I agree just saying if we can have 6 shotos working in a SF game we can certainly easily have 3 guiles
nash isn’t a guile anymore. even in alpha 3 and MVC2 they don’t play the same,
Some of which VERY comical and nonsensical, I might add.
I said a while ago I’ve found where did Capcom take Rose’s NAME from. Because we know all about JoJo and Lisa Lisa, but why that name? Lisa Lisa didn’t have connections with roses, after all, and that seemed an original trait of SF’s Rose.
It turns out it wasn’t, and Capcom itself revealed the connection. I think you all know the characters Capcom first conceived for Street Fighter 2:
Now, these characters alone should deserve an article just about them (do you hear me, @Lord_Vega?), but let’s focus on the one who revealed the inspiration.
Anabebe, 18 yo, 230 cm, 200 kg. A beastman raised by lions. His manager/tamer Rothenburger keeps him in chains. Specialised in biting and scratching, but extremely vulnerable to fire. Special move: Beastman Attack.
There are various interesting titbits here, which show how many concepts Capcom subsequently recycled. The most obvious is the beastman trope, with chains included, harking back to Ikki Kajiwara’s Tiger Mask (1969), who indeed first appeared in chains roaring in a cage, scaring the journalists by pulling out one of the cage’s bars.
In the anime, as @Cestus_II already showed here, Beastman (Japanese: 獣人 jūjin, the same term Capcom used for Blanka) had brown/ginger hair, already more similar to Blanka. Capcom then reprised this scene in Street Fighter: The Animated Movie, where Blanka roars from his cage scaring the crowd.
Then, Anabebe uses bites and scratches, exactly as Blanka would do. His manager, who keeps him in chains as Tiger Mask’s villain Mister X did, is called Rothenburger. An oddly specific name, taken from the former Olympic speed skater Christa Rothenburger (now Luding, married name). Remember, this pitch for SF2 was done in Autumn 1988, and Rothenburger had just won the Olympics in the same year; so she was very well known in Japan. Another fighter is named
シルケ・メラー Shiruke Meraa, aka Silke Möller, a German sprinter also at her peak during those years. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the first name for Chun-Li was thus
智麗 Zhìlì, a name directly coming from Chinese table tennis champion 何智麗 Hé Zhìlì, who left the Chinese team in 1988 after a well known scandal (basically, her coaches ordered her to lose the semifinal play against fellow Chinese player Guǎn Jiànhuá because they thought Jiànhuá had better chances in an already certain final against Korean champion Yang Young-Ja. Hé ignored them and won against BOTH Guǎn AND Yang). She then married a Japanese citizen and relocated to Japan, changing her name to 小山ちれ Koyama Chire, where Koyama is her (now ex-) husband surname and Chire the Japanese pronunciation of 智麗 Zhìlì. Chun-Li’s first name came from a table tennis player. Here she was to be GEN’S DAUGHTER, a connection which Capcom reprised later with the ambiguous and never fully explained relation that existed between Gen and Dorai. In this first pitch, Gen was dead and Dorai didn’t exist, so the villain would’ve murdered Gen.
But I’ve digressed, my bad. Back to Anabebe: the last and decisive interesting thing is… his name. Anabebe comes from the manga ジャングルの王者ターちゃん Janguru no ōja Taa-chan, “Jungle King Tar-chan”. It was a manga immensely popular since it started in March 1988 (just in time for the first SF2 pitch in autumn 1988…) until it ended in 1995, and sparked an anime series (very different from the original plot) in 1993. The manga told the adventures of Tar-chan, a comically stupid but still ridiculously strong clone of Tarzan. Jane was a New York former supermodel, and Anabebe was the strongest African warrior from the Upopo tribe. Anabebe challenged Tar-chan for Jane, but the match ended in a draw, with Anabebe vowing a rematch later. Years later, Anabebe returned but found out that Jane, after her marriage with Tar-chan, had become comically fat, so he walked away (LOL).
