Freeze frame, my poster collection, part 25...

Merry Christmas to all my friends, and family. I didn't get too many goodies this year. I'm saving my money for taxes. Thankfully everyone over here had a good holiday season. I had so many posters in my Capcom collection that I had to break them over several separate blogs. Here's a reminder for any Street Fighter, or fighting game fans in general. If you want to get into collecting the posters then try to track down the game guides from Japan. The gems in my collection came from Gamest. It was the premier arcade magazine through the '90s. When they published guides, which they called MOOKS after Magazine-Book they often included a poster.

I have a lot of manhua or comics from Hong Kong. Some of them had gimmick covers, and even came with prizes like Charlie Nash's dog tags, and Chun-Li's spiked bracelet. This was the only poster that I was able to get when buying collections. 

The story behind this autographed poster was so much fun. Read all about it here. 

I can't believe this poster is 16 years old as of 2024. I had no idea if Capcom would ever do another Street Fight Club event. So I swiped two of the posters they had lining the walls on my way out of the event. I was grateful for the community then, and glad I still talk to a few members of the FGC on occasion. 

One of the first Street Fighter prints I ever got was at the San Fiego Comic Con. This illustration by Mark Brooks reminded us why the UDON books were succeeding when other game comics books were failing in the USA.

Thank you for joining me on this journey through my poster collection. Many of which I forgot I had. One day I’d like to get most of them framed, and put them on display, even if I have to cycle through them. Were there any you enjoyed? I’d like to read about them in the comments section. 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!

Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 11

The indication that the US was ready to elevate the status of street fashion, Hip Hop music, and Black culture in general happened in the late ‘90s, and early 2000’s. The rise of athletes like Allen “The Answer” Iverson, Stephon “Starbury” Marbury, Gary “The Glove” Payton, and Rafer “Slip 2 My Lou” Alston were unlike the previous generation of pro athletes. They were gifted with skills, and had built their reputations in college, but more important to many in the streets during the summertime. The NBA, like many professional leagues guarded their image. They made sure that coaches, and players dressed in suits while doing interviews, or sitting in the sidelines while injured. They would fine players for breaking any codes of conduct in games, and in public as well.

To many the polished images that the league presented was bland, and predictable. Seeing clean-cut college prospects move into the pro ranks was becoming stale. Suddenly there was a rise in rash, tattooed, outspoken, and genre-changing athletes. Young players that had the audacity to not only talk back to Michael Jordan, but also to cross him up, and humiliate him on court. The NBA couldn’t get them to conform to the old ways. When the organizers realized that the players with street roots represented a large population of their audience they changed course, and started using them for marketing. They started highlighting rappers sitting court-side on television, they started inviting Hip Hop acts to perform at the All Star Game, and even loosened their rules on visible tattoos.

Electronic Arts developed a number of pro sports video games, but they too felt that it was high time to incorporate more street culture into their library. So they had a sister developer called EA Big start creating action sports titles, like the iconic SSX Tricky snowboard game. But more important they released NBA Street in 2001. On the cover was a fictional player named Stretch Monroe. He was sort of avatar of the classic NBA stars from the ’70s. He was somehow still actively holding down the game in the streets against players more than half his age. The world would never be the same following its release. The studio would also add NFL Street, and FIFA Street into their catalog. They were essentially smaller groups of the top players, and teams, playing a looser version of the sport on the playground. Rather than be more like a simulation game, the focus was more on capturing the arcade experience. NBA Street was essentially a call back to the classic NBA Jam arcade hit from a decade earlier. I called NBA Street one of my favorite games of All-Time. The game had smooth controls, and an easy to learn combo system, which allowed you to crossover opponents for bonus points. It was as if EA Big figured out how to incorporate the combo mechanics of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, but put it into a sports game.

