A quick take on Luke, the new Street Fighter.

Another year goes by, and another new Street Fighter character is introduced to a lukewarm reception. This new character is named Luke, he was the mystery character added for the Summer 2021 Street Fighter V reveal. Takayuki Nakayama Director of Street Fighter V, and Shuhei Matsumoto the Producer of Street Fighter V showed off the inclusion or Oro. The elderly fighter that had originally appeared in Street Fighter III way back in 1997. Luke was a new face, and presented as the future of the series. I am thankful for Twitter because the hot takes on this character were very spot-on.

Many fans were unimpressed with the reveal. One of the first reactions came from @adam_rsfv who compared the new character to YouTube personality-turned-pro fighter Logan Paul. Logan, and his brother Jake have grated many people with their online antics. These include allegations of sexual assault, filming a dead body in a park, insulting the Japanese while on vacation, and acting like general nuisances. In a way they do reflect the culture of fame, and notoriety from the USA. You don’t have to be the best at what you do, you just have to be the best at promoting what you do. But those were far from being the only takes on the character reveal.

The fish-mash of design elements for the hair, tattoos, and costume of Luke were pointed out right away. @ryo_redcyclone said the character was piecemeal from other Street Fighters. It was easy to point out these influences. Like a villain in a daikaiju, or giant monster tv show.

Many lamented that there was another white boxer in the series. Luke follows on the heels of Ed, a white striker that had been introduced not long ago. The Street Fighter series was known for having a string of powerful Black fighters including Mike, M. Bison, and Dudley. Now in one game two white boxers had turned up. Some compared his look, and introduction to Steve Fox, the British boxer from the Tekken series. Katsuhiro Harada, producer, and director behind the Tekken series agreed with a fan reaction that this might be Steve’s younger brother.

All jokes aside the news of another white character designed to be the face of Street Fighter, the future of the franchise, was met with groans from many fans. Those that had been with the series a long while remember that Alex was supposed to be the face of a New Generation, starting with Street Fighter III. Then almost 15 years later the grappler Abel was designed to appeal to the west in Street Fighter IV. He was supposed to be the go-to character for Americans. Yet in each instance players passed him over to try other other new faces.

With one word to Capcom @KAINONAUT calls out the pattern, and like many minorities, is exhausted with the trend. With each legacy character returning to Street Fighter V players could see that the franchise was favoring the return, and the introduction of white, mostly blonde characters. It was hardly representative of the USA, and given the past four plus years of politics, and civil unrest, you would think Capcom could read the writing on the wall. This is why I am grateful for the internet, for Twitter, and players that are able to dig deep into the history of the series, and call out the company for making missteps when they have a chance to rise up, and produce something exceptional.

In a reply to Kai @mossy_dahlia reminds us of the greatness that could have been. King Cobra was a marvelous design, and the final design known as Rufus was the opposite. On the 30th Anniversary of Street Fighter I highlighted the 30 most important characters to me. Although he never appeared in a game I named King Cobra #1 When that character was turned into an obese white guy for the sake of being funny I knew the series, and director had lost their way. It didn’t make me boycott the series, but constantly call the studio out because I knew they could do better. Most people that read my blogs want to get to the heart of the character, what works, what doesn’t work with Luke? What should Capcom do?

First-off white boxers are nothing new in Street Fighter, or fighting games. Joe was featured in the original Street Fighter. What is concerning is that many of the newer boxers that end up in fighting games tend to be white, and blonde. Even if they come from Hong Kong like Shen Woo in the King of Fighters series. SNK, and Capcom have had their share of Black boxers in the KOF, and SF series. If I were to ask most of my friends to name champion boxers in any weight division I’m sure they could come up with many Black, Latino, and Asian-Pacific names. The white champions (especially blondes) would be few, and far between. Why then should fighting games go out of their way to cater to a certain demographic?

