How fight culture became fighting game history, part 35

Capcom had the greatest success in casting minority characters as fighters without relying too heavily on stereotype. They presented quasi-realistic fighters from various nations in each incarnation of the series. In order for gamers to pick up nationalistic cues they dressed each character appropriately. The military fighter from the US wore camouflage, the karate fighter from Japan wore a white gi and the Muay Thai fighter from Thailand wore shorts. Three of the black characters in the first three games were boxers but the three were unique. The original, Mike, was a boxer with street roots, he wore sneakers and battled with taped up hands. The second, Balrog / M. Bison, looked like a boxer in training. M. Bison was actually designed to be an evolved version of Mike, one that had achieved his dream and became a boxing champ but threw it away chasing women and money. The third boxer, Dudley, was dressed in a fine suit. He represented the champion boxer that never took his eye off the prize. In all Capcom had managed to respect the genre and their audience in equal measure by avoiding the stereotypes that seemed to keep popping up in the early SNK titles.

Street Fighter IV was released in 2008, it was 11 years after Street Fighter III had come out and a generation removed from the stereotypical fighters from 1994. A gamer might assume that in that span of time Japan had become more familiar with the various ethnicities that made up the USA. After all the internet had only served to make the world seem smaller by making trends move faster. That seemed to be the case at Capcom. During the early stages of character development a new fighter named King Cobra was created. The character looked interesting as he was a mash up of Hip Hop culture and traditional karate. He had a shaved head and sported and earring, his gi had a fur lined collar. The character looked very similar to Meera, a character from the manga Tokyo Tribe by Santa Inoue, Mr. Inoue had done an exceptional job of bringing Hip Hop culture, the language, music and fashion to his native Japan. He had followed it for as long as he could remember, which was interesting considering that the Japanese had been deemed an insular society by the rest of the world.

The designers at Capcom did not have to travel far to learn what made a black culture interesting and how to bring that into contemporary character design. Tokyo Tribe had done all the work and acted as a primer for urban trends. Readers could find out about mix tapes, graffiti, criminal organizations and thug life. Plus they could see how strongly it contrasted against the Japanese landscape but was acceptable as a youth movement. Meera was actually a villain in the series which made the points of reference all the more unique. King Cobra wasn't always a young karateka. In his earliest concept art he was actually a giant. He was designed to be a rival of Ken. The studio wanted Ken to have his own Sagat, or impossibly big obstacle.

Before the Meera look King Cobra was tall and lanky with a big afro. The design was taken from Kareem Abdul Jabar, a villain from the Bruce Lee film Game of Death. Street Fighter IV designer Daigo Ikeno thought that the point of reference was a bit dated. Although martial arts film fans considered the piece timeless the character was not. Jabar was barefoot, sported tiny shorts and a long sleeve shirt. He looked a little silly by the standards of today. There didn't seem to be a strong unifying costume for the Jabar as there were for the other fighters that Lee had faced in the picture. Jabar was actually vacationing in Hong Kong when he decided to visit his friend and martial arts teacher. Lee took the opportunity to cast him in a role. The costume shop didn't have anything ready for the 7' 2" NBA center so he just wore whatever he had handy. This would explain the leisurely clothes.

The original design of King Cobra / the Black Cobra gave away that the character was from the '70s, it was a step back to Mr. Jones territory. Ikeno was looking for a younger face and a more contemporary cultural touchstone. The Hip Hop elements seemed obvious. The character would be a young upstart looking to dethrone Ken. He would be equal parts attitude and ability with an homage to the Karate Kid (the original one, not the remake) thrown in for good measure. Ikeno wanted Cobra to be appealing to new players yet also threatening to the older guard. Abdul Jabar needed to be replaced as the template and even Shaquille O'Neal had become dated. Kobe Bryant became the most obvious choice. He was tall but not gigantic. He was slender but still very athletic. The face, the earring, the charisma and confidence of the young Cobra were very reminiscent of the Black Mamba, the nickname that Bryant gave himself.