NBA Street was a breath of fresh air. I was never a fan of the traditional sports games. I didn’t care about building franchises, trading players, or grinding through seasons. The more realistic those titles were the less interesting they became to me. Giving slightly exaggerated abilities to a handful of star athletes made them feel more like super heroes, and less like mortals in the game world. Suddenly the game play had much more potential to me. The same could be argued of Hawk, and his fellow pro skaters. They could survive impossible drops, perform back-to-back tricks mid air, and grind rails without losing momentum. There was still a lot of realism in the games, but reality was not the goal. It was more on the fantastic spectrum of what was humanly possible. In addition to the brilliant game play were the visuals. The aesthetic of the players in the franchise was more animated. The proportions employed by EA Big was the predecessor to the All Star Vinyl figures by Upper Deck.

You could imagine how much I loved the look of the players in this game. They were the kinds of basketball players that I would draw, but finally animated. The impact of the Street series on me, and on basketball fans in general could not be understated. If you don’t believe me GQ called NBA Street 2 the greatest basketball game ever made. It would be hard for me to counter that argument. The game was an instant hit, and spawned a number of sequels. Yet like the Hawk franchise, the greedy publisher forced the developers to crank out sequels with diminished quality over the following years. I predicted that the market would be flooded with streetball games in 2005. The team at EA Big in Canada didn’t have time to innovate, they didn’t have time to look for newer or better game play options. They substituted evolution by adding all sorts of over-the-top gimmicks. Eventually the series would burn out. However the template they created would be picked up by indy developers.

JoyCity the South Korean company was founded in 1994 as Chung Media and was later renamed to JC Entertainment in 2000. They released a an MMO PC game called FreeStyle Street Basketball in 2004. The game did well over the years, as did many other MMOs coming out of South Korea. Freestyle2 Street Basketball came out in 2015. The game did even better, and expanded the universe of playground basketball characters that JC Entertainment had established. Their cross platform successor 3on3 Freestyle Basketball originally came out for PC / Steam on Dec. 2016, and Xbox Aug. 2018. Other studios were eager to cash in on the trend. Beijing Halcyon Network Technology Co., LDT released Dunk Nation 3x3 in 2017. The Asian collective All9Fun which developed games for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao released Basketrio: Allstar Streetball in 2020.

As a fan of the Michael Lau, and by extension urban vinyl school of design I could tell that his work in the early 2000’s had certainly rubbed off on the character designers working in South Korea, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The style of the characters, the proportions, the attention to outfits, and presentation was unmistakable. Lau was not the only influence, Eric So, CoolRain, Brothersfree, and Jason Siu also colored the aesthetic that went into toy, game, and collectable art for the next two decades. Looking at the designs featured in the games by JC Entertainment, Halcyon, and All9Fun was a master class in bridging the aesthetic, culture, and shifting role of online gaming.

Let’s start with the stylized characters featured in all of the above mentioned streetball games. What really stood out to me were the styles of the designs. When the studios created basketball players, they were very much in the vein of Michael Lau, Kadir Nelson, and Chris Brunner. I would even put my name as a contributor of that style even if I only impacted 0.01% of the artists out there. The trio created some lanky, stylized, forms that worked great for basketball. They even made sure that sneakers these cartoonish character wore were large, and reflected the style of the time. It didn’t matter if their kicks were licensed or not. They made sure that players could read the fashion of each athlete which gave them additional layers of personality. The type of physical build they put forward didn’t work with all sports, but on the fast paced game of basketball it was perfect. These designs worked amazingly well in animation. The long arms, and legs, the oversized hands, the flat, expressive faces were the ultimate athletic canvas.

I noticed that the Asian studios were quick to use street culture, to use Hip Hop as the backdrop of many of their titles. The graffiti, the fashion, the music, the overall visual language. The oldest trailers for Freestyle Street Basketball had a graffiti artist using spray paint to bring the characters to life. A deejay was scratching beats on a turntable while a black basketball player without pupils was putting together a freestyle routine. This character would eventually be named Deacon, and featured prominently over the years. Many years later when Freestyle2 was announced a new Black character with gold hair named Leo debuted. He was essentially a new take on Deacon. Almost every studio was quick to feature Black characters in their opening animations, and online marketing as well. This was a form of signaling to the community that the streetball was authentic, however the staring roles didn’t go always go to Black characters. At least not in the early days of the streetball MMOs.

