A look at the big man, where did the Capcom giants come from? Part 2...

Abigail, a character introduced in Season 2 of Street Fighter V had originally appeared in Final Fight, an arcade hit from 1989. The character was a boss in Mad Gear gang, a group made up of the biggest, meanest criminals from Metro City. Abigail was gigantic, even by Final Fight standards which had many characters above 6 and 7-feet in height. In the Street Fighter universe, where the Final Fight story took place in, he was listed at 8' tall and 584 lbs. He was the largest figure in the series and among the largest human character in any fighting game. The tradition of over-sized, muscular characters in fighting games went back to the start of the genre. The third boss in the 1984 Irem classic Kung Fu Master was a dark skinned character named Giant, he was a full head and shoulders taller than Thomas the hero. The trope of gigantic villains in a fighting game really took off however with the cast featured in the Technos series Double Dragon. There were massive villains in the original and sequel; named Burnov, Bolo, Oharra and Abore. They were capable of lifting players up with one hand and even punching down walls with their bare fists. The bad guy that audiences remember most was a bodybuilder-type character called Abobo.

   

Abobo actually changed during the various sequels and remakes of the series. He was a generic bruiser in the original 1987 game. His face paint and spiked wrist guards made him appear like a heel or bad guy wrestler. Abobo was far more fleshed out when the studio created a 2D fighting game in 1995. This newer version of Abobo was more proportional to the rest of the cast and was officially listed at 7' 2" and 336 lbs. He was still huge but nowhere near as big as the character's final appearance. In 2002 the Mexican developer EVOGA created an unlicensed Double Dragon game, which they called Rage of the Dragons, an homage to the series. They avoided legal issues by slightly changing the names of the main characters. The bruiser in this game was called Abubo instead of Abobo. This character was on the absolute extreme end of character designs. He was now 8-feet tall, actually 8.03, and 640 lbs. making him a fraction bigger than Abigail. His arms were so huge that they hung to the ground. This type of large upper half / small lower half character designs had actually evolved through the '90s and were almost commonplace post 2000. I had written a history of these "top heavy" designs when Gigas was introduced in Tekken 7. Abubo and Abobo had set a standard, or rather limit, on what worked when it came to fighting character designs. Believe it or not in the '95 version of Double Dragon the character could grow even larger and more muscular.

   

The "transforming" version of Abobo and the updated cast were based on the 1994 Double Dragon film. In the movie Abobo was a typical punk bad guy. He was already big and dumb but Koga Shuko, the main villain in the film, turned him into a mutated freak for failing to recover an artifact. This weirdly swollen character had muscles where muscles didn't exist. He was literally swollen where his glands, bones, cartridge and neck should have been. The absurdity of his updated look was incorporated into the game where he could temporarily "buff up" while performing certain moves. The movie was absolutely horrid and had nothing in common with the game, except for the names of the characters. It was the first and hopefully last film directed by James Yukich, whom had probably never even played the title. Interestingly enough the story was co-written by Paul Dini (The Batman Animated Series and co-creator of Harley Quinn) who has been one of the greatest comic and cartoon writers of a generation. I guess something was lost in translation when the screenwriters adapted his story. But I digress, character transformations were not a new idea in games, cartoons or comics. The Incredible Hulk for example turned from a small scientist into a thousand-pound green skinned monster. A more contemporary version of the transforming villain was seen with the character Bane.

   

Bane debuted as a Batman villain in 1993. He was an assassin that was trained in the fighting arts and was a perfect rival to Batman. The thing that made him a superior opponent was a synthetic drug, similar to adrenaline, called Venom. It increased his speed, reflexes, strength and durability. He could turn on a pump filled with Venom whenever he wanted to boost his fighting prowess. When the character originally appeared he was muscular but realistic. He had a bodybuilder physique and was not as deformed as Abobo. A really good 3D representation of his original design appeared in DCU Online, the DC Comics online multiplayer game (MMO). However as comic book aesthetics changed, and as different writers and artists took over, the look and purpose of Bane changed as well. In less than 20 years he went from a realistic physique to a grossly disproportionate one. To see how far the character had changed look at the version that was featured in the Batman Arkham games. This new Bane had a gross physique. Not only that but every iteration of Bane seemed to become dumber and dumber. It wasn't long until he was nothing more than a typical brute that used his muscles rather than technique to beat people. Abigail was sliding into modern Bane territory but for over 30 years the designers at Capcom managed to avoid this trope. How did they do it?