King Cobra was a character with an exceptional design. The color of his uniform was a solid black. It balanced the iconic white gi of Ryu. The color of the gi was contrasted by the gold belt and gold punching gloves of the character. These elements were repeated with the gold necklace. His costume looked classic but actually had a non-traditional cut. He was one of the rare SF characters that had a mid-sleeve gi. Ken, Ryu and the Brazilian Sean all wore sleeveless tops. The Japanese Makoto had a traditional long sleeve gi, but Cobra had a mid sleeve. The sneakers were a perfect modern touch. They were very subtle, and yet, could not be ignored. In the very first Street Fighter Ryu wore red slippers. It was much easier to imagine him traveling from town to town challenging opponents while wearing slippers.

Cobra represented just a hint of Hip Hop culture, truly an artistic global culture and not limited by USA ideals. It was just enough to remind audiences that he was the modern urban youth, not a jet-set playboy like Ken, nor a wandering solemn hermit like Ryu. The gold chain on his neck was not too bold or thick, he could never be confused for the Blacker Baron or Joe Fendi. He did not sport any sort of earrings, medallion or emblem that would have dated his appearance. His jewelry was very clean and simple. The ruffled edge of his gi gave him personality. The sneakers were classic, something that would have worked in any decade of the modern era. They were appropriate for the look that this character represented, a cue from the traditional and modern, not unlike the wrestling boots that contrasted the dress of Chun-Li. The sneakers were something that could be worn while traveling down city blocks walking into dojos and beating people up. The legend of the barefoot master did not make much sense in the modern city. Cobra was young and bold and not scared to bring just a little bit of his world into the Street Fighter universe. His design was not so bold as to try to change the universe and our attitudes towards the established characters. His belt and uniform reminded us that he was mindful and respectful of the martial arts.

Yellow was usually the first belt awarded to students learning karate. However Cobra's belt had more of a golden hue to it, allowing us to ponder if he was a master and of what form. The characters on his belt spelled out an additional layer of detail from Ikeno. Most SF fans knew that Ryu had writing on his belt. Thanks to my friends Bob, Cesar and Lester for coming through with the translation and meaning. Ryu's black belt reads Fūrinkazan, literally "Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain" It was paraphrased from Sun Tzu's The Art of War: "Move as swift as a wind, stay as silent as forest, attack as fierce as fire, un-defeatable defense like a mountain." This was an epic sentiment that shaped the character and personality of Ryu.

King Cobra had a different statement on his belt, Jyakuniku kyoushoku wich roughly translated to "survival of the fittest / law of the jungle." These things combined with the gold and black and cobra logo on the back of his gi made him a subtle homage to the Karate Kid villain Johnny Lawrance. It was yet an additional layer of detail that Ikeno laid down that would have gone over well with audiences. Certainly this was a design for a strong black fighter that would have been very appealing to Americans. It was much better presented and respectful of the fighting arts than Dee Jay or the basketball players mentioned in the previous blog. King Cobra followed the traditions of the classic characters yet visually did not have to bring up racial prejudices or gimmicks to make him stand out.

There was one thing that was troubling about the design, this was not something that was seen but rather unseen. Since the character was never finalized there were no models or animations to look at. Players didn't know that the original plan for the character was to give him "Breakdance Kung-Fu" as his fighting style. It was inconceivable that the designers at Capcom had really not caught up with the times. Just about everything worked well for Cobra except for his moves. The black-entertainer-as-fighter had died with Boggy back in 1994. At least players in the West had thought the stereotype had passed. Besides, breakdancing was considered a "fad" in mainstream US culture and only hardcore dancers still supported it in the States.

The connotation of all blacks being good dancers was a stereotype as old as the Sambo himself. One of the oldest ideas about blacks was very dehumanizing. According the slave owners the blacks were born with natural rhythm and an ability to dance. They insisted that the savages had no concept of self and that they "would even dance on the auction block." The decedents of the slaves were some of the early successful entertainers in turn-of-the-century America. Unfortunately many of them were paid to perform as minstrels. They had to act like clowns in black face makeup and be the ugly parodies of themselves that the racially charged audiences expected to see. They sang and danced on stage and in film so they could afford a better life. Unfortunately no matter how rich or famous they got they were still second-class citizens. They could not eat where they wanted, travel where they wanted or even consort with non-blacks without fear of reprisal by racist groups. African-Americans had therefore been very critical about their portrayal as dancers and entertainers rather than people first and foremost for most of the 20th century.