The star characters of each of the JC Entertainment games fit a similar model. The oldest star character the studio created was Saru, in some of the oldest advertising, and trailers his jersey actually read Sabu. The character wore red, and black, the classic Chicago Bulls colors. Had a tribal tattoo sleeve. He was essentially the prototypical cool streetball player. His design influences were a cross sample of elements that the Asian market would identify, even if they weren’t familiar with the stars in the NBA, or US playgrounds.

The character’s name, and his jersey was more than a nod to the ‘90s era Bulls which were known the world over. The outfit was based on the protagonist Saru gang from the highly influential Tokyo Tribe manga / anime, which was first published in 1993, and was serialized in Boon magazine between 1997-2005. This was often the first exposure that many fans in Asia had to Hip Hop culture. Even if they had not known anything about Tokyo Tribe the young basketball hero in a red jersey was also seen in Slam Dunk. The manga was first published in 1990, and went on to get translated into multiple languages as well. It was a primer for many fans to basketball culture. Saru’s design would be easily identifiable as the hero to the Asian market, just as Stretch was recognized as the star of the NBA Street series in the west.

The next hero of the Freestyle series was Jack. By the time the sequel was released in 2015 the urban vinyl school of design had already changed the looks of characters in games, and animation. The reception to lanky heroes was welcome in several genres, especially basketball. The cool culture was street culture, Hip Hop was everywhere, and style was more important than substance. The athletic uniform was out the window, as Jack played shirtless, in leather pants, and sneakers. It was an absurd outfit for playing, but the cool factor was unarguable. At the same time JC Entertainment still featured characters in traditional outfits, but was letting players create custom characters that wore all sorts of costumes, and accessories. The studio had essentially placed Freestyle2 in a universe similar to Lau’s gardeners. People walked around with boxes on their heads. Or there were animal people, or cyborgs inhabiting this world where everything was settled through basketball tournaments.

The thing that always bothered me about the street basketball games coming out on Steam, mobile, and consoles from overseas was that Black characters always seemed to be relegated to supporting characters at best, or villains at worst. Well, actually there could be subtext in the designs that was even worse than evil, and that was outright racist. Dark skinned characters were sometimes portrayed as aggressive, tough, and sometimes ape-like, if not outright apes. I wish I could say that this was a trope that was abandoned generations ago, but it would still rear its ugly head from time to time. The light-skinned champion against these apes, or savages in a Black setting was a tradition that had always bothered me in all media.

It went back to the days of Tarzan of the Apes, the adventure books from 1912 featured the white champion as not only being the strongest, and bravest warrior in all of Africa, but he could also talk to the animals. In essence he was superior to every Black man on the continent. This type of white savior story had spread around the world for decades, coloring other cultures perception of dark-skinned characters. As a Mexican-American I was sensitive to how minorities were portrayed in media. I could never imagine how a Black kid would even react when faced with the same tropes. Even Michael Lau was not immune from centering the gardener universe around the light skinned Maxx. His best friend, and rival Brian was Black. They went back-and-forth against each other in skate contests in the pages of East Touch magazine. 

Having the pair as skaters, and not the more stereotypical basketball players was a refreshing change of pace. Brian, and his girlfriend Elsa not only added much needed color to the lineup, they were symmetrical balances to Maxx, and Miss. The Black characters also demonstrated that no matter how cool Maxx was, the Black kids in the neighborhood were just as cool. The show of diversity certainly lent more street cred to the gardeners, but throwing anthropomorphic animals into the world of figure art could also be seen as exploitative out of context. Say for example Coolrain releasing a series of vinyl figures called the Dunkeys, as in Slam Dunk Monkeys. Of all the animals he could have gone with maybe monkey basketball players was not the wisest of choices. I know that falling back on ugly stereotypes, or insensitive racial jabs wasn’t Lau, or Coolrain’s intent, as it wasn’t for most of the character creators at the time. This wasn’t a fast, and hard rule.

