30 years of Street Fighter, 30 Days of Characters; #24

We cannot celebrate 30 years of Street Fighter without also celebrating 20 years of one of the most oddball characters introduced in the universe. When designing Street Fighter EX the team at ARIKA wanted to create a balance between the classic World Warriors, those featured in Street Fighter II and a new lot of fighters. Blanka and Dhalsim were on the extreme end of designs and ARIKA wanted at least one odd character as well. They decided to create a sort of superhero into their franchise.

Skullomania is actually an homage to the classic Japanese super sentai shows. Live action heroes like Kamen Rider and the Power Rangers were wildly popular in Japan. These heroes and their over-the-top villains were the types of characters that the designers at ARIKA grew up with. They figured out a way to incorporate one of these archetypes into the lineup without completely breaking Street Fighter's lore. Skullomania was a salaryman that made some extra money as an acrobat at an amusement park. He stopped some robbers as they stole from the ticket booth and the visitors cheered. He became enamored with the attention and became a real life hero. This premise was very believable. It was the intensity of being a hero that Skullomania took over the top.

Skullomania does not have a transforming car or a giant robot at his disposal, these are only seen as pages in a sketchbook. He has no super-powers, although he imagines that he can fly and change his size. He also does not have any actual martial arts training. Instead he throws his whole body into his attacks. He dives headfirst at opponents and sweeps their feet with his breakdance-like acrobatics. His appearance is odd but memorable, his moves are absurd but also mostly realistic. He manages to be as unique a character as Dhalsim or Blanka but without coming across as fake. Skullomania is a very creative fighter, there is nobody else like him. Today we celebrate the uniqueness that Street Fighter brought to the genre. What do you think about this oddball? Please let me know in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!