Bookmark This Page; The Disney Company in China, a podcast series

When the missus went on sabbatical I recorded a six-part series for the Pink Monorail Podcast on how the Disney Company started doing business in China. If you want to listen to the entire series then Bookmark This Page.

Disney in China, Episode 1

Disney in China, Episode 2

Disney in China, Episode 3

Disney in China, Episode 4

Disney in China, Episode 5

Disney in China, Episode 6

Have you ever visited any of the Disney parks in Asia? Tell me about it 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!

The Martial Myths; Capcom and SNK in manhua. A 1UP classic from Apr 4, 2012

The oldest fighting game comics had been coming from Hong Kong. Many of the popular ones featuring Street Fighter or the King of Fighters series were available on this Chinese Manhua site. English adaptations of these books were rare. DrMaster Publishing (DGN) had the license and translated a number of Chinese and Korean manhua titles along with a few Japanese manga titles in the mid 2000's. However the company stopped distributing comics and seemed to simply vanish. Perhaps they were too ambitious with their titles and forgot to pay their bills? Some of the titles that they did bring over were the licensed fighting game comics from Hong Kong. Those that are interested in learning more about this style of comics should check out the following books.

The studio released an eight-part adaptation of the King of Fighters Maximum Impact series by Wing Yan and King Tung. This was based on the 3D KOF titles that SNK had developed. The game was somewhat popular and managed to get a sequel however fans were glad that the company returned to their 2D roots on subsequent releases. The manhua was notable for several reasons. Unlike the older Jade comics published in the USA these new books used high quality paper with digital colors, making them look every bit as good as US or Japanese comics.

DGN also published a series based on the King of Fighters 2003, also by Wing Yan and King Tung. The series was notable because it mixed the art styles. Some of the pages were colored in a Japanese animé style, with bright highlights and light filters. Other pages looked more like traditional manhua with thin inked lines denoting shadows and shapes instead of the thick inking of US comics. Other pages were digitally painted to make them completely unlike any other title.

Street Fighter VS SNK Chaos (SVC Chaos) by Chi Wan Shum was highlighted earlier in this blog series for the number of panels swiped by the artist from other books. The title was actually a decently written attempt at bringing two completely different styles of game and character designs to readers in a convincing battle royale. This would not have been possible with some great interplay between series favorites and some fantastic painted panels by Wan Shum.

The premise for the book was a standard good versus evil in a fight to the death. Characters from Capcom and SNK universes were pulled into battle by some enigmatic young deities. The characters were scattered around a fictional city and forced to fight. It was a way for SNK to reinforce that Kyo Kusanagi was the poster boy for their fighting franchise rather than the older character Terry Bogard, who was co-developed by Street Fighter creator Takashi Nishiyama BTW. By comparison Ryu would retain his status as the most powerful fighter in the Street Fighter universe.

The manhua featured many different encounters between characters. In some cases there were variations of the main characters doing battle, like Evil Ryu versus Violent Ken. The series dealt with a great number of match-ups that only a true fan of both universes could have presented.

Terry versus Sagat? It was unlikely that an encounter in US comics due to licensing restrictions however the agreement that both SNK and Capcom had agreed with in Hong Kong must have been less costly to publishers.

The series had some eye-catching painted panels.

The main villains in the series were Gouki and Mr. Karate, the respective fighting bosses of both universes.

The series was not all Capcom vs Capcom battles though. The SNK encounters were equally memorable. Chi Wan Shum tried to cram in every possible fanboy battle into the series. How about Ken versus Geese Howard, or Gouki vs Vega? Who were the most powerful fighters after all?

Fighting game collectors owe it to themselves to track down these books and see how the manhua differs from other comic formats. The ways in which manhua predated the Street Fighter myth was almost eerie. This relationship will be explored in the next entry. As always 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!

