Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 4

The previous Friday I talked about how Michael Lau set the stage for the urban vinyl movement. Specifically his gallery shows from 1999, and 2001 featuring his 12” figures in Hong Kong, and Japan respectively. While he was exposing the world to a new type of art his friends, and contemporaries were following closely behind, and releasing their own 12” figures to collectors. At best groups like Brothersfree understood the art movement. They weren’t poaching the community that Lau was representing, I’m talking about street culture specifically. Instead the Brothersfree group were trying to carve out their own niche, to tell their own story by turning industrial workers into the heroes of their Brothersworker line. Or Wendy, and Kelvin Mak telling the stories of Hong Kong tradespeople with their 2da6 line. I felt that other artists like Eric So, Jason Siu, and Pal Wong were biting a little too hard on what Lau had established previously.

The Pazo Art figures from Mr. Wong for example went through all the same motions as Mr. So, and Mr. Siu. They were highly detailed, quality sculpts, with realistic fashion. They often came with a change of clothes, accessories, stickers, and all of the trim that one would expect from $200-$300 figures. They also went right after the street fashion look. What got under my skin was that Pal was sculpting faces that were eerily similar to what the gardeners looked like. Michael Lau created a gardener called Future, he was essentially a caricature of established graffiti icon Futura 2000. When that character was unveiled it was a breath of fresh air. Knowing that he was a part of the gardener community connected their story to the culture. Then seeing Pal going down the same path with his figures felt redundant, and even slightly disrespectful. The smaller figures that he released showed to me that he didn’t understand what the movement was about.

The P.A.S.A. Rapper by Pal Wong was an obvious attempt at capitalizing on the 6” gardener trend. To the casual observer the scale, proportions, details, and accessories were all spot on. He could have been one of the gardeners except for a few things. The sculpt, and paint was an amalgamation of Maxx, and Brian from the earlier gardener line. He was missing a chain for his wallet, and there was no felt wristband, instead it was sculpted, and painted to his wrist. These were all shortcuts to bring a cheaper figure to market, and pass it off to the masses. To make the character slightly different from the gardeners he had an afro, large eyes, and some really thick lips. These things didn’t really capture the spirit of the gardeners, and felt a little bit heavy-handed, if not outright racist. But I don’t want to sweep what Lau did under the rug either. We need to talk about culture, representation, and appropriation with context to this new art form.

Michael Lau had also released a figure with dark skin, and big lips as well. This character was called B/W. He was an African born in Hong Kong. His friends liked him, but he could be long tongued, aka he could be very chatty. He stuck out for several reasons, the most obvious was his jet-black skin, and large pink lips. B/W was the ninth figure of the original 10 gardeners, and was the only one that had skin that dark, and large cartoonish lips. Brian, Elsa, and Uncle were Black characters in the original 10 lineup that looked more like regular people. There would also be a group of basketball characters added to the lineup that had various shades of Black skin, but none as dark as B/W. I would argue that Michael did not intend to use a racist caricature. All of his gardeners had exaggerated cartoonish, facial features. It was bad form to push the envelope that far with B/W. His representation on the rest of the cast was more or less well done.

Why did Pal Wong, and Michael Lau feel that it was okay to present a Black character like this? For Mr. Wong I feel that he was just trying to cash in on the popularity of Lau. He poached his art style, and created a knock-off figure without understanding the culture that Lau was trying to recreate. For Lau I would say it was his lack of awareness he had regarding Blackface. The importance of representation was something that I had written about previously, especially when it came to fighting games. One of the things that I want to remind you of is that the Civil Rights movement that the US went through in the ‘60s only happened in the USA. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, John Lewis, James Farmer, and the other Black leaders of that era shaped the culture in the US.

There were no civil rights movements similar to what we had in other countries. While schools overseas might talk about it, culturally the UK, Japan, or China did not have anything like what the America went through. There was a good chance that Lau, and his contemporaries did not realize that the big lips character was offensive. This was partly due to cultural relativism, they got the trope directly from the US. That presentation had been a part of US cultural exports to the rest of the world since the late 1800’s. It was seen in advertising, in toy design, and popular music of the era. By the 1940’s Blackface fell out of favor as a form of entertainment in the states. Culturally the new enemy were the Japanese, and Black Americans were signing up to fight in WWII. It was disrespectful for them to return home and see that ugly face waiting for them. So little by little it started getting taken down in marketing