Black heroes would get some moments to shine in Western culture. The comic book character T’Challa the Black Panther was created in 1966 by Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby. Luke Cage created by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, Roy Thomas, and John Romita Sr. debuted in 1972. The most recent Marvel breakout star, the biracial Miles Morales created by Brian Michael Bendis, and Sara Pichelli debuted in 2011. These were all examples of white creators putting Black heroes into pop culture. There were other Black stars in the Marvel, and DC books after the creation of the Black Panther, but new comics rarely presented Black characters as the focal point. This fact was even more pronounced in Asian countries. Of course this had a lot to do with the ethnic makeup of the nations. This didn’t stop the creators from using Black supporting characters to ground their work.

In Slam Dunk for example the main character followed the pattern of manga heroes. Sakuragi Hanamichi was the typical high school Japanese kid, that happened to be a loser with the girls. He would become a better person, get a girlfriend, and shine as a star athlete in the end. The respected team captain was the Black center Akagi Takenori. Akagi was the more physically imposing of the two, and wiser by far, but it would be absurd to think that a Black character would be the lead character in early '90s Japanese stories. The manga Tokyo Tribe, and its sister series Tokyo Graffiti borrowed Hip Hop culture, and fashion wholesale. The main character was the deejay Kai Deguchi who had a fresh line-up, listened to rap, and went clubbing with his crew. His rival was Mera, the dark skinned, big-lipped heavy in a fur coat. If you didn't know better you could swear these heavily were biracial characters, if not heavily coded Black characters.

By focusing on somebody that looked like them the books helped Japanese kids understand Hip Hop culture, or appreciate the sport of basketball. Yet there was something much deeper in understanding the layers of Hip Hop, and streetball that didn't necessarily come through in the manga, whether or not the star was Asian, or Black. This was something that I had referred to on a much earlier blog about the rise, and fall of streetball. I'm going to paste something from that exact series right here regarding the influence that streetball had on China. There was a young man that became hooked on the early AND1 mix tapes, and tour, Wu You aka MoreFree is the Chinese legend that helped spread the gospel overseas. He would challenge visiting NBA players to 1-on-1 battles, and dazzle them with his skills. As audiences learned to differentiate streetball from traditional basketball then local courts started building reputations, just as they had done in New York, Chicago, and LA. Dongdan Court in China is considered the Holy Land. When the summers heat up you could find the best players competing  at Dongdan.

A Westerner might call the Chinese "biters" or just laugh at their attempts to incorporate Black fashion, and language into their lexicon. But then again where did they get the idea that streetball is about fashion and tricks? It had a lot to do with how the west presented themselves in the mix tapes and of course in the entertainment industry. Asia was quickly getting sold on the idea that streetball was about entertainment, and not basketball. The big shoe companies learned that there was no one approach that could appeal to all audiences. They had to be sensitive to differences in culture, language, art, music, and presentation. Nike couldn't simply release USA Battlegrounds merch in mainland China featuring the name of Holocombe Rucker Park in Harlem, or the Venice Beach Courts. The Chinese had no point of reference to NYC, or LA's street roots. Dongdan Court on the other hand would make more sense. That was why they began creating custom streetball campaigns in their biggest markets. The Beijing 99 campaign by Nike incorporated many symbolic characters from classic tradition, and had the best street players from around the country compete. This was the type of world that influenced creators like Michael Lau, Santa Inoue, and their contemporaries.

At this point the basketball player, and even streetball legend was a cultural standard in Asia. This was thanks to the exposure of AND1, and the Mixtape Tour at the end of the '90s/early '00s. While Japan was known for its various basketball manga, including the title "REAL" which focused on wheelchair basketball, the creators in Hong Kong had already released streeball manhua.  In every instance, whether it was a comic, anime, or video game the light-skinned hero would remain the star of most of the popular basketball titles. Would this change in the future? I couldn’t tell you. I could however say that the approach that most of the streetball games from overseas did push the genre in some fresh ways. I will look at this in the next entry of the series. Were you a fan of any of the EA Big Street games? Did you ever identify with a minority character in any game or comic more than the main character? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. 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!