   

Capcom developed a template copied hundreds of times over. The idea for Street Fighter was simple, different martial arts masters fighting against each other to prove who was the best. The designers created a library of characters that reflected different nationalities and by default the different fighting arts. One of the reasons the series stood out was because of how unique the character designs looked compared to other games. The artists at Capcom, people like AKIMAN, Shoei and SENSEI created figures that were not quite manga, not quite anime, and not even comic book in appearance. They were instead something in between the Japanese and USA aesthetics. These archetypes worked incredibly well and they helped launch a franchise. The characters were diverse in size, color and body type. Their appearance helped reinforce a particular fighting style. These basic concepts were used and expanded upon by other studios as well. Look at a character like Dhalsim, a slender Yoga practitioner that stood 5' 9" and weighed about 100 lbs. Compare him to the burly Zangief, a 7-foot 400 lbs wrestler. In Street Fighter II the characters had good contrast. When the studio created a new sequel they went with a different designer. Bengus wanted to keep the scale of the characters similar but he used artistic license to exaggerate their proportions. Zangief and Dhalsim had the same height difference in Street Fighter Zero, but Bengus made Zangief much wider, especially on his shoulders, arms and back. He also cut Dhalsim's waist in half, making him even more gaunt. This contrast was more profound. It looked fantastic on screen but did not break the scale of the franchise. The exaggerated proportions ended up influencing a generation of game designers in Japan and even comic book artists in the USA.

   

The proportions developed by Bengus were used by Edayan, Kinu and Ikeno in the other Capcom games from that era. In doing so the giant characters appeared far more menacing when compared to the rest of the lineup. The Street Fighter library had always worked within a certain range of body types. Every character had to be muscular, the sumo wrestler E. Honda had an enormous belly but his arms and chest were well defined. Dhalsim was thin but his muscles had definition as well. As the characters got taller they preserved those same basic rules. Zangief was considered a standard for giant characters in the series but that concept was flexible. Sagat was 7' 4", a few inches taller and slightly leaner than Zangief. Sagat was the original boss in Street Fighter and was a character of distinction in both Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Zero. He stood a head above every other character and did a great job of capturing the boss feel. Yet even Sagat would be replaced as the biggest fighter. T. Hawk was a native character, at 7' 7" he was on the edge of the character sizes that worked within the continuity of the series. Moreover his height was about the limit for any giant character in a fighter. There was actually some real world precedence for this.

   

Professional NBA basketball players were 6' 7" on average with centers being around 6' 10" to 6' 11". Teams were constantly on the hunt for athletic 7-footers. These people represented less than .00004% of the population, and an even smaller fraction of those were healthy and coordinated enough to play at a professional level. The tallest of these men were Shawn Bradley standing 7' 6", Manute Bol at 7' 7" and Gheorghe Muresan also at 7' 7". Think about how imposing it was for T. Hawk to be created at the same height as the biggest NBA players. When you saw these players on TV the height differences between someone 6' 6" and 6' 10" looked much greater. Keep height to weight ratio in mind. A bulky tall person did not appear as tall as a lean person at the same height. Most basketball players were lean because it allowed them greater flexibility and speed. On television thinner people looked much taller than their opponents even though the actual height difference was only an inch or two. In a sport like American football tall players were very muscular. Because of this it was harder to spot the height differences on television.

Most fighting games have characters with a similar height to weight ratio. When you look at the height differences between Zangief, Sagat and T. Hawk it doesn't seem like much. Now think about Abigail. At 8 feet his height was very rare but not impossible. There had been taller people in history. The tallest that ever lived, Robert Pershing Wadlow was 8' 11". He would have broken the 9-foot barrier if an infection and compromised immune system didn't end his life at the age of 22. What made Abigail so awkward in appearance was his weight. The character was extremely muscular, almost to the inflated Bane or Abobo proportions. In the original Final Fight Abigail was shaped more like a professional strongman, with a wide gut, rather than a trim bodybuilder physique. This was actually very believable as there were many strongmen and wrestlers throughout history that were tall with that same body type.

   

The designers at Capcom went overboard with the muscular physiques in Street Fighter IV. I believe it was because the artists were reacting to the trends in Western character designs which favored overly-muscular characters. Look at how big comic book characters were today. When presented as 3D models rather than 2D sprites the extra bulk made the height seem less dramatic. In order to make the differences more noticeable the model heights were exaggerated ever so slightly. Many players did not pick up on the new sizes. When the characters were far apart on the screen most people couldn't tell that the scale was different. But as they got closer it became obvious. Take the character Hugo for example. The original version featured in Street Fighter III Giant Attack was an updated version of the classic Final Fight character. His height was astounding but proportional to the rest of the cast. Fans of the Final Fight series, and those that remember his cameos in the Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series remember how massive he was and therefor his sprite worked. When the character was created in 3D for Street Fighter IV and also for Street Fighter X Tekken he became bulkier and taller. Players really noticed this change when the character model was close to an opponent.

