The unlikely origins of some Mad Gear bosses...

I've been playing through a number of classic games recently, and have been focusing on the Final Fight trilogy. It got me thinking about the details that Capcom put into the title. It also made me wonder where some of the characters came from. I'm particularly fond of the villains in the series, and I want to share what I think were the inspiration behind some of the most unique. For example, did you ever notice that there was an evil technician that was a boss character in the series? If you are a designer then how do you get across that a character is an inventor of sorts? Is it because of wild facial hair? A lab coat? Maybe goggles, or perhaps a bald head? How do audiences know what a crazy scientist looks like? When you think of evil geniuses in video games who usually comes to mind? I usually think of Dr. Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog, but even he had to come from somewhere. Eggman did come from somewhere. Brian Ashcraft noticed how some of the early Studio Ghibli characters looked like Eggman. Of course this was a topic of a Reddit thread, and VGDensetsu tweeted the observation as well.

The roots behind the evil scientist go back even further. Possibly to the story of Frankenstein almost 200 years ago. In pop culture however the template for the evil scientist probably came from the Mad Doctor. The villain appeared in a Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1933. He was sporting a bald head, and wild facial hair long before Studio Ghibli or Sonic Team were created. He came back in game form for Epic Mickey 2 in 2012. Have you ever wondered if there could be a good mad inventor archetype? Again taking influences from Japan there was such a character. Cid Pollendina, my favorite of all the Cid characters, debuted in Final Fantasy IV way back in 1991. The airship engineer was the former Captain of the Red Wings in the game. He was burly, with a wild beard, physically strong, and a genius with mechanics. I believe he was the inspiration for the Skull Cross boss mechanic Caine.

Caine was located in a junkyard. He could only be reached if players were careful not to break a bus stop sign in Round 3. The top-heavy boss was cut from the same cloth as Cid. Overly muscular with goggles, and wild mane of hair instead of a beard. He would pin players with his thick welding gloves and smash them over the head with an enormous wrench. Talk about a cheap shot! Thankfully like most Final Fight bosses he was more brute than brains. He lacked the fighting techniques of the heroes. As neat a design as Caine was he wasn't even remotely the oddest of the bosses. In previous blogs I talked about the heavy metal stars, and films that inspired the creation of Final Fight. Sodom was a German metal band that formed in the early '80s. Their name and use of a masked military character on the album covers inspired the creation of the Mad Gear boss.

Depending on your point of view Sodom was either a harcore Japanophile or a certifiable kook. Either way he took his obsession with Japanese culture to extreme lengths. This came through in his game appearances, cut scenes, and official art from Capcom. Sodom fashioned a helmet and samurai "armor" out of football pads, jeans and a jersey. In the original Final Fight he would fight opponents inside of a wrestling ring. He used two katana swords and called them Masamune and Muramasa, named after the legendary Japanese swordsmiths. In The Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series he switched to jitte, the steel batons that Edo-period Japanese officers used. What if I were to tell you that aside from the metal band there was possibly a real-world inspiration for this character? Peter Thornley aka Kendo Nagasaki was a British wrestler that was obsessed with Japanese culture, and tradition. He was one of the biggest wrestling draws in Britain in the late '60s and early '70s. He even wrestled through the '80s, around the formative years of the Capcom staff.

The Kendo "gimmick" was very earnest. Thornley did everything he could to keep his identity a secret. He wore a mask in ring, and didn't lose it in any matches. He never gave interviews, and his manager did all the talking for him. When a plumber found out his identity Thornley was forced to come forward, but on his own terms. He unmasked himself in the late '70s during an elaborate, pseudo-Japanese ceremony. To this day Thornley claims that he is a spiritual vessel, and the host of a 300-year-old Japanese spirit. I have no doubt that Thornley believes in his claims. Sodom is drawn from the same level of obsession as Kendo. Both sometimes miss the details of the culture they are emulating. In canon Sodom speaks with very rough Japanese pronunciation. To emulate Japanese he will sound words out phonetically, like "It's Toe Show! Show Sea Send Bang! and Die Job Death Car!" The last phrase is pronounced "daijōbu desu ka?" and means "Are you alright?" When he wins a match he will sometimes say "Yo Parry," which is supposed to be "yappari" or "I thought so!"

The kanji on his jersey is supposed to read "Shi" or death in Japanese, but he missed a brush stroke so the character doesn't mean anything. When Sodom tried reuniting his gang during the events of Street Fighter Zero he painted kanji on the sign that was phonetically MA-DU-GI-A aka Madgear, but the combination of letters doesn't actually mean anything in Japanese. Sodom, like Thornley, was obsessed with keeping his identity a secret. Possibly because he was ashamed that he was not actually Japanese. In the Street Fighter Zero manga his mask was broken, and he covered his face out of fear of being found out. He claimed that he could not fight without it. The scene explained a lot about the character without having to go into further detail. He was probably the best example of the creative process behind the Mad Gear bosses. The villains often had layers of detail that went into their development. These most memorable were revisted by the studio. Which were some of your favorites? If you 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!