Center: Tar-chan. Up-right: Jane BEFORE the marriage. DOWN-RIGHT: JANE AFTER THE MARRIAGE (ROTFL). Down-left, Anabebe.
The manga alternated between episodic gag mini-stories and longer fighting arcs, where the tone slightly switched to epic but retained the gags and nonsensical moves Tar-chan always used. The manga was also VERY NSFW, as many jokes were sexual (Tar-chan and fellow men had visible erections when seeing an attractive woman, the animals copulated EVERYWHERE and so on). The anime toned down this aspect. Take for instance one of Tar-chan many enemies, the bounty hunter VIOLENCE MUSCLEPOWER. If the name already sounds familiar, then…
WELL.
(2 years before Guile, remember).
So, Musclepower’s special move is the Rolling Dynamite Punch Kick Special, a flurry of punches and kicks apparently done spinning like a tornado.
But HOW does Musclepower achieve that absurd move? SIMPLE:
HE SPINS ON HIS ERECT PENIS. The problem is that the friction on the ground excites him, so every time he does the move, he jizzes in his pants…
And this was published in SHONEN JUMP IN THE EIGHTIES, guys. In the anime, Musclepower used a debris or a brick inserted between his legs.
Back to Anabebe, he was a very interesting character. His combat strategy summed up in “punch punch punch”, he liked women and money very much… Hang on…
Yes, Capcom pretty much reused Anabebe’s backstory for Boxer. Anabebe even DID become actually rich in both the manga and the anime (he won a tournament in the first one, and found a diamond mine in the second), and built an enormous mansion in the middle of the savanna,
where his ugly wife Zubeta (manga only, in the anime Anabebe never married) cultivated roses.
Anabebe liked to show off his cars and money. After he became rich, he also became more of a gag character. He even proposed himself a second time to Jane, when she returned beautiful again after having slept for three days (and therefore losing weight).
In the anime, Anabebe showed up at his own funeral (he had found the diamonds after an explosion where everyone thought he had died), sporting a curious zoot suit with a scarf…
Something that Capcom referred to in SFIV with Boxer’s third alternate costume.
Anabebe was VERY protective of his car, to the point of throwing a soldier who scratched it… into the car itself, worsening the damage.
The car, the mansion and the roses were all ideas reused for Dudley. Basically, Anabebe gave something to Blanka, Bison/Balrog and Dudley.
Being the strongest in the world, Tar-chan had many enemies, and while there were many warriors who challenged him directly, some favored the use of killers.
Enter the professional assassin ROSE, a glamorous and classy woman who LIKED BATHS, ROSES AND SCARVES.
She would always fail her killing attempts for an absurd cause, eventually leaving the killing business in shame but settling for a delivery service (she had become a very fast runner by that point, to escape the savanna’s animals). The assassin bit was reused by Capcom for at least two of MENAT’s ideas (where she would’ve been an assassin whom Rose kicked out, or who killed Rose herself).
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Epic work as usual, maybe even better than usual
Would love if capcom just pay you to do this weekly, even if probably they don’t like admit where all ideas came from lol
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Dang. DANG! This was incredible info dude!
Agreed, it would be great engaging content to put on twitter or other social media.
@Midgardsorm you really do good work man. I seriously want Capcom to take notice, especially with the dramatic changing of the guard for the SF6 era. I know we’ve all brought this up before, but be it a blog or a patreon, something, it would be absolutely fantastic if you got this info out there and spread it to a wide audience and got paid for it. I’m pretty sure I speak for many of us, but we’d totally be down for helping you if you ever considered taking to a wider audience. Seriously man, just say the word. You and guys like Bakfromon, Lord Vega and so many others really bring amazing finds and help cut to the core of the lore in ways we never thought possible back in the 90s.
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When you take the Street Fighter 5 cast on it’s own, without the old characters, just the new guys… that’s a pretty cool roster. Never looked at it like that.
Also @Midgardsorm Fucking props man.
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He doesn’t have a stated martial art, and his powers are expressly not Ki, they’re “psychic powers”.