   

Abigail was absurdly huge. He looked as wide as he was tall, dwarfing Zangief and the other large characters in the process. He didn't seem to have the same proportions as Hugo or the other giants. That is to say he was missing his neck and shoulders. This made him look cartoonish in appearance. None of the other characters had the same type of physiology. The addition of car tires around his biceps and belt made little to no sense. I understand they were part of his new personae as a scrap yard owner but they were not part of his original costume. The most jarring thing about Abigail's appearance in Street Fighter V was his personality. Abigail went from high-ranking Mad Gear boss, with a genuine fighting ability to an idiot. He retained his temper from Final Fight but everything else was made up. It was embarrassing watching him putting around and making car noises in his introduction and story mode. Both Street Fighter IV and V had played up the silliness of certain characters while making others seem terrifying. Rufus, Hakan, Birdie and F.A.N.G were some of the other goofy / awkward characters added to the series. The director and producer of the series were certainly playing favorites with the cast. I wondered if the studio created a moronic Abigail to make fun of USA fighting game designs. They had given us a mindless Bane because apparently that's what we thought all strong characters should be like. The studio hadn't always treated their giant characters so poorly. In fact they used to treat their legacy characters with a lot more consideration. We'll look at the ways they used to present giants in the next blog. 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 30

There were many manga writers and artists that had published comics on real and fictional wrestlers. These comics had a hand in inspiring many game characters also. One of the more famous artists, Tetsuo Hara, who was co-creator on  Hokuto No Ken / Fist of the North Star was a huge fan of wrestling. He had used wrestlers like Abdullah the Butcher and Big Van Vader as the basis for some of his characters. His work had heavily influenced the development of Street Fighter II. In some early designs Ryu looked very much like Kenshiro from Hokuto No Ken before his design was taken to a more karate form.

Hara stayed in contact with the developers at Capcom and when they asked the artist if he could help design the wrestlers for the Muscle Bomber / Saturday Night Slam Masters series he was happy to oblige. His intimate knowledge with wrestlers from the world over allowed him to put a unique spin on many figures. For example, the only female playable female character in the Muscle Bomber series was Black Widow. Her look and gimmick was modeled after Mariko Yoshida.

Hara was also the designer for adapting Big Van Vader into the Muscle Bomber series as Sheep the Royal aka Alexander the Grater. There were many masked wrestlers featured in his title, many from around the world. Hara helped demonstrate that great characters in fighting games came in all shapes and sizes. They did not all have to look like karate or kung-fu masters in order to be memorable. Best of all by extension the characters he created became part of the Street Fighter universe.

Game designers had an incredible diversity of designs for over 25 years. In early arcade and console games there could always be a masked wrestler to help break up the traditional karate and kung-fu characters that were all the rage. Many times the designers would push the idea of what a luchador could be and what fantastic moves they could contribute to the fighting game genre. Like the other characters in the title the moves that the wrestlers were given were great exaggerations of the actual fighting arts. A suplex was a dangerous throw but imagine how much greater it would look if the performer would leap and spin in the air with their opponent as they performed it. The same thought process was applied to pile drivers, power bombs and all sorts of real wrestling moves. They were made fantastic for the sake of the game. The luchadors and enmascarados that appeared in fighting games were sometimes mild adaptations, as with El Blaze or they were completely over-the-top as with King in Tekken or Tizoc in Garou Mark of the Wolves. 

Pro Wrestling did not need masked wrestlers in order to create mysterious personas. Some of the most most popular characters often came "From Parts Unknown." It could be seen as lazy writing from bookers or inspired creativity by the performers themselves. By leaving the country of origin unknown the audience was allowed to imagine what far off island, or lost civilization these fighters came from. In many instances having a strange physical appearance was enough to keep the illusion alive. Some wrestlers were tall, gangly, obese, muscular or outright grotesque. George "The Animal" Steele was a heavy set and hairy man that would paint his tongue green. This plus his erratic mannerisms was enough to scare audiences into thinking that he was some sort of Neanderthal in wrestling trunks. Maurice Tillet aka the French Angel was an even earlier version of the monster man. Maurice suffered from Acromegaly which caused his hands and head to expand through most of his life. His features were proportioned for somebody much larger, making him look gruesome even against other less-than-handsome wrestlers. Some wrestlers used a little face paint or body paint in order to enhance their appearance. Dewey Roberts was a mid-card wrestler until he discovered his gimmick, a crazy haircut and some face paint, then he was elevated to stardom. He was known as the Missing Link and would brutalize his opponents by using headbutts over and over. The large Southerner James Harris was nicknamed the Ugandan Headhunter Kamala. Sometimes teamed with the Missing Link and formed Devistation Inc.

