I know… I know… its a weird question and really not important. I considered posting this in general discussion but it is a strictly Street Fighter related question.
Any thoughts? I mean, I can understand like Ryu and Ken and all the female characters. But Zangief? I totally picture him hiding a damn forest under each arm. Instead its smooth as a baby.
I’d thought “maybe its cause you get armpit hair when you reach puberty and its sort of like a pubic hair kind of thing that they want to avoid” but then I remembered that they gave Rufus a “treasure trail” shudder so that idea went out the window (along with lunch.)
It’s not just SF but also Tekken, Dragonball, Fist of the North Star, etc. It’s the whole Japanese animation industry that promotes this image of hairless men. It’s the same reason that male underwear models in the west shave all their body hair. It’s the perception that this is what is attractive. The only characters that actually have body hair are the big/fat/ugly characters like Zangief/Rufus/Blanka, since that type of body is considered unattractive. The only one that I can’t explain is Miguel from Tekken, but then he’s latino and they’re known to have a macho/hairy image, so I guess that explains it.
edit: I’m glad they didn’t portray Poison with armpit hair and a treasure trail though. LOL
Japanese people don’t have armpit hair. It’s similar to the way that most Native Americans don’t have facial hair… it just doesn’t grow there. Unless they’re exposed to it through e.g. Hollywood films, the average Japanese person isn’t even aware that armpit hair exists, so naturally they’re not going to depict it anime or video games.
Similarly, roughly one in every twenty or so females in Japan is born with a penis. In the modern age, due to post WWII Western cultural influence, sometimes the parents will choose to have their daughter’s penis removed at birth, but more often it’s simply left there, and it’s traditionally considered to be not only good luck, but a highly desirable physical trait in a wife. That goes a long way toward explaining some of the themes found in Japanese hentai, or the existence of a character like Poison, which may seem rather bizarre from our cultural perspective.