Manhwa, Chinese and Korean comics take on Street Fighter - A 1UP classic from June 17, 2011

The previous blogs mentioned that SNK was developing MMO titles for Korea and China. What many in the west might not know is how much the players in both countries are fans of the genre. It extends beyond the arcades and the consoles as well. The characters and icons developed over the years are very much engrained in popular culture overseas. One way of checking the relevancy of the franchises is by seeing how they are represented in comics and graphic novels.

Chinese and Korean comics are called manhwa, or manhua depending on the pronunciation. The Japanese word for comics is manga, which has the basis in Chinese as well. Just about every major fighting game had a mahwa attached to it. The Art of Fighting, King of Fighters and Street Fighter series all had several licensed and unlicensed titles appear throughout Asia. There are noticeable differences between the Chinese Street Fighter manhwa and both Japanese manga as well as western comic books.

The first thing is the size of the volumes. Manhwa titles are in a larger format than comics or manga. They are almost magazine sized volumes. Manhwa are usually stand-alone titles like comic books. Most manga titles appear in a monthly series printed on newsprint or collected in an anthology. Japanese stories are also serialized and released in smaller format books. Manhwa titles are usually in color but aside from the glossy covers the pages are printed on cheaper newsprint.

Mahwa based on fighting games are different from those featured in Japan or the USA for a number of reasons. In manhwa characters are all presented with the traditional costumes or uniforms yet later on in the series they are often presented in "player 2" colors as part of canon. These costume changes often signal a major plot point. In some instances the character that has been defeated or even killed is brought back much stronger and more dangerous. These Player 2 changes also signal a change in personality and in some instances abilities. The next major feature of manhwa are the non-canonical liberties that the writers and artists have with the characters. These titles introduce many new characters, plots and relationships that never appeared in game or in any other comic book. Chun-Li and Ryu for example often end up together in the stories, much to the delight of many fans. Sadly most of the characters and relationships in the series end in tragedy. Characters can actually get killed and they are not guaranteed to return.

The major artistic contribution that the format features is the inclusion of painted panels on several pages. The majority of the art is done with lightly inked panels but some of the strongest poses and frames are actually painted by the artist. Very few artists working in the manga or comic markets are able to do this, let alone on a consistent monthly basis. These painted panels are unique and refreshing to the graphic arts medium.

Unfortunately not all of the painted panels are original works. Many of the poses used for the figures and sequences in the books or the covers are lifted from official art. Even some of the sequences featured in the book can be based off the work from a Japanese manga like Masahiko Nakahira's Ryu Final series or from Udon's Street Fighter comics. The copies of art seem to be rampant in certain manhwa, as if the concept of intellectual property or even artistic integrity were lacking for some of the artists. But that is a cultural bias against the Chinese comics. As a whole there are some interesting takes on the canon and characters of the SF universe.

These comics show a completely different interpretation of the characters by some genuinely talented artist. They show that Japanese and North American artists are not the only ones that can do the Capcom icons justice. In fact many of the best manhwa artists working in Korea contributed to the SF Tribute book.

The hard part is getting access to these books. Not every town is fortunate enough to have a large Chinese community where these comics might turn up. I was lucky enough to find some on eBay and even Italian language versions of some SF books. There were a couple titles released in English a few years ago. One for the KOF series and the other for SNK vs Capcom Chaos. Those collections might still be available in local comic book stores. The only other way to see some of these interesting books would be to try one of the larger free manhwa sites online.

Perhaps someday these artists might get more exposure on the pages of western titles. It would be interesting to see a collaboration of manhwa designs and designers working on the next generation of SF characters, wouldn’t you think?