The origins of these gimmicks went back to the earliest days of wrestling in North America. Back when many performers worked the Sideshow in the circus. Sometimes the wrestlers were legitimate fighters and sometimes these fighters needed a gimmick to get them over with audiences. Sadly some of these gimmicks could actually be linked to racial biases and ignorance on foreign cultures. Previously on the blog I had mentioned how ignorance about the Indian fighting forms led to Chinese filmmakers exploiting Yoga as a fighting art. This in turn influenced the creation of characters like Dhalsim and the Great Tiger. Through the history of wrestling the islanders from the South Pacific were often presented as savages and wild men. In the early days of televised wrestling audiences in smaller markets genuinely believed that these men, and sometimes women, with large heads of hair were indeed Headhunters.

A savvy promoter might help develop a gimmick and convince audiences that their new talent was indeed from some sort of far off land. The wrestlers sometimes did not have to speak to the camera, and the gimmick worked better when they didn't, so that they could be presented as uncultured savages. The designers working on Street Fighter II had used wrestlers as a point of reference for several characters. One of those that ended up on the cutting room floor was an amalgamation of several "wild" wrestlers. The Uganda Warrior had a physical build similar to Afa and Sika, the Wild Samoans, as well as Jimmy "Superfly" Snooka but with the body paint of Kamala.

The savage wrestlers had a big presence in the ring. When promotions went from local television to the mainstream bookers knew to hire wrestlers that looked great on television. Those that had bodybuilder physiques and handsome faces were easier to book than the chubby ones that had actual fighting ability. Masked wrestlers were always great mystery opponents that would boost the ratings. Something that also worked great on television were the gimmick wrestlers that worked the wild man angle. These characterizations translated very well to fighting games. These savage figures were less like traditional wrestlers and more like animals when they fought. They sometimes scratched and bit opponents when the ref wasn't watching, they often celebrated when they were able to draw blood. The line between man and monster would be blurred depending on the performer, or in the case of gaming, depending on the designer.

 

Take the character Blanka from the Street Fighter series and Missing IQ Gomes from the Muscle Bomber series. Both were featured in a Capcom title and both fell within the canon of Street Fighter. The figures were both extremely muscular, very hairy and had features that were almost ape-like.The major difference between the two was skin deep. Blanka was colored green with bright orange hair whereas Gomes had a more natural skin color. The senior designers working on Street Fighter II wanted to see how far they could push the wild man concept and still keep the attention of gamers. Blanka was rooted mainly on an earlier character called The Amazon that was featured in Nintendo's Pro Wrestling game.  Artist Akira "Akiman" Yasuda wanted to make players feel powerless as Blanka would bite the face of his opponents as the Amazon did to him on the old Nintendo console.

Capcom could go way out with the look and Blanka would still work within the context of the series. Blanka had long extended ears, sharp teeth, claws (which were simply long nails) and shackles as if he were an escaped animal. He was a good counter-point to the character Dhalsim. Both featured very odd fighting styles and represented mysterious origins. They added a sense of wonder and fantasy to an otherwise traditional cast of boxers, kung-fu and karate experts.



By comparison Gomes had many of the same features yet could have existed in an actual promotion. Like George Steele he was a very strong hairy man that acted irrationally in the ring. The wild outbursts performed by Gomes was something that a wrestler like Frank "Bruiser Brody" Goodish excelled at in real life. Tetsuo Hara tried to keep the majority grounded in reality. He had such tremendous respect for the art of pro wrestling that he didn't want to push the envelope as far as the Street Fighter II team had done. The gimmicks Hara exploited were strong for most of the wrestlers and even the more "exotic" characters could have existed in some promotion. The roots of Blanka's design were not as harmless as those used by Hara.

In the earliest concept art Blanka was a savage black man that was in chains. Tight curly hair, big lips and distorted proportions made him appear more ape than man. Somebody at Capcom had enough sense to change the design. The character known as Anabebe could have been a potential disaster, especially in the black community. Arcade games depend on making their audiences happy and keeping them happy. Street Fighter II would have offended many players overseas if figures like "Great Tiger" and Anabebe had not been rethought.