Capcom has demonstrated time, and time again that they are unwilling to take a risk. They want their lead character designs to be accepted by the west. This goes into the use of colors, tattoos, body markings, costumes, etc. If you look at several of the new characters, you’ll start to spot certain trends. Blonde female characters for example tend to get military alternate costumes, with goggles. For the new men the use of solid color tattoos, and patterns, turns up. It was on Necalli, Ed, and now prominent on Luke. The USA is a huge market for the studio. So if they look at pop culture, fight culture, wrestling, MMA, and the like they want to create a fighter that appeals to those fans. The Logan / Jake Paul comparisons for Luke are warranted. What Takayuki Nakayama, and Shuhei Matsumoto may not realize is that this type of fighting "personality" may be popular, but they are often reviled. They aren’t necessarily what the Street Fighter audience either wants, or what the game needs. In many cases fans are eager to try more unique characters.

I mentioned that Abel was designed to be the new face of the series in SF IV, but he was originally an androgynous little boy. The studio thought it would be too risky to have the skinny character in pigtails be able to judo flip larger opponents, so they turned him into a huge bruiser. To cover their bases the studio also created a female spy for the west. C. Viper took her inspiration from the western ideal of beauty, skinny with big lips, a bit like actress Angelina Jolie. When Capcom started trying out the SF IV cabinet in the US they were surprised that players were skipping over Abel, and C. Viper. The characters they designed for the market were failing. Yes they found some fans, but were largely not missed in SFV. There were many reasons why they didn’t work. I think Japanese interpretations of western trends was simply lost in translation. It turned out that when the studio created a character that more closely reflected a classic design, say Juri Han compared to Chun-Li, then the character was more widely accepted. I’m willing to bet that the little kid Abel would have been better remembered by audiences because he was out of the ordinary. Or then again, because he reflected smaller fighters like Ibuki, Makoto, and Sakura.

There is something that concerns me with Luke’s design. Again, it circles back to Japanese creators trying to interpret western tastes. We can tell he is supposed to be a patriotic character, somebody akin to Guile. Guile was a soldier that literally carried his nation on his sleeve. For Luke the stars, and stripes, in the form of tattoos, and even a haircut sends a similar, but not equal message. The use of solid color tattoos is something that I don’t think the people at Capcom considered. These types of tattoos have been more closely aligned with Far Right ideology in recent years. We saw police covered in patriotic tattoos, notably those of the Three Percent, a group identified by the Anti Defamation League as a far right militia movement. These officers have intimidated, and killed in the past. Many were fired, or forced to retire when they were outed as members of the group. The tattoos even turned up Patriots kicker Justin Rohrwasser.

In every instance people with Three Percent tattoos, and the like, all claim to be patriots. They claim not to subscribe to any racist ideology, but want to defend their country. It turns out that they want to defend their country from people that are not like them. Usually white, usually well off. Those that are minorities, gays, trans, Black Lives Matter supporters, Muslims, Liberals, Socialists, or immigrants are the enemy. They even go so far as to claim Anti-Fascists are the biggest threat to the American way of life. The irony in that logic cannot be understated. Guile had a design that could never be lumped into a hate group. He was intentionally designed to be over-the-top, like a GI Joe character that happened to be in a fighting game. He was fighting not for fame, but to get revenge for his fallen comrade, the soldier Charlie Nash. Luke seems to be in the game for himself, to be big, and famous. Sure it could be seen as being distinctly American, but there was more to this nation than a clone of the Paul brothers. I believe Luke doesn’t work because he has conflicting design elements. The sorts of elements that went into Ken for Street Fighter V.

More important I think Luke doesn’t work because Capcom does not know how to take a creative risk. When the studio says they are doing a deep dive, they often miss the elements that made their early generation characters work so well. They fall back on tropes, and stereotypes. Look at how Turkish oil wrestling was presented, or Mexican lucha libre with Hakan, and El Fuerte in SF IV. Fat people became used as joke characters in the series. Starting with Rufus, but spilling over into Birdie as well. The studio forgot that giant characters weren’t always stupid. Luke is designed to be modern, and edgy. He’s probably going to be as well remembered as Necalli in a few years. This is what drives me crazy about Capcom. Greatness is right in front of them, in many concept pieces for a character never used. For a throw-away design given to an existing character, as a costume. If only they would take a moment to listen, to trust their idea, and not what they think we really want. Lord knows I’ve tried to get through to them. I’ve applied to work at that company a half-dozen times. Even asked the producers to please read the blog. I’ll keep on pushing them to do better. I hope the community does too. 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!