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Martial Myths; the dangers of the dark path and the dim mak. A 1UP classic from April 5, 2012

In adventure stories there was usually a great warrior or even king that had exceptional martial prowess. What made them important were the qualities that they demonstrated to audiences. These heroes were brave, kind, clever and acted as a moral compass for a society that had lost its way. In the adventure traditions there were usually villains that were morally opposite of everything the hero stood for. What made these villains scary was that they usually had far more martial prowess than the heroes and were willing to kill. In wuxia legends the heroes and villains mainly fought with their hands and occasionally a weapon. These archetypes followed the classic traditions, powers and origin stories.

What made Street Fighter special was that it brought the wuxia tradition to game players. It gave a generation that may not have been exposed to the same comics or films as the SF developers a way to experience the heroic traditions. It was more important to the traditions because it gave audiences a chance to play as the archetypes. By tapping into fighting mythology the developers at Capcom were able to create heroes and villains that could withstand the test of time. The heroic tradition has many parallels in Eastern and Western storytelling. What makes it unique in wuxia was in how circular the stories were. The basic plot goes as follows: tragedy begets a quest for revenge, the heroes are hopelessly overwhelmed by the villain and driven out of society, along the way the heroes train brutally and learn the techniques required to defeat their nemesis. The hero grows into a powerful martial artist and returns to redeem their name and fulfill the vow of revenge. This template was taken almost verbatim in martial arts cinema, manhua stories as well as in the origin story of Street Fighter.

As the Street Fighter universe was fleshed out through the 1990's the traditions of wuxia were used to make the characters more interesting and plot more dramatic. Ken and Ryu were the introduction to the universe. At first gamers did not know much about the characters, how they got such awesome powers or what they were fighting for. The designers at Capcom had actually been fleshing out the characters well before the first manga was ever published. 

"I wanted to add depth with a story. It just happened to be a fighting game, but I wanted there to be a story so it would feel like a movie. We even conceptualized details for the characters that we didn't put in the game itself -- what the characters might like to eat, do they have sisters, other family members, etc. Street Fighter was different from prior games in the amount of depth we gave the characters." - Takashi Nishiyama, the designer of the original Street Fighter.

As the universe was explored in manga and animé the classic themes began coming up. Ken and Ryu were part of a martial arts tradition. Their master was named Gouken, he along with his brother Gouki were taught by a kung-fu master named Goutetsu. It was not karate as many fans of the series had assumed. The main characters were learning but a form of Antsasuken, or an "assassins fist." Goutetsu brought this over from China and had distilled the most lethal techniques into an unstoppable fighting art. In manhua the setup was very familiar. Two gifted youngsters, raised as brothers would be trained, one with a level head and another more impulsive. The more impulsive one would tend to get himself in trouble with the master and disobey orders. In the Iron Marshall the master was Tienway Champ, the level-headed youngster was Iron and the impulsive one was his adopted brother Duke.

In order to create dramatic tension there had to be a terrible accident or a murder witnessed by the young students. In the Street Fighter mythos it was Gouki that assassinated his master. His brother was a witness to this terrible crime. Years later Gouki assassinated Gouken while Ken and Ryu were witnesses. Iron ran in on the assassination of Tienway by Duke. These things left the characters with emotional and in the case of Iron, physical scars. The tragic events galvanized the heroes' resolve and put them on a path toward revenge. This was difficult for the young martial artists to accomplish now that they were masterless. In order to become better fighters they must seek out new challenges and learn the difficult lessons without the aid of a mentor.

Similar tragedies were the origin stories for Western heroes like Batman, Spider-Man and Superman. It was a great plot device which helped hook the reader and made the hero sympathetic.

In the wuxia tradition, if a fighter was lucky they came across another master who was willing to teach them new techniques. More often than not however the fighter had to learn by teaching themselves. They had to fight masters of every style and learn how to defeat that style along the way. This made for great adventure writing, and a chance to explore the various martial arts schools. However for the sake of a self-contained story rather than adventure serial the fighter had to come across a new master.

The heroes of the stories were usually gifted fighters to begin with. They knew all the techniques and secrets of their original master and could quickly build onto these things in a relatively short amount of time. This helped speed up the plot and allowed audiences not to have to sit through months of training and humbling lessons.