If Bison practiced some dark secret martial art, even a fictional one, and Psycho Power was just dark ki, I’d have no problem with him.
I remember, I think it was Gamepro magazine back in the day, listing that as his martial art.
Granted, the same article listed Blanka as a capoeira user. But I still wish it had been true(the Bison, not the Blanka).
Yeah, somehow I don’t think Capcom likes reminding people that they stole most of their ideas. 
i think the problem there is just crap lazy profiles that don’t do justice to the work that people that actually created the characters did
On PP nature as “dark ki” i think that’s ever been the case, like Oro say in side story all forms of power in SF have the common denominator of being ki.
Then people manage to give it a particular “flavor” based on their own nature and pratice used to make it grow, and give names they see fitting for it, but is just different looking ki
i think even Bison recognize PP as just ki, the fact itself that he was chasing Ryu’s body seeing how great tolerance/capacity to store violent “toxic” (for the host) ki he had, mean that as type of power he see a parallel between SNH and PP
I don’t see PP much different from other energies, the artficial element is more about how to increase/handle it
I see psycho drive and similar devices like in real life steroids are used to obtain bigger/faster results in a not natural way… it is cheating, but the result is muscle
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Bison doing Lerdrit just fit so many elements that i just blame as usual profiles for not stating clearly
- Style used by thai army forces, fitting both his location and design attire
- Is not designed to fit rules/honor code (i remember Bison style being described by SF2 guys as vicious and even “coward”, plus he wear offensive/defensive protections)
- thai style kicks using shin and knee
- punches being heavier than in MT, with bigger commitment
- stance being wider and lower to allow above said big arm strikes
- hard open palm, chop strikes and heel being used
I think we got everything, only thing we lacked was them giving fucks.
But was different era, same SF2 days where 2 meter muscle monster Gief was only 113kg and Sagat was like only 10kg heavier than Ryu lol
Now it’s less excusable
Sure they improved and example on stuff like weight stats they did huge step forward, but on fight styles many times they still suck dicks
On Blanka having capoeira i guess same dude who back in the days (way more difficult) did a great job for Bison, wanted at all cost find a martial art for Blanka.
Can see him have “brazil” and some kicks (stMK, stHK, cHK) and be like “Well capoeira it is then”
He essentially mostly fabricated himself the answer he wanted, but watching these kicks a little little drop of truth is there too
Would have been cool have backstory that just say that after an entire life imitating animal fighting (wich is like over 90% of his style), when he finally returned have contacts with people in SF2 he seen a bit of capoeira too
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I have issues with SF2 Bison. I disagree with your opinion, I won’t say that Bison is as bad as Seth or Gill, but he is an average design at best. His outfit is outdated and ridiculous, partially on purpose I guess, and he works better as a caricature of villain rather than a straight one.
Granted SF2 has always be a bit humorous so he fits.
When you start to introduce a bit of fantastic in a fiction, whatever the fiction is, comic, movie, story, game … it is in no way an excuse to not fix limits on what you introduce. Because Jurassic Park has dinosaurs is not an excuse to introduce, I dunno, time traveling goddess?
SF2 had a certain level of fictional stuff, the existence of Ki notably, but a bit more than that. What it didn’t have was cyborgs, robots, clones, magic, spirits, gods, alien, people learning martial arts in 3 days by mimicking someone.
The existence of Ki might imply that some of that stuff exist at a certain level, but most of it has nothing to do with SF. Yet sequels after sequels have gone for more and more fantastic without ever wondering if they remained consistent with the initial lore. It might look ‘fun’ at first glance, but it weakens the SF universe more and more until it is a mess were everything is ok and you have to wonder what is the point of martial art when gods and monsters fight giant robots in the same universe.
This is a well known mechanism, similar to the ‘jumping the shark’ trope.
Thing is, over complex stories are difficult to write, and as a consequence, are rarely good.
I think we more or less agree in the end.