There was still an unmistakable draw to the wild man as a fighter. Many great characters in literary and movie history were based on the idea of a man becoming more like a monster. Think about the classic characters Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. They were the inspirations for some of the longest-running movie characters. Universal Studios would revisit those characters time and time again. Modern retellings of these characters could be seen through comic book icons like The Incredible Hulk, Bane and Gorilla Grodd. The influence of these monsters with human traits was universally appealing. A version of the monster-as-a-man was in every culture and storytelling tradition. Capcom had even experimented with the genre by putting the iconic movie monsters in a fighting game known as Vampire / Darkstalkers. Yet for the Street Fighter franchise they wondered how far they could push the wild man, or savage man concept without losing the audience. Blanka had done very well for the series but the developers were looking to recast the game in Street Fighter III. The stretchy-limbed lab experiment named Necro was a variation of Dhalsim. The Chinese twins Yun and Yang were younger takes on Ken and Ryu.

The Blanka-type character for the game never made it past the planning stages. Ofuransu was described as being "a noble field beast." He was an aristocrat that had the features of a wolf man. This combination of royalty and hulking brute was very unique. It was not the only time that Street Fighter designers had kicked around the idea. Half of the team that worked on Street Fighter II left Capcom to form ARIKA. They created a game called Fighting Layer. It incorporated many ideas from Street Fighter II, including ideas left on the cutting room floor. The main villain of the game was an aristocrat named Vold Ignitio. He was more vampire than werewolf in the game, his regal costume beguiled his savage attacks. He would slash at opponents with his long fingernails and even pounce on opponents and bite at their necks.

Wild men, monsters, savages and demons were on the extreme edge of designs that worked for the fighting game genre. The team working on Street Fighter III had even kicked around the idea of having a man made of stone, instead of the MMA fighter Alex, or the giant Hugo be the "strong" character in the title. The Golem was actually based on a character featured in what was considered the earliest horror film ever made, an experimental German film from 1915 titled Der Golem. The Golem was a man made of clay from Jewish myth. A person seeking revenge against a great adversary could bring the monster to life by using magic. He would write the name of the person he wanted to kill on a piece of paper and feed it to the Golem. The Golem would then go out and hunt his victim, never tiring, impervious to harm and never stopping until his mission was accomplished. This character was considered the basis for Frankenstein's monster. The character was obscure compared to the more famous movie monsters. That didn't stop the designers at Capcom from putting him on the table or even from the writers on the Simpsons from using him in a Halloween special.

 

The designers at Capcom came to their senses and scaled back their character choices. They found a good balance between new fighting forms and returning characters as the Street Fighter III series took off. Wrestlers would remain popular choices while casting other fighting games. Artists like Tetsuo Hara would find success in adapting real wrestlers into the Muscle Bomber games. The champion of the universe was a semi-retired fighter by the name of Victor Ortega. The character was modeled after "Superstar" Billy Graham, one of the most colorful wrestlers from the '70s and '80s. Graham was a great in-ring worker and had an amazing bodybuilder physique. His look and gimmick would be copied for generations by Jessie "the Body" Ventura, Hulk Hogan and Scott Steiner. Ortega was one of the most muscular characters ever featured in a Capcom fighting game, easily beating the massive frames of Zangief and Darun Mister.

 

Despite its long and colorful history pro wrestlers, masked or not, were thought of as the bottom tier of the fight circuit. Television and motion pictures had convinced audiences that the best fighters stood on their feet and traded punches and kicks with each other until one person fell. Wrestlers did not really throw punches and kicks therefor they were not "real" fighters. The reality of combat was completely different. Most street fights and even professional fights ended up on the ground. It would be anticlimactic in most fighting games to have the final boss simply tackle the player and break their arm, even if that was what would work best in the real world. It was rare when a fight stayed upright but allegedly not for the best fighters. People like Bruce Lee and Mas Oyama were said to have ended fights quickly, before they could be taken down. When Oyama would have an open challenge sparring match he would often dispatch opponents with a single punch, usually to the torso instead of the head. Even with that said both men knew the importance of being well rounded fighters. They studied the grappling arts and knew how to stay on their feet even when people were desperate to take them down. Judo, jujitsu and wrestling were forms that they had learned a tremendous amount from. This made them much more formidable than any one style could have ever taught them. Achieving that level of expertise was not easy for the fighters.

In his pursuit of perfection Oyama lived like a hermit in the mountains for years. He lived in relative isolation, free from distractions and tried to unite the body and mind through his rigorous training. His physical conditioning was brutal. Running, punching, kicking were the only things on his mind, that was when he was not trying to clear his mind through meditation. It wasn't as if he were punching a bag filled with sand either. He would punch and kick hard wood, or trees wrapped in rope and canvas. His skin became rough, his hands and feet calloused. The micro-fractures his limbs suffered by hitting hard surfaces had calcified, making his bones thicker and stronger. He could actually break rocks, stones and bottle necks with the edge of his hands. He trained day and night, in good weather as well as miserable weather. He worked out barefoot, even during the winter. He would run and train under icy waterfalls to harden his mind as well as his test his willpower. When he returned to challenge the community of martial artists he was able to drop most opponents with a single punch. The training regiment would be repeated by other karate practitioners. Many of his Kyokushin students joined Oyama on his journey as his legacy grew. Even after his death his die-hard students kept up with the practice. People would fly in from around the world with the hopes of becoming hardened like steel under the harsh conditions.