Years after the death of Tienway Champ, and hot on the pursuit of the Bloody Duke, the Iron Marshal was aided by a hermit named the Great Thor. He promised to teach Iron his trademark Thunder techniques. These techniques could take a great fighter decades to master but Iron picked them up at a rapid pace. Similarly the SF games allowed for both classic wuxia traditions to be explored over the course of multiple games. Characters had new or more powerful moves and those techniques did not have to be explained, players assumed that they were becoming better fighters as the years went by. Story-wise Ken and Ryu travelled the world looking for challenges and becoming stronger fighters in the first two SF games. By SF III it seemed that the characters had reached their potential and could fight Gouki. At this point in the story the elderly fighter Oro decided to take Ryu under his tutelage. It seemed that the young master still could become more powerful and thus fill an even greater presence in the universe.

The manga and manhua stories would often take an aside to show the characters becoming stronger by highlighting the training regiments they endured. It was supposed to be inspiring but almost sad to see how characters had to suffer during these periods. Characters could sometimes be degraded and tortured just to become marginally better. Perhaps the writer and artists of the stories were a bit sadistic but in actuality were reinforcing the understanding that mastery of the martial arts required constant hard work. The end result would be worth all the struggles especially when revenge was involved (think of how Beatrix suffered under the cruel tutelage of Pai Mei in the Kill Bill movies).

These characters often learned secretive techniques known only to a handful of people. In many cases it was only the master and the one or two disciples that were privy to the ancient techniques. This exclusivity made the heroes and villains unique. They could do things that regular people, or masters of the traditional fighting arts could not do. The trust that the masters had in their pupils had to be absolute. There was often a danger associated with teaching these techniques to inexperienced or corruptible students. In the SF canon Gouken was once infuriated with Ryu with the nonchalance that he put behind the techniques. In one story Ryu recalled the first time he performed a variation of the Shoryuken, or rising dragon fist. Ryu had split a boulder with the punch to which Ken was bragging about what a powerful fighter Ryu was becoming. Instead of being pleased with his disciples Gouken was infuriated, he struck down Ryu. The two were being shown extremely dangerous moves, some were techniques that were not used for fighting but instead for killing, the fact that they did not treat the moves with more reverence had caused Gouken to react the way he did. Ryu recalled this lesson as he was on the verge of defeat at the hands of Sagat following their first encounter.

Ryu staged a miraculous comeback against Sagat thus becoming the greatest fighter in the world. This story became the stuff of legend in SF canon. It highlighted how a perfect technique could topple even the most powerful fighter in the world. When Masahiko Nakahira revisited the fight in the Street Fighter Zero manga he took a closer look at what was driving Ryu and it was neither brave nor honorable.

Ryu exploited that same killing technique he used to split the boulder on Sagat. The Metsu Shoryuken or "Destroying Rising Dragon Fist" was supposed to be a killing blow. If Sagat were not equally powerful then he surely would have been killed by the punch. The encounter had repercussions in the continuity of the universe. Gouken was trying to convey the gravity of the moves his pupils were learning. They should be taken in all earnestness and never used casually in a fight. Ryu could have accepted defeat and acknowledged that Sagat was a better fighter when they first met. It would have been his pride that would have suffered the most. He could have returned to fight Sagat in the future, older wiser and stronger. Instead Ryu gave into the temptation of exploiting the most powerful strike even if it would have turned him into a murderer. This made for a much more interesting story, especially for a jumping off point as the sequel had developed. Sagat returned as a boss character but had a grisly scar across his chest.

A shortcut to winning battles was not what Gouken was protecting his students from. By going for the lethal arts Ryu had exposed himself to the corrupting influences of techniques based in dark hadou, or evil chi. The philosophy is similar to the "dark force" from Star Wars mythology.

Again, to use an example of turning to darkness here was another quote from the Star Wars series.

Yoda: Yes, run! Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.
Luke: Vader… Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
Luke: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?
Yoda: You will know... when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, NEVER for attack.
Luke: But tell my why I can't...
Yoda: No, no! There is no "why".