The Martial Myths; a look at Mahua. A 1UP classic from Mar 30, 2012

China, and Hong Kong in particular, had a reputation for copying products and ideas and distributing knock-off goods. The martial arts of China had influenced the development of martial arts in Japan. The associated fables and myths of Chinese martial artists had also influenced the legends in Japan. Where influence and inspiration diverged was in popular culture. Chinese manhua had begun taking on the artistic influences of Japanese manga through the 1950's and 60's. In some cases some manhua titles were outright taking character designs right from Japan in unlicensed books. Some manhua titles were even stealing cartoon characters from the US, including popular Marvel, DC and Disney properties. The level of character and art appropriation was shameless. This trend would continue through the 80's before the advent of Street Fighter and well through the 90's as well. Even one of the most original manhua titles, the Iron Marshal, was not free from appropriating designs and photographs as reference material. Compare the stoic Emperor on the cover of Iron Marshal 3 with the Abraham Lincoln statue at the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. Or the mask that kung-fu master Supremo wore to the metallic Terminator skull from movie fame. For the purpose of the series this blog will focus on how the manhua exploited the art and design of Street Fighter.

The previous blog had mentioned that the first licensed and unlicensed Street Fighter comics were Chinese. Pop culture was a driving force behind the creation of many copycat, if not outright counterfeit products, including comics. The city of Hong Kong was always striving to be accepted as an international city, one whose influence was as important as New York or London on the global stage. Residents of Hong Kong were very conscious of Western trends and brands. They were always battling to be right on the forefront of every pop movement. When Street Fighter took off in the arcades they were among the first to buy into the series, collecting every licensed and unlicensed product that bore even a passing resemblance to the title. The same things applied to other popular fighting titles, specifically those from SNK.

Even when publishers had worked out license agreements with Capcom and SNK the manhua artists still managed to poach the work of the Japanese designers. It was very apparent in the SVC Chaos series by Chi Wan Shum. Following are a collection of some, but not all, of the most blatant rip-offs of previously published manga art.

Masahiko Nakahira, the Japanese artist that created the Street Fighter Zero, Sakura Ganbare and Ryu: Final mangas was the one whose art was most often copied. In some cases the poses of the original art was mirrored due to the adaptation of the manga for Western audiences. The illustrations shown here should leave little doubt to comic and gaming fans as to how bold some manhua artists were.

Even concept art from the developers, like Bengus' painting of Dimitry from Vampire / Darkstalkers, were not safe from poaching.

Mr. Shum would often take the most iconic poses from the manga and redraw them with different characters.

The paintings in SVC Chaos were very well done, in some cases spectacular. This series was worthy of collecting by die-hard fighting game fans just for some of the illustrations.

However it was shameless how individual panels were recreated in the series and characters were changed to fit the story.

SNK artist Shiro Ohno was not immune to the cannibalization of his work on Samurai Spirits either.

The manhua artists seemed obsessed with catering to the fans even at the cost of their own artistic integrity. It could have reflected the same obsessions that the public had when it came to brand identity and trendiness. For whatever reason the Chinese seemed to find the knock-off pieces acceptable as long as they could be passed off as good / better / less expensive than what inspired it. For the SVC books it could be argued that the "art" was better. The pages were in full color with many of the panels being painted. The Nakahira titles were strictly black and white ink drawings, albeit with completely original art.

Take for example the famous stare down between Vega and Ryu from the Street Fighter Zero manga. It was recreated as a stare down between Kyo Kusanagi from the King of Fighters series and Vega from Street Fighter. The similarities were too hard to ignore. Perhaps the manhua artists were trying to exploit iconic poses for their own use. After all, if you are going to steal then you should steal from the very best, isn't that right arttronic?

Another question was whether these were a homage to the great artists and writers that came before and not meant as a blatant rip-off. The pose by Nakahira was actually a homage to two previous poses created by Capcom legend Bengus. Each earlier piece featured Ryu against a boss from the SF universe. Why would it be okay to call out the manhua artists and not the Japanese for doing these things? An earlier blog gave examples where Capcom poached character designs and special moves directly from Hokuto no Ken for Street Fighter II and Final Fight. Why was Capcom not held to task because of it? Perhaps it was never acceptable to swipe ideas whether the designers were Chinese or Japanese.