Older martial arts systems had their own training techniques which could be considered as brutal as anything that Oyama had suffered through. The Shaolin school, the ancestor of the kung-fu schools, had very strict guidelines. Practitioners ate a diet of vegetables and trained and mediated from morning until night. They too would harden their bones by punching hard wooden dummies, running up and down hills and even focus on strengthening tendons. The feats of superhuman strength and endurance shown by the masters of the fighting arts grew into legend. They truly seemed superhuman, even when compared to other fighters. Those that were strikers had gotten all of the glory. However there were men that had fought just as many opponents if not more than the fabled masters. There were men that had compiled 100, 200 or more undefeated battles in their lifetime. Because they settled the contests through the grappling arts rather than the striking arts they weren't as well remembered. It did not make them any less formidable though.

Wrestlers of the various forms applied themselves just as hard at their craft as the Japanese or Chinese fighters did. The conditioned themselves by running, sometimes with a teammate over their shoulder. They developed exercises to help them build strength in their joints, neck, back, shoulders and core. By swinging heavy weights and clubs they developed insane grip strength. They would perform rigorous calisthenics, sometimes thousands of repetitions per day to build stamina. Some of the grappling legends did not have the punches or kicks that made other fighters immortal there were still extremely dangerous. The best wrestlers could dislocate and break bones with ease. They knew how to cut, gouge, stretch and maim opponents without a weapon. Yet they also learned to temper their ability so as not to permanently disable an opponent. The same code of conduct almost chivalrous observed by other martial artists was also practiced by most world class grapplers.



Players realized that the grapplers featured in fighting games were pulled from real world and pop culture influences. Some characters wore masks, others bizarre costumes, most wore traditional uniforms and let their abilities speak for themselves. The grappler was an appealing character because they were grounded in realism. They demonstrated that even mere mortals stood a chance against the martial arts heroes. In fighting games the grapplers did not have projectile moves. The lack of a "fireball" attack did not necessarily hold them back. The most extreme caricatures of a grappler made them iconic to gamers. Zangief, Darun Mister, Alex, Abel and Tendo Gai were just some of the wrestlers featured over the years in some fighting games.

Fans of wrestling history never forgot the influence of Catch on modern wrestlers and MMA fighters. Even comic book artists had been eager to put their spin on the wrestling legacy. The French writers and artists that worked on a series called Lucha Libre highlighted the various genres featured in wrestling matches and even movies. Masked wrestlers, monsters, mad scientists, damsels in distress, cool cars and even tikis had all been featured in one way of another. The most powerful fighter in the series was called King Catch. The masked warrior lived on a tropical island and would be a run in character featured with the Tikitis. The character was designed by Fabien M. Although he never crossed over into the Luchadores Five comics the people at Muttpop hired Monster5 to create a vinyl figure that would fit with the other heroes.



The Catch icons in MMA had shown the limitations of relying on one school of grappling for all the answers. They demonstrated that for every attack there was a defense, and for every hold there was a counter-hold. Fights were fluid and had to be approached as a series constantly changing situations. The people that froze up or relied too heavily on what they had been taught without adapting found themselves on the losing end of a battle. Lee, Oyama and the other fighting masters had come to this realization early on in their careers. The best fighters of the modern era learned that no one school held all the secrets to being a great fighter. The lessons in conditioning and strength training from various disciplines could help make a person physically capable of competing but the mental toughness required was something entirely different. The reason that Oyama and his students studied under harsh conditions was to help train their minds to deal with pain, fatigue or other forces that were beyond their control. The various schools of Karate, Kung-Fu, Judo, Wrestling and Ju-jitsu had taught the world that the striking arts were to be tempered with self-discipline. Knowing how to fight was never an excuse to fight.

Modern gladiators began to pick and choose the best elements from the traditional arts and began re-writing the book on training. They took the hard training from the Asian fighting arts. Building strong bones through repeated striking. Then the new generation of fighters then began developing core and grip strength workouts using classic tools like ropes and kettlebells but with cross training applications as well. The most important thing was the sharing of knowledge between martial arts schools. Students no longer had to limit their training to one system or another. If a fighter learned muay thai strikes from one teacher they were free to go to a different teacher and learn the nuances of boxing as well. Previously there was a stigma associated to "betraying" one school to learn from another. Now many instructors encourage diversity and experimentation. No one school was perfect for every build, body type, expertise or age. Exploration into the various systems meant that competing schools had to become more diversified. This would allow a person to cater to their strengths and build on their weaknesses. The end result were fighters that were well-rounded and would have made the early MMA pioneers proud.