While we should remain grateful for him being responsible for SF revival, if you have to be honest, even SF 4 is a big missed opportunity. It might not be his fault, but there was a potential market for SF with casual/nostalgia gamers and he crushed it with SF4 and SFV.
So I don’t know how much I have to blame him for that, but I know he did a lot of things wrong.
He’s not. Kill him with fire. Erase him from SF history, that’s all he deserves.
Or make him italian
Ok, allow me to elaborate.
It might be Capcom’s choice without being a response to consumers because they assume consumers will like her more but they don’t have any proof they really do. In fact, they themselves already said that surprisingly (for them) consumers preferred Abel. But they could have decided to double down on their mistake because that’s a common thing to do.
So because Capcom decides to use C Viper more than Abel is just proof that Capcom thinks C Viper will help them sell more (because boobs). But Capcom is known for its less than valid strategies regarding SF.
It might also be true that after the initial reveals, C Viper’s popularity did really rise and that Capcom is only responding to consumer’s demand. In this case, given that C Viper is one of the less popular female characters but that female characters are nearly always more requested than male (a bit more than half as much votes in capcom’s polls on average) we know why C Viper is requested, and it’s not because SHE is liked, the only conclusion is that all females are ok in fan’s view and so Cacom should go for an all female cast.
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SFV themed watches
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Dhalsim has magic. He presses off Yoga as a material art when it’s not. Has stretchy limbs, can teleport and float. You can’t tell me these powers is something that Ki can grant. Sim is a mystic. Any roots the series as with magic starts with him.
I’ll agrue the series didn’t really have lore until Alpha as that’s the game where SF actually started exploring story and the backgrounds of the characters. There was little in SF2 other than the profiles in manuals and the endings.
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Don’t forget Missing IQ Gomes.
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I mean, that’s what’s going on, anyone can feel free to correct me, but isn’t what’s been stated since the old, pre-alpha days like when we still had the “born under a dark star” orign? It’s been less emphasized these days with all the clones, body hopping etc, but he did study martial arts under a mysterious master, Soul power was tied to that and the result of him embracing the darkness, his dark ki manifested as psycho power. Like I said earlier, so many anime martial arts foster the body and mind to ridiculous levels, for the longest time, I saw that Soul Power was just a martial art that also had a focus on strengthening the mind and spirit to the point that incredibly gifted users who maxed out their skills had ki fostering mental abilities. The same way that in the SF universe, fostering ki in a certain way goes to making someone more durable, or Zangief having incredibly dense muscles, Soul & Psycho power has ki enriching the body and spirit to the point that the user has psychic powers.
Basically what Cestus said in that:
I mean, the way the Sensationalistic Shoto bros’ gather ki is the Hadou method, but if we called it Hadou power it wouldn’t be a random ability, it’s tied to ki, it’s all about ki unless talking about the cyborgs and 12.
Well, I highly disagree, but to each their own.
I agree with limits, which is why I had an issue with Ingrid - the mistranslation mistake that said she was a goddess and the actual time traveller stuff, I feel she’s veering into the too much category.
You’re wrong on some of this though, monitor cyborgs were around in SF2 before the movie, I think it was Lord Vega and or Midgarsorm who found details about how they’re scattered in stages like Chun Li’s. Also, this series always had some fantastic elements. You don’t get lost in the jungle, learn to mimic beasts, gain electrical powers and, covering yourself in chlorophyll suddenly gain fangs and, if you look at some of his animations, retractable claws. Dhalsim claims his powers are from Agni, that hasn’t been proven or disproven, but wouldn’t be that crazy since even amongst others, he’s on another level with his abilities. Ki fire is one thing, but the stretching, teleporting, telepathy can make one wonder.
I agree there needs to be a ceiling and I don’t want gods and giant robots competing, but, we aren’t there yet (no Gill isn’t actually divine, none of the Illuminati are). Sure, we’ve gone a bit too far into the evil organization, high tech route these days, but that’s a very manga and anime type of thing. I think we’re still at a stable level and can back down via SF6 and more. I still think that the series is in a good place. As long as they don’t add Darkstalkers or literally have gods fighting, we should be fine.