The trend of swiping art and design was not a one way street. Some comic book artists in the USA had copied from each other. Even the Japanese were not immune to this trend. C_Qube found some blatant ripoffs of Masahiko Nakahira's art by Masayuki Tagushi. Ryu Final was published in 1999 and Black Joke in 2010. The poses and frames between the comics were every bit as copied as the worst manhua offender.

Some artists were simply influenced by the styles of particular illustrators and never meant their work to be interpreted as derivative of them. The artists working for Udon drew very much in the style of the Capcom designers, this made their titles highly sought after by fans of the SF universe. The same could not be said of the Malibu artists that had released Street Fighter comics in the style of US comic book artists. The US-produced SF comics and cartoons were universally panned because of their insipid art styles and characterizations. The most successful of these titles were the ones closest to the intent of the original designers at Capcom. For many of the Chinese artists the key to success was replicating the art verbatim.

Manhua adaptations of the SF titles did use a lot of copied poses, however they also included a lot of the more traditional manhua conventions. The start of this blog made it a point to show only the most obvious copies but that was not to say that the entire series of SVC Chaos was derivative. There were many great panels and sequences that were completely original in that series and other licensed fighting game manhua. It would be a disservice to the Hong Kong comics industry to say that there was nothing original in manhua, or that they did not have a share in influencing Japanese manga and by extension the Street Fighter universe as well. Manhua, like Japanese manga and US comic books was a unique format. It had its own idiosyncrasies, art styles and storytelling elements. There were many things that the manhua did that distinguished it from the other graphic arts formats.

A great manhua was a visual representation of a great action sequence, like a storyboard in a film. The things that made these fights entertaining would be repeated in fighting videogames. The defining elements in fighting manhua were; a great story, solid character designs, imaginative special moves and convincing character development. There were many things presented visually that predated the fighting game genre by decades. The fighters had access to special moves and techniques who were called stances. These stances were as diverse as any super power from a western comic book.

Some powers were based on energy projection, others on gathering of chi for impregnable defenses. The Bloody Duke from the Iron Marshal had a technique that allowed him to perform a sonic yell that disabled opponents at a distance. This powerful yell was based on a chi technique which supposedly allowed the practitioner to disarm and even disable an attacker with a yell. It would be featured in the wuxia brawling game the Gladiator as a special attack. Another character from the Iron Marshal was named the Exterminator. He had developed a chi-based technique called the “Carving Thumb” he could stop weapons with his thumb and even cut through marble with his bare hands.

These stances were not used on every opponent the manhua characters faced. Weak opponents might only see the first stance while "boss" type characters could draw out the final stances. The villains usually had murderous techniques while heroes had equally powerful stances designed to negate them. These techniques were never used casually in battles or even for sparring.

When characters performed their special attacks they would call them out in a battle. In SF and most fighting games after, each character would also call out the names of special attacks as they performed them. This tradition was started in manhua.

Fights often went back and forth between the main characters in manhua. It was up to the writers and artists to convince audiences that even a minor hero stood a chance at defeating a major villain. If the hero was absolutely flawless in a battle and took advantage of every mistake their opponent made then they could accomplish the impossible. In actual SF videogame tournaments there were often memorable battles in which low tier characters could take out the top level characters because the player made no mistakes and capitalized on the mistakes of his opponent. In canon a character like Chun-Li was not powerful enough to defeat Gouki. If she were presented in a comic as fighting him on her very best day with all her strength and energy behind every attack then writers could convince readers that she could at least hold her own. In the game however she had a very good chance at defeating him depending on the player.

The fighters in manhua often talked about using a percentage of their strength for individual attacks or even how much strength they had remaining after a particularly difficult battle. These things predated the energy bars and super move bars used to keep track of stats in fighting games.

Some of the influences on fighting games were less subtle. The manhua and wuxia legends often held battles in exotic locations. Perhaps a hidden temple or secret monastery would serve as a backdrop for an encounter. During the development of Street Fighter II, the entire tournament was supposed to take place in a single location rather than be spread all over the world. Characters would climb higher and higher on the island local and fight the final boss at the peak of a mountain. Perhaps this secretive tournament and island was inspired by the island setting in the Bruce Lee film “Enter the Dragon.”