Despite the difficult cross training that the best fighters endured there always seemed to be the one fighter that was better than them. Maybe it was a classmate, a former friend or a bitter rival but there always seemed to be a superior fighter waiting in the wings. Perhaps the opponent got lucky or maybe they had indeed developed a better fighting system. Whatever the case was the loss often changed the path for a legend in the making. The next blog will look at the evolution of MMA in Eurasia as well as the myth of the elderly masters. 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!

Representation Matters! Or, what happened to Birdie, part 2...

 

In the previous blog I talked briefly about the influence of Street Fighter around the world. There were many reasons why the franchise was so successful. From a move selection, balance and control standpoint Capcom had done a superb job. The controls were experimental, many developers thought that anything more than two buttons might confuse players, six was going to be overkill! Despite the fears of the industry (and the extra expense to Capcom to put in all those extra buttons) players seemed to quickly pick up on the nuances of multiple buttons and joystick combinations. From week to week gamers were becoming exponentially better at the title and were uncovering secrets and techniques over months. The studio had a hit on their hands with Street Fighter II and decided to refine the game. Unlike other companies that would publish a title and move to something else Capcom was looking to fine tune Street Fighter II and offer arcade owners more repeat business. They would release upgrades to the game, known as the Hyper, Turbo and Super versions. The changed the way certain characters played and modified the balance accordingly based on location tests and feedback from player. Each upgrade to the arcades was met with great success.

From a technical standpoint the developers at Capcom were unparalleled. Yet with certain updates and sequels the characters introduced into canon did not have the staying power of the original Street Fighter II "World Warriors." The designs of the subsequent characters did not evolve as greatly as the game engine had. In some cases the characters were ill informed, if not crude and stereotypical. Birdie had started out as a typical punk character in the original Street Fighter but turned into an icon in Street Fighter Zero. It had been 17 years since Birdie was last featured in a Capcom game. In Street Fighter V the years had not been kind to him.

 

Actually it was the designers that were not kind to Birdie. They turned the character into a slob. A fat, junk food craving shadow of his former self. I wondered why Capcom would do such a thing. The other characters announced thus far had not changed at all. Ryu (who happens to be friends with Birdie in canon) was still muscular, Chun-Li was as beautiful as her previous incarnation, and Cammy seemed a minute older than her previous appearance but was still beautiful. None of the characters were fat or out of shape.

 

The Dictator, known as Vega in Japan and M. Bison in the USA, leader of the terrorist organization Shadowlaw was the main villain in Street Fighter II. He had also returned for Street Fighter V. He appeared very much the same as he did in Street Fighter IV only that now his hair was white. It didn't seem to go white due to his age but instead due to his mysterious "Psycho Power." The surprise announcement was that of Charlie Nash asa  returning character. Charlie had last been seen in Street Fighter Zero. Like Birdie it had also been 17 years since his last major role. Nash had changed somewhat as well. The character was presumed dead following the events of SF Zero, he had been shot in the back by Shadowlaw soldiers and thrown off a cliff. Revenge spurred his military friend Guile to enter the SF II tournament and track down the Dictator. In canon Nash was brought back from the dead, brainwashed and turned into an assassin. His discoloration and Frankenstein's monster-like appearance were done deliberately. Of course neither the Dictator or Charlie had returned fat and out of shape.

 

I wondered why Birdie had been turned into a slob. What did the character do to deserve such a disservice from the  new developers? Did the team of artists and animators not like him? Was it because they did not like punk culture? Was it because they did not like minority characters? Perhaps they simply didn't understand the appeal of the character in the first place. Unlike the radical redesign of Birdie from the original game to Street Fighter Zero the designers used the Zero version and tore him down. They did not even bother to use the cues that were placed on him in his previous incarnation. For example he didn't wear chains on his wrists because it was his primary weapon but because they were attached to a pair of handcuffs that he had broken. The newest version is missing the handcuffs as well as some other details that I will let you figure out.

So what exactly did Birdie's new point of reference come from if it was not from previous games? I would say that the new Birdie is now a mash up of SNK's Jack Turner and Duck King. Both characters appeared in 1991. Jack appeared in the Art of Fighting. He was a mob enforcer in South Town. The character was modeled after the stereotypical fat bikers from the West. He hung out in bars and seedy back alleys looking for trouble. His costume and fat belly had a lot in common with the Birdie redesign.

