backstab and coward runaway or pray for mercy then flip you over and stomp you in the balls when you’re down (he literally does it LOL)
Mixing that kind of vibe with street dirty tactics (Cody himself is waaaay better fighter and still use knife, rocks, bar), seduction approach and maybe some pro wrestling stuff they could have made an interessing SF char out of it
Essentially create a concept to explain Poison being much more dangerous than average minion
Giving fireball was a bit random indeed
I agree with all of this. Sakura spoilt the SF series for me and made it less “legit”. At least with karin we - now know - shes from some elite martial arts family and probably had ninjas and shiet training her from a young age AND she still only do palm strikes (as with most of the young females in SF). (As a side challenge is there anyone young SF character that can throw fireballs? None come to mind at the mo)
But DIS BiTCh! Awww laaawrrrd. This bitch someone learned shinku fking hadouken just by watching her idol and can now fight almost toe to toe with military vets, ninja masters and martial arts champions.
Its like if a young girl looked at michael jackson and suddenly developed the same vocal cords.
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They’re not that young, they’re around 25 now, same age as Cammy.
Young girls would be Ibuki and Makoto for example.
Menat, but she does train under and live with the most spiritual style char (Rose)
She probably already had an attitude for it as she travelled from Egypt to Italy to study under her
Ed and Falke seem older than theyr actual age, but in both case stuff has been done to have them be PP holders
Ibuki does to some extent, but she lived her whole life in a fucking ninja village
Nobody else got full retard explanation as sakura though lol
Sakura fills the “prodigy” role. As long as they don’t make her origin type the norm, I can let it slide. I became less annoyed with her when her SF4 intro went over substantial daily training regiment.
She trains like a mad woman. She probably breaks more arcade sticks than @Bea_Iank
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That was something I was wondering, also the idea of her taking different moves from the lower thugs could’ve been interesting. My theory about Poison’s current status depends on Cody. Whether we’re going with the angle that she loves him, hates him, or is a yandere in the middle, plays a role.
I imagine that after getting defeated and humiliated Poison kept thinking about the whole thing and either got super pissed at Cody, hoping to get revenge one day, or showing off to catch his eye. Either way, looking at her portrayal in the SF4 series, I can imagine her holding a grudge. With Mad Gear done, Metro City cleaning up, she moved more towards wrestling, but I imagine she also began training and upped her skill. This morning something caught my eye, she’s got a riding crop and Roxy as of SF5 has a bat. Maybe they trained and now how incredible swinging power and can discharge their ki through it?
Either way, I theorize that her upgrade in skill, within the canon was from the years she’s been absent from FF games, training to get even or not be pushed around again.
This is why I wasn’t ever really bothered by Sakura. Her whole thing is that she’s a normal, cutesy school girl who, upon seeing Ryu, practically had a religious awakening. She stopped doing all the normal things and obsessed about Ryu and constantly would get into fights and practice what she saw, that sacrifice of giving up her normal life and schooling to follow the path of the fight, but through a “modern” way instead of the old traditionalist way that Ryu did. She met Dan and would get his help to travel and probably pick his brain on some of the basics like we saw in a page posted from Sakura’s manga a few thread instances ago.
I mean from an animation standpoint, I liked seeing the ways she would compensate in her moves since she was sloppy and learning. She can’t just do a SRK and launch upwards, she has to run and get momentum. She can launch a big fireball, but it’s big, clumsy and dissipates quickly. She can’t hover with a tatsu
I get why people don’t like her, but I don’t see her as being a problem. I think her execution is one that would benefit from a longform adaptation. Like, if it was a long, multi season show and Street Fighter was SF1 blended with a few elements, you could have her in a cameo or two in a crowd and then in the season finale where Ryu wins, you could see her shouting and cheering on a tv or something and then years later slowly introduce her, showing through flashbacks.
Not really, her case is more like those kids on Starsearch and those talent shows who saw Michael Jackson, or Beyonce, or Whitney Houston, dedicated all their time to learning and singing and obsessing over them. They’ve got talent, but don’t sound exactly like him, just like Sakura doesn’t have the exact same normals and moves as Ryu. The singer kids would probably have teachers and people to help them along, but Sakura went at it mostly alone and probably hit up some local dojos until she ran into Dan. Like I mentioned, her animations are meant to show she has trouble doing things the way Ryu did, so she compensated and is going about it in a modified way.
Look at the SF4 clip Darc posted, she’s not just the best by default, she’s training, training, training and keeping at things, but still learning on the way.
The only thing I had an issue with was her being able to beat Gief in that old anime clip, other than that she hasn’t been shown to be some super S-class level fighter. She’s gifted, but she’s not that ridiculous.
I think if you kept things almost exactly the same, but had a combo of Rival School’s Batsu and Shun from the Alpha OAV, some of you guys wouldn’t complain.
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Poison with Hugo should have been more effective if they were together like Chang with Choi in CVS.
Sakura CVS is the more better interpretation of her because of lacking of plasma, but as she grows up and became busy it would make sense that she would be left out as soon SF3 starts rolling in. While Ken would still be in game but wouldn’t keep up with Ryu with a more dedicated life style than anyone else.
Attention, priority, motivation and life roles are major factor to a person progress and development.