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Um. Psycho Power is Dark Ki. It’s a sister ki to the SNH. And Bison is practicing a Dark Martial Art. He is a fighter behind it all, no different from any other ambitious fighter like Ryu or Akuma.
It’s just that Bison has no qualms about using whatever means necessary to become the greatest fighter of all. While he’s is obsessed with the power that he was unable to unlock, that allows him to defy the laws of the universe itself. He still holds on to his own worldview and follows his “code”.
He mellowed out after Alpha/SF2 in a sense, having already died several times. He’s more chill and I think he keeps his insane megalomaniac side in check better now, focusing back on what it is that started his journey - Fighting.
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Well stretchy arms are supposed to be the exagerated result of yoga training, Sim there is just impossibly flexible as Gief is impossibly durable and so on
Teleport/levitation being the first “supernatural” usage of ki i disagree, as soon Ryu threw the first hadouken in SF1 the series estabilished that ki there can do things impossible in real world
On Sim fire it gets more strange
At first his design just hinted him being able (for real) to do classic fakir tricks: absurd flexibility, levitation in meditation sitting position, fire-eating performance…
How fire was generated was not clear
There were various explanations for it, not making this shit up irrc i seen
Sim fire is…
…inner vital energy (ki)
…fucking curry -> but c.america = bullshit
…imaginary hypnoshit, opponent THINK he’s burning
… God Agni is a bro and gift you fire
my 2 cent ki based is best answer
Even in SF2 arc other characters showed to be able to generate fire with their ki, no reason Sim who got one of best ki control can’t
Agni one is compatible too
Does’nt mean magic fire god exist (or not) in SF universe, mean that Sim believe in his existence and this belief help him use his own spiritual energy
As we speak the only true “magic” we seen in SF is some kind of future vision (Rose, SFV Sim, Necalli’s warrior prophecy, maybe Illuminati prophecy)
But even these in SF are likely just result of ki
Tbh with the 999 faces ki can take in SF world is even very hard imagine something that’s not ki based but “supernatural”
- Zeku does’nt do magic to get young but ki technique
- Kage is not an actual demon, but a projection of Ryu’s negative ki
- Bison never been sent literally to hell with demons and all. Also he’s not a true ghost, at least not in the classic meaning
- Necalli nature is not clear, he’s not human (if he ever was) but we have no proof he’s supernatural either
- Ingrid never was a Goddess
- Gill’s abilities are all ki based, including wings that are a visible manifestation of it. Same goes for Rose, Menat, Oro etc
Essentially as absurd it sounds SF still did’nt crossed the line of have an actual confirmed supernatural world
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The teleporting and floating are definitely things Ki can grant. Oro levitates things with Ki and Akuma can teleport.
The difference between Ki and magic isn’t so much what it can do, but how you obtain it. Ki is a spiritual extension of physical combat training. You get so good at punching that one day your punches shoot fire.
And he’s also one of SF2’s 2 truly bad character concepts.
The idea of yoga as a fighting style is painfully ridiculous. Not only is yoga not a martial art, it philosophically exists in direct opposition to physical violence. The very idea of a yoga street fighter is nonsense.
The superior wildman to Blanka.
I mean, if that stuff is still canon than…that’s great. But it’s been so long since there’s been any mention of any of that that I’m not sure that’s the case.
I’ll believe that when Capcom tells me what it is or where it came from.
I never felt what Akuma does is a actual teleport. The guy doesn’t actually vanish and reappear elsewhere. To me it’s more akin to DBZ of him moving so fast you can’t see him. Bison has a real teleport though.
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Hmm. Maybe. When he does it in the SF4 intro though, it seems more like he becomes intangible and passes through you than just moving fast.
So while it’s not technically the same. If you can turn into a ghost with ki, it’s probably also possible to use it to teleport.