This island eventually became the inspiration for Shadowlaw HQ, the secret base of the SF II villains. It would be featured in the SF II animé movie.

The manhua titles were not all action without substance. There was a variety of reasons why readers were drawn to the titles. The characterizations were often very strong in the titles. The death of a hero, even somebody that only existed for an issue or two meant something to the main character. Deaths in manhua were not like deaths in western comics. When a character passed away that was it. There would not likely be a miraculous return, as was the case for many characters in US comic books. There would also not be anybody else introduced to fill that void.

The main characters would be effected by these tragedies and by extension the readers would remember the characters when a reckoning came for the villains.

The stories were often violent and that element drew some readers. Yet it was the dark comedy that made them stay.

The violence was sometimes broken up by moments of awe or inadvertent comedy, like a cowardly soldier getting punched in the face by a villain. Other times the action was broken up by some witty banter or dialogue which revealed the motivation of the characters.

The designs of the main characters and villains were often very fantastic and over-the-top. Their influence could be felt generations later in other formats like games and film. Street Fighter was not the only game that had pulled influences from Chinese character designs.

The universe that these characters inhabited was amazing. Not only could people perform impossible things but even animals could as well. The horse of the Iron Marshal was named Lion. This horse appeared to be a master of the light foot technique because he could even run across treetops.

When these well designed, sympathetic / awe inspiring / funny / violent characters were incorporated into an action script then it was nothing short of the perfect entertainment format. For a “fighting” comic there was much more to the manhua than secret techniques and cool characters. The most memorable battles were not always on the printed page. The visual spectacle offered by motion pictures had completely changed the way people thought about the fighting arts. Many character and plot designs in fighting games were heavily influenced by Hong Kong cinema. Some of the designs were either subtly or blatantly based on characters that had come before. We will dig in more on this topic in the next blog. Were there any manhua books that you collected? Let me know in the comments section please. As always 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!

Tony Wong, Andy Seto, the Story of the Four Constables. A 1UP classic from Mar 29, 2012

Tony Wong was not the first manhua writer or artist. He was undoubtedly the most influential though. When he started off his work as a teenager in the 1960's there was not much to look at. He was a terrible artist that relied on shock value to move comics. Once he outgrew his teen phase and began developing memorable characters and improved his drawing techniques there would be no stopping him.

His contributions to the comics medium were hard to ignore. He just about single-handedly modernized the Hong Kong comics industry, and created a publishing empire filled with former rivals as well as new talent. The painted art of the manhua was more influential than Japanese manga art to the growing wave of Korean comic artists and designers. This shaping of styles would never have happened without Tony Wong. Tony was eventually tapped to produce a story featuring Batman for DC. The story was well put together as most of Wong’s best work. The master storyteller was great at hiding plot twists in plain sight and revealing them at the most opportune moments. In the story Batman inspired the creation of a Chinese vigilante named Night Dragon. Both were on the trail of a crime lord that was filming the murders of people and putting them online for profit.

Those interested in studying the nuances between manhua and comic books, especially the difference in the art, should pick up the title Batman: Hong Kong.

Wong’s most popular series, Weapons of the Gods, inspired the development of both a tabletop and MMO game. This game would influence the character designs and art direction for South Korean MMO’s as much as any manhua title produced by Wong did. 

Tony was an exceptional character designer. This went for the humans, animals and monsters that went into his books. He knew how to stage battles between these characters and present them in the best possible way. He was also one of the early artists to draw different forms of chi energy attacks and magical attacks that predated Hokuto no Ken. For example, in the Weapons of the Gods one of the characters had musical instruments that allowed him to hypnotize or even kill his opponents with sounds.

Tony’s greatest strength was not his art as much as it was his writing. Mr. Wong had a way of creating very personable characters. He made them emotive, able to enter into some witty banter when they weren’t beating up on each other. Arguably the best title ever created by Tony did not feature his art.