Once a person set toward the path to the dark side it was all but impossible to find the path back. In doing so the hero would become exactly like the villain. For Star Wars Luke would symbolically become Vader. In Street Fighter Ryu would become Gouki. In wuxia traditions there was good and evil chi as well. The meridians in the body cycled through energy that could grant strength or heal. If a person succumbed to evil then they generated dark chi. This energy was poisonous and could grant practitioners tremendous strength but could also turn them into monsters. Tapping into this power could make a hero as powerful in a villain, but by doing so the hero could become just as reviled as the villain.

The martial arts myth did a good job at exploring the variables in the revenge plot. If a main character succumbed to darkness then they could become very powerful, but the cost of that is the humanity of the fighter. Getting revenge on an assassin by becoming a murder undid the purpose of the hero. It was the classic "two wrongs do not make a right" or "an eye for an eye" parable that was being explored in wuxia. The temptation to steer away from the honorable and righteous path was a constant in literary form. The hero was defined by being able to overcome strife and adversity without succumbing to temptation. In the SF mythos Ryu had to face the challenges of his own dark side. This storyline was explored in the SF Zero / Alpha series.

When a fighter became evil they traded in their humanity and compassion. The core of the martial arts was not learning how to fight, per-say, but how to defend from attacks. Even Shaolin Quan was created as a form of exercise to combat the fatigue of sitting for extended periods of time in meditation. It was also designed as a means for monks to fight off wild animals. The techniques and philosophies were designed to make a practitioner mentally stronger as well and make their spiritual cores healthier. In qigong this meant keeping the meridians clear and connected to the elements. By focusing on developing a higher consciousness the practitioners could see the importance of the fight, not to win or lose but to become examples of righteous living. By showing mercy to an opponent, even those who sought to fight for the wrong reasons, could often turn them into allies. This plot was explored in many wuxia legends and even contemporary Hong Kong films.

A hero defending his life from an assassin would not always seek to kill his opponent but to grant him mercy instead. The assassin, if he or she did not poison themselves, would give up crucial information to the hero. For the villains however this was the complete opposite. They were often cruel to opponents and demonstrated a lack of compassion. Mercy was for the weak and there was a great temptation to keep exploiting the most dangerous techniques that they knew. The most powerful of the evil techniques could often kill with a single strike. This legend was based on martial arts fact.

In the classic martial arts the lethal strikes were called the dim mak. These were death touches or death punches delivered to vital organs, or major meridians. The five point palm exploding heart technique from Kill Bill was an example of a dim mak, the metsu shoryuken was another. In manhua and manga the dim mak was often delivered in a spectacular fashion. Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken for example punched villains in their pressure points and then walked away exclaiming that they were already dead. When a villain did this it had to be delivered more brutally. They wanted their opponent not only to die, but to suffer in death as well. In the Iron Marshal, the Bloody Duke performed a dim mak to the chest of a fighter named Elephant. This punch crushed Elephant's heart and went clean through his torso.

In the SF series the final punch of Gouki's Shun Goku Satsu aka "Instant Hell Murder" traveled through the opponent. He was not the only character to possess this technique in canon. Those that could perform moves like that were evil characters, such as Evil Ryu, Dark Hokuto and her brother Kairi from Street Fighter EX. What made the move awe-inspiring in the comic format was that the technique exploded in the shape of kanji, or traditional calligraphic characters. Street Fighter fanatics might be surprised to learn that this had been done years before SF in manhua tales like the Iron Marshal. The Bloody Duke did not only cause a heart to explode into a single character, he actually wrote out a challenge to the Emperor in blood, using punches and sword strikes on his opponents.

These techniques were exploited by the villains in wuxia epics to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. However what it did to the practitioner of the dark arts was even worse. This was the cautionary tale that went back thousands of years. It was shared by every culture around the world in poetry, spoken word, comic book, and film. As summed up by the character Harvey Dent aka Two Face in the 2008 film The Dark Knight; “You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain.”  Were there any hero origins, major villains, or cautionary tales that you grew up with? I'd like to hear about it 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!