   

Duck King appeared in Fatal Fury. Despite the Mohawk haircut he was not supposed to be seen as a punk character. He was instead based on party kids, ravers and b-boys (break dancers) from the USA. His bright colors and costumes were pulled from trends in the West. There was a difference between how he was put together versus J and Two-P. In the early character art we could see that his costume, especially sunglasses and fat pants was inspired heavily by MC Hammer. He was never meant to be seen as any sort of gang member. As dance trends and pop culture changed the look of Duck King evolved. He was still a colorful character but now dressed in more street appropriate costumes. I would argue that neither Duck King nor Jack Turner were ever as popular as Birdie. In fact I remember the first time that I saw Duck King in the game I thought to myself that SNK was trying to create their own Birdie. I mean even the name was similar.

 

Yet anything that SNK did was nothing compared to what Capcom would do to their legacy character. Everything the designers did to Birdie in Street Fighter V reinforced what a slob he had become. For example some of his "attacks" consisted of him sneaking a donut from his back pocket or guzzling an energy drink. In fact in his character animation after winning a match he would pull a gigantic donut out of thin air and bite into it. It was an odd visual that nothing but demean him. Not only that but unlike previous representations of punks in the series the team did not seem to have the insight as to what Birdie would have eaten to gain so much weight. Donuts were considered more of a USA treat than a British one. Perhaps fish and chips and a warm beer would have made more sense.

 

Having Birdie drink and eat and throw his garbage at opponents would hardly be considered "punk." He was just being crude and nasty. The most absurd of his mid-match snacks was a hot pepper. It would cause Birdie to breath fire, have his skin glow red hot and do more damage to his opponents with each hit. Birdie had never had any moves in previous versions of the game that were similar to these new food-based attacks. I could not figure out what made the developers think that this radical direction was appropriate for the character.

 

When I saw his last food-based attack it raised a red flag in my mind. Birdie would eat a banana and throw the peel on the ground. Opponents could slip on this banana. It was supposed to be a funny attack that also helped keep aggressive opponents at a safe distance. It was an ill-informed choice to make a black character enthusiastically eat a banana, There were heavy racial overtones that Capcom could have done without. In many parts of the world black professional athletes are often called monkeys and bananas are thrown at them from the stands. Seeing as how Street Fighter V is going to become an international title then I would strongly suggest avoiding anything that could even remotely be taken in the wrong context.

 

Since Birdie had never had these types of silly attacks before I wondered why the studio would start adding them now. If they are giving Birdie absurd attacks why not do the same for Ryu, Chun-Li, Cammy, Dictator or Charlie? If Birdie is now fat and sloppy but none of the other characters are why is that? All of the other characters seem to be played very straight. The way they were in previous games is the way they are now. I would hate to think that Capcom is doing this because of the color of his skin or the minority status of the character but it just might be true. Consider for a moment the previous nationalities represented in Street Fighter IV. There was a lot of diversity in the lineup but the new characters created for the game were very odd as well. The Mexican wrestler El Fuerte for example was obsessed with cooking and named several of his moves after plates. There was also a Turkish wrestler with beet red skin and bright blue hair named Hakan that practiced the art of Yagli Gures, or Turkish oil wrestling. That character was obsessed with finding the perfect oil recipe to help him dominate in his matches. Players could splash themselves with oil in the game and slide across the floor. The gimmicks placed on El Fuerte and Hakan were done to give the characters a personality and make them more interesting. Yet gimmicks and throw away attacks were not something that was used with the original Street Fighter II cast. Those characters were far more interesting without being silly or sloppy.

 

The trend was becoming apparent in the more recent Capcom fighting games. El Fuerte, Hakan and Birdie had something in common. They were all minority characters. The designers had no point of reference for the characters, their cultures or their specific fighting arts. So instead they gave each of them a gimmick and made them silly. I sincerely doubt that the developers would have done the same to a Japanese character or one of the female characters. Before Birdie had the silly food attacks applied to him the developers had done something similar in Street Fighter IV. The Native Mexican character T. Hawk  was given an update to his "Raging Typhoon" special attack. In Super Street Fighter II the character would grab an opponent by the head, spin them in the air and slam them into the ground. In Street Fighter IV an extra animation was added where T. Hawk would then sit cross-legged on top of the opponent making a stereotypical "how" pose for Native Americans. This was a trope used by television to depict the ways that Native North Americans would greet each other.

 

I would hate to think that the developers at Capcom were being racist with the characters. I like to think that these choices were made out of ignorance (which is a root cause of racism) rather than racial bias. Unfortunately the silly makeover was a trend that was becoming more and more apparent for the series. Something that could be measured over the past few years were how odd the character selection had become. What was done to Birdie was part of a pattern. The next blog will question the choices from the developers. 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!