Andy Seto was one of the best manhua artists in the business. He handled many high profile adaptations of Hong Kong films, including Shaolin Soccer and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. His work in paint was sublime. I would rank him among the best western comic illustrators like Alex Ross and Bruce Timm. When Andy’s talents were combined with Tony Wong’s writing then there was no stopping him.

Andy was the artist behind the Four Constables books. These books featured the staples of manhua design and coloring. They broke the mold however in that they were digitally painted. By going digital Andy was able to achieve the same bright colors that had been a staple in US comics since the 1990’s. He was able to take the comic medium to new levels though by combining his training in the traditional manhua format with new technology. This included using amazing poses and perspectives in fighting sequences that were usually never seen in the US.

The painted panels could be vibrant or muted depending on the effect he was trying to achieve. These things would have been all but impossible to reproduce on canvas or using older printing techniques.

Each battle in the Four Constables was the equivalent of a great action sequence in a film or even a dramatic videogame encounter. The poses and strikes were framed for the best visual impact and the characters actually named their stances (special moves) as they were performing them. Those interested in learning how to present a fight between two martial arts masters with fantastic powers should dissect Seto’s work. It was almost lamentable that he was never tapped to produce a Street Fighter manhua other than the occasional Street Fighter comic cover.

Seto was a master of design. Helping bring the characters that Tony wrote to life. He was able to design beautiful and graceful characters as easily as he could present powerful ones.

The Four Constables could be considered the closest to a western-inspired superhero team while still preserving the manhua conventions. The characters were all martial arts masters that had a specialty. The fourth constable was nicknamed Cold Blooded, he was a master of swordplay. The third was a master of the light foot technique. Few could match the powerful kicks of the Life Snatcher. The second was Iron Hands and had been mentioned previously in this series. The leader of the four was nicknamed Emotionless. He was actually paralyzed from the waist down and moved on a golden “Cloud” wheelchair. He studied the hidden weapons techniques. He knew how to interrupt the chi meridians and could kill with a single attack. Every inch of his robe was lined with weapons and his wheelchair was as well. He used the light foot techniques with his hands and could propel himself and his chair over any obstacle.

The Four Constables were usually working cases independently. Whenever they were called together it was because there was something that could potentially topple the kingdom. Fans of great writing, fantastic art and memorable battles should try and track down a copy of the books.

Tony and Andy were the pinnacle of the manhua craft. They knew how to entertain audiences with original material as much as with licensed work. The Chinese that contributed some of the largest inspirational points for the SF series often got the least amount of credit. This was possibly due to a tradition that appropriated (stole) almost as much design and IP as they had created in the past half century. When Hong Kong began producing manhua based on fighting games they tended to poach the best designs and art from those working at Capcom and the Japanese artists publishing licensed manga. This tradition would hurt the reputation of the format and even some of the most talented creators in the industry. The next blog will explore these rarely discussed issues. Were there any manhua books that you collected? Let me know in the comments section please. As always 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!

Street Fighter 6: A master class in game design, part 16

Capcom had set the gold standard of lineups when they released Street Fighter II in 1991. I could argue that the greatest character they ever made was Chun-Li. It stood to reason that when they wanted to introduce a new female that they would use her as the template. Cammy was designed as the young upstart, and British special forces counterpart. In Street Fighter EX the characters Pullum Purna, and Blair Dame were inspired by Chun-Li as well. The most popular character post Street Fighter IV was Juri. She borrowed heavily from the design from Chun-Li as well. Street Fighter 6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto was tasked to create another Asian female villain. Black was a color traditionally given to bad guys in pop culture. Red was an excellent accent color. Black hadn't really been assigned as one of the primary colors for any of the classic characters. The combination would be obvious go-to colors from the beginning. Mr. Hashimoto had to be aware of what the studio's contemporaries were working on. Whether the game came from Japan, China, or the US, he had to be conscious of how the genre had evolved over the past 30 years. Would it be possible to create A.K.I. in a vacuum? I think it was impossible. There would always be elements of some other character that could be pinned on any new one. Many in the fighting game community noticed that there were parallels with A.K.I. and those that came before. 