From the early black and white pictures to the first audio and full-color feature there had always been an African-American pioneer working in film. It took a long time for Hollywood and the rest of the world to appreciate the contributions of blacks not only in entertainment but in "American" culture. If someone made the mistake of assuming that they were natural at it they could be corrected. Blacks worked hard for everything they had become famous for, they put up with tremendous amounts of hate and bigotry while claiming a slice of the "American Dream." The lessons from history were obvious. If minorities wanted to be taken seriously in the arts or entertainment then they had to work hard for it. If they wanted to see minority characters in gaming then they had to become programmers, designers and developers as well. A generation would grow old waiting for the publishers to catch up.

Whether King Cobra was the Black Mamba in disguise, a positive role model like Dudely or a throw-away character like Boggy would never be known. The Japanese were merely reflecting US pop culture. They did not have the complete picture of black society in the USA. However not every developer relied on stereotypes while creating a lineup. Not every developer believed in the images that they had been fed by the media. Many travelled the world, did their homework and learned that different ethnic groups were much more interesting than any news clip or music video. When these designers went back to the drawing board they developed characters that were much more universally appealing. They accomplished this by incorporating actual cultural cues and details into their black figures. There were reasons why the genre survived the rise of the home consoles through the '80s and the arcade crash of the late '90s. Truly great fighting games had a diverse fan base made up of every ethnicity and background. When these players saw a diverse cast, one that they could identify with, they were willing to embrace the series. The audience would continue to support the publishers as long as they continued developing great games with a broad well-respected cast.

When the developers in Japan and the US took the time to incorporate real elements from history and society into their titles they accomplished something profound. They managed to expose the world to systems and cultures they might have previously never known about. The fighting genre was indeed very influential to a generation, but not in the ways that the politicians had made it out to be. It did not turn fans of Street fighter and Mortal Kombat into cold-blooded killers. It did however color the perception of young impressionable gamers by making them aware of how amazing the world really was. The next blog will explore the ways that one of the darkest times in modern history also changed a beautiful art form. 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!

How fight culture became fighting game history, part 32

For the next portion of this series I would like to take an extended look at how one fighting art was tied into the history and culture of the slave trade. To mention the fighting art and separate it from its racial origins would be a disservice to the practitioners. This series will cover some sensitive topics so if you do not want to read about minority figures in fighting games then please return at the end of this series. In previous blogs I had mentioned that the Japanese had become almost notorious for perpetuating certain takes on African-American culture. No where else was this more apparent than in fighting games.

The flamboyant afro-sporting black man had become a gaming trope. Look at Tiger Jackson a hidden character in Tekken 3. The Namco title from 1997 was one of the first 3D games to exploit this dated character concept. A year later Square released Tony Umeda in their sword fighting game Bushido Blade 2. He was a mixed ancestry character being half-Black and half-Japanese. Of course that didn't explain his costume. Bell bottoms, platform shoes and afros had fallen out of favor at the end of the '70s. Years later it would return in arcade titles. Tiger Jackson and Tony Umeda was followed by Mr. Jones / Jones Damon from Rage of Dragons. Both characters were undoubtedly influenced on the classic Jim Kelly character Black Belt Jones as well as the "Black Dragon" Ron Van Cief. Black fighters created by Japanese developers seemed incapable of escaping the look. Even Zack from the Dead or Alive series became an afro wearing clown at one point in the series. Believe it or not Mr. Jones was considerably worse.
 

The 2002 game by Evoga was set in the Double Dragon universe. The game actually had a pedigree. It was a descendant of what many consider to be the original arcade brawler. Double Dragon was held in high regards by long-time arcade players. Sadly the fighting games based on the franchise were lackluster. They demonstrated a lack of originality and innovation. Evoga was borrowing gameplay elements from titles like the King of Fighters and even graphic styles from Street Fighter Zero / Alpha. Copying rival studios and introducing characters like Mr. Jones into the genre just about guaranteed that it would be forgotten by audiences. The studio ended up doing a disservice to those long-time players by failing to respect the legacy they were drawing from. Things had been slowly devolving for the genre before Rage of Dragons had even been released. The mid '90s gave game players reason to believe that the Japanese did not know their audience as well as they should have. At best they were just filling a niche but at worst they were negatively coloring the perception of audiences.

Not every character that came from a Japanese artist was done so out of willful ignorance. Afro Samurai was written and drawn by Takashi Okazaki and published in manga form in 1999. It would be serialized and even adapted into an animated mini-series and game a few years later. The creator was actually a huge fan of Hip Hop culture, the music, the fashion and the movement. He saw his titular character as an homage to the super-cool characters Ron Van Cief and Jim Kelly had played in the "Blacksploitation" films all those years earlier. What was unique about the martial arts films that the black actors were cast in was it was the first time they were allowed to be the stars of the films. As long as they could fight and act they were invited again and again. The films even had the occasional relationships with Asian women on screen. The studios in China and Taiwan had a much more progressive attitude towards blacks than the US had. It was no surprise why Van Clief chose to work there when his own country didn't welcome blacks.

The first black samurai character in pop culture appeared in 1977, around the height of the Blacksploitation movement. This character, who mumbled in fake Japanese, was portrayed by Richard Pryor on his short lived comedy show. There had been an actual historical precedence set for this character however, his name was Yasuke and he first appeared in the 16th century. Yasuke was the first and only recorded black samurai from feudal-era Japan. His name was actually given to him by the warlord Oda Nobunaga. While this person is not really known about in the west the Japanese would have recognized the archetype. It was what allowed characters like Tony Umneda and the Afro Samurai to be accepted.



Some artists working on the black sword master didn't quite grasp the subtleties that Mr. Okazaki was going after. His work was bold, violent, stylish and very avant-garde. The things that made the Afro Samurai popular in manga and animation circles was lost on many other Japanese designers. To many artists and consumers black people were gimmick characters. They could never really carry a series. In 2008 SNK introduced the first black character in their popular Samurai Spirits / Shodown series. J. was a sailor that was shipwrecked on Japan. He learned the art of sword fighting, he nicknamed his sword Elvis (I'm sure the designers thought they were being clever) and he became a hired swordsman. Most people were scared of his skin color more than his fighting ability. They called him the "Black Devil." To make him more empathetic to Asian audiences his goal in the game was to free a geisha that had shown him kindness and wasn't scared of his color. Japan had been on the wrong side of black character design for years but were beginning to give them more dimension. Only time would tell if the trend would continue. Things weren't really much better on the other side of the ocean.

The United States Congress had gone out of their way to interpret every corruptible influence they could from fighting, action and shooting games through the '90s. They tried blaming violence in video games as having a detrimental affect to children and society as a whole. It was a similar argument that they had about comic books and rock and roll music a few generations earlier. In the end these accusations were baseless but ended up in the music, comic book and video game industries creating a form of self censorship. Some things that was never addressed in the Congressional hearings and something that the gaming industry and the gaming media managed to ignore were the subtle racial undertones placed on characters. Violence was one thing but racial bias was apparently something too taboo to bring up. Things were especially bad for Black characters in 1994. They were not always African-American but when they were they could be guaranteed to share similar traits. Magic Dunker was just one character in a series of black, basketball playing, fighting game characters. It was not hard to tell who the token "American" character was in the game given his Star-Spangled costume. He originally appeared in the game Fight Fever by Viccom. Apparently the Japanese had been keeping up with trends. Magic Dunker and the other black fighting game characters appeared the same year that western publishers had released the dismal Shaq Fu, a fighting game featuring Shaquille O'neal the master of "Shaquido." Japanese developers were giving audiences what they assumed they wanted.



In reality the developers in Japan had mainly pop culture as a point of reference for the USA. When they wanted to make a character that would be popular with the Americans they looked at the trends. The biggest stars in the US seemed to be music stars and sport icons, at least according to television. Singers in general did not have the physical traits of a fighter but athletes were spot on. Magic Dunker had the stylings of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, two of the biggest stars of the era. The hi-top sneakers, flat top haircut, tank top and sweat bands were slightly behind the fashion curve though. Perhaps the Japanese were working from dated information. The athlete-as-a-fighter carried over several times on other titles.

Shaq and Magic Dunker were joined by Bobby "Brown Bullet" Nelson. The breakdancer and basketball playing prodigy from Aggressors of Dark Kombat was one of the youngest fighters ever devised. The SNK title was developed by Alpha Denshi Corp. and there was little originality in his basketball-based and dancing attacks. Not that Lucky Glauber from the King of Fighters USA team was any better but at least he was an adult. Glauber did not have any named style of fighting but instead relied on his long legs for sweeping kicks and basketballs he could summon out of thin air to throw at opponents. At least fighters of other nationalities or ethnicities were allowed to have more convincing fighting styles. The Neo Geo arcade cabinet seemed to be a magnet for these ill-advised characters. A few years later Capcom introduced Sean in Street Fighter III. The game from 1997 did not force the character to have either dancing or basketball-based attacks but the studio did incorporate basketballs into his opening animations and taunts. It was unsettling how similar the fighters were, what traits they shared in common and how little the Japanese seemed to know about black culture, at least about blacks in the USA.


If gamers were offended by these characters, not that they were necessarily, it was because the Japanese were holding up a mirror to Western society. What the developers had learned and assumed about the US was pulled from media from the West. The biggest icons for black culture were featured in Nike ads and McDonalds campaigns, ten times out of ten they were athletes. The news did little to help the image of blacks as well. A person watching television that didn't speak English would see a black criminal, entertainer or sports star, sometimes all three were the same person, within the span of an hour. Was fame the most important thing a black person could strive for? The positive role models in science, politics or education were not as visual or as celebrated on television. This perception skewed the view that the world and not just Japan had about Americans. For African-Americans it was more divisive. Some of the cultural cues that were being picked up by developers were insensitive to the black community and actually reinforcing stereotypes. Basketball was one thing to pin on the fighting characters but it soon became more subversive than that.

In 1997 Takara released the third part in their 3D weapon-based fighting game. Battle Arena Toshinden 3 introduced a character that danced, did a high pitched yell and moonwalked with a saber in hand. His name was Ten Count. The similarities between himself and the legendary performer Michael Jackson were too much to ignore. It was a shame too because the series was a ground breaker. It was the first notable 3D weapon-based arcade fighting series. It came out in the middle of 1995. The more popular Soul Edge, the first in the Soul series by Namco, didn't debut until the end of the year. While Ten Count was a blatant rip-off character the other black fighters from the '90s didn't fare much better.

Boggy, a character from Kaiser Knuckle, made his debut in 1994. The game by Taito was one of the worst fighting games developed. It gave Fight Fever and Aggressors of Dark Kombat a run for their money. Boggy was an entertainer and a fighting man at that. Apparently the Japanese developers were a bit behind the times when they introduced the breakdancing brawler to audiences. His look, clothing and mannerisms were all dated. His fighting stances were not from any named fighting art but mostly made up of dance steps. Where else could these influences have been pulled from than from television, specifically music videos? Were the developers really so detached from Western audiences as to only use second-hand sources for inspiration or did they assume that these characters were appropriate?



An important thing to consider was cultural relativism. The reaction to Boggy, Magic Dunker, Bobby Nelson and the rest was different outside of the US. Other countries might have had the same ideas about black characters based on the same television shows and movies they saw from the West. For all they knew these things were true of all black people. The view that the global television audience had was broken from the get-go. Reality rather than sensationalism was seldom shown on television. Poor, rich and middle class blacks existed but were never covered by the news. Their stories had not been shown on sitcoms or dramas. At leas not since the '80s. To the developers overseas it was okay to have dancing, basketball playing black people in fighting games. Minority characters in fighting games appeared as marginalized as they had been in society. Very few countries ever had the minority groups push for change at the local, state and national level in the way the Civil Rights Movement had in the USA. Even today stereotypes, racist attitudes and institutionalized segregation were very real issues the world over. There were not laws against discrimination in all of the nations. Minorities and women could be denied benefits, rights and privileges because their employers and even government were immune to reprisal. The characters that debuted in 1994 skirted the sensibilities of Western audiences, they were borderline racial caricatures that harkened to a dark era in US history. The next blog will look at the fine line that the Japanese developers walked during the fighting game boom. 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!