For example the Chinese kung-fu master with a unique hairstyle, that was wearing black, purple, and red, who also fought with a quick snake fist had been seen almost 20 years ago! Duo Lon made his debut in the King of Fighters 2003 in sprite form, and been revealed to be a 3D DLC character in KOF XV fall 2023. Just in time for A.K.I. to appear now that I think about it. Then there was an even earlier character who also eerily predated the look of A.K.I. The silver-haired, form-fitting costume, poison-claw-wearing Kurow Kirishima was created by Capcom in 2000. The ninja was the main villain from the game Project Justice. It was the sequel to the cult favorite Rival Schools. He was poisoning, and brainwashing students from different schools, and turning them against each other. If you've never heard of the series I want you to imagine Street Fighter featuring high school kids. It was one of the early 3D fighters the studio made, and has long been cited in fan polls for a reboot. I could imagine Kurow, and Kimberly having a heated rivalry. But I digress!

Fans were definitely onto something. The look, choice to be a villain, and move selection from Capcom seemed to mirror earlier antagonists. A.K.I.'s design could actually be traced back even earlier than Luo, or Kurow. In the previous blog I talked about the concept art from Street Fighter III. One of the designs proposed was a Mysterious Assassin. This was supposed to be an Indian character that had his own unique fighting style. The designs were from 1995-96. Many of the ideas were tossed, but there were a few solid ideas that would be revisited in the future. The Assassin was one such character that seemed to stick in the memories of the Capcom staff. In some cases these early concept figures included possible moves, and special attacks. For the Assassin the studio wanted him to have "mysterious movements". His hands would be obscured by long sleeves. His legs would be hidden under a long cloak, making it look like he could float.

  

While this character didn’t really go anywhere for SFIII I believe that many of these details were revisited in SFV. Specifically for the creation of F.A.N.G. The assassin with strange movements, that appeared to be able to float certainly fit the bill! By Street Fighter 6 the design elements were revised, and refined once more, and the character A.K.I. appeared. In 2022 I wrote that the design was giving off a dragon lady vibe. When the teaser for the character dropped during EVO 2023 my suspicions were confirmed. The longer move reveal trailer from just a couple of days ago showed that she had strange movements as well. She slashed with outstretched fingers, just like the Assassin concept art from many years prior. 

Eagle-eyed viewers noticed that several of A.K.I. moves were based on poisonous animals, she could slither along the ground like a snake, and even employ some kicks from the fantastic scorpion style of kung-fu. Hats off to the animation team, it must have been tremendous fun creating her attack library. The trailer gave us the best example of how to present hidden strikes. I want you to think about your favorite characters, and how they stand with their hands forward, or exposed to the game camera. If you threw a punch for a kick, then it would be easy to track on the screen. A.K.I was turned away from the opponent. This meant that several of her attacks were actually obscured from the game camera. A.K.I. could backhand, or hook kick opponents. Her torso hid which hand she used, and her dress covered which kick was being delivered as well. This mirrored how the Assassin concept fighter hid his attacks under a long cloak. The more difficult part for either F.A.N.G. or A.K.I. were creating lethal strikes that could be described as poisonous.

The turned stance was seen in several forms of actual Chinese wushu, and Shaolin kung-fu. The use of stealth, and sneaky moves was not a new thing in fighting games. One of the best, and rarest fighting games to use classic kung-fu forms was Martial Masters by IGS from 1999. The game featured a sexy fighter named Red Snake, she used the snake form, and a flirtatious ladies man known as the Scorpion.  I had written about the game from a Taiwan studio a few years ago, and how much they were influenced by the Capcom games from the mid-'90s. The characters in the game were inspired by a few classic kung-fu movies, not the least of which were the Once Upon a Time in China films featuring a young Jet Li playing the folk hero Wong Fei Hung. Martial arts cinema from Hong Kong, and Taiwan had a major hand in influencing the development of Street Fighter, and the entire fighting game genre. With regards to F.A.N.G., and A.K.I. there was actually a lot of precedence for having a "poison fist" fighting style. 

In cinema there was an all-star film from 1978 called The Five Deadly Venoms. In it the assassins were all trained in a particular deadly art; Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad. One or several of these poison fists were referenced in many classic manhua, or comic books. The villains often mimicked the attacks of these dangerous creatures. Some of these techniques were so dangerous that even a single touch could kill. This was the case for Elder Guan from the Four Constables. His hands would turn dark when he summoned the Black Death Palms technique. A live action version of this power was seen with the character of Yuan in the 2010 film True Legend. There was no doubt that the people at Capcom were heavily influenced by these stories. The most powerful characters in myth could perform a dim mak, or death touch. The Shun Goku Satsu from Gouki / Akuma was probably the most popular death touch in modern culture. A.K.I. was a sort of nod to these mysterious, and often deadly techniques, but there was much more to her design.

A.K.I. had to be an over-the-top villain in order to stand out from the rest of the Street Fighter lineup. She couldn't just be a kung-fu practitioner that happened to be mean. It wasn't enough that she had some sneaky moves either. Every part of her presentation had to be more outrageous than the traditional kung-fu characters like Chun-Li, or even Jamie. This meant that she had to have stances, and grapples that twisted, and contorted her body. She would fold herself in half before slashing, or drop flat to the ground before kicking. Not knowing where the next strike would come from would throw off opponents. The fighting game community had first seen these types of awkward angles, and strikes through the character of Voldo from Namco's 1995 hit Soul Edge. Voldo was an assassin, and could strike with his razor sharp katars from any position, including while laying on the ground.

In the gameplay reveal trailer we could see A.K.I. slither on her back. It was unnerving seeing the character move like that. This snake crawl allowed her to get under ranged attacks, and close the gap on opponents. Previously the franchise did feature snake-like movement with at least one other character. In the Street Fighter EX series by ARIKA Dhalsim could perform a Yoga Throw. The setup for it was very unique. The Indian yogi would wind around his opponent like a serpent before grabbing their torso and flipping them on their head. It remained one of my favorite fighting game animations to this day. I'm certain that Street Fighter 6 animators were able to pick, and choose the best elements they could find from pop culture, from actual kung-fu, and even earlier games while fleshing out the moves of the new assassin.  

For the developers it also wasn't enough to have a character that fought, or moved like a snake. She had to look dangerous,and untrustworthy. From a visual perspective A.K.I. was figuratively, and literally a toxic person. The pale white skin was unnatural, as if she was drained of her blood. The cut of her hair was reminiscent of the amanita phalloides aka the death cap mushroom. As far as her costume went it could be argued that Street Fighter 6 Designer Yusuke Hashimoto was making a bold fashion statement. The use of modern tulle sleeves, and pants under a traditional cheongsam was only the beginning. His choice of costume, skin color, jewelry, and haircut were very avant-garde. Every detail added reflected the same fashion sense that he tapped into when creating the designs in the first two Bayonetta games. Had Juri, F.A.N.G., or Kurow never existed then I'm certain that A.K.I.'s introduction would have had a greater impact on the franchise. 

Capcom must have known that between Juri, and A.K.I. the toxic female Asian trope was becoming redundant. I'm not sure why they felt like they had to double-down on this route. The question remained. Was Capcom doing right with character representation? Could this simply be chalked up to an artistic choice, and not a jab at the Chinese villain trope? The studio had done much better with Dhalsim, Blanka, and Rashid in this title. However A.K.I seemed to be a step backwards, at least to me. Street Fighter 6 was doing a lot to address the mistakes in the past. To make up for ugly characters, and ugly design choices. To become more inclusive when it came to ideas of sex, and gender roles. There would be a lot of positive new changes, faces, and game design elements introduced into the franchise. One of the major shifts to the cast came with the addition of NPCs to help carry the story. We will look at how in the next blog. I hope to see you back for the next entry. If you are a long time fan of Final Fight, or Street Fighter then I would like to hear your impressions of SF6. If you have never played any game previously then tell me your experiences in the comments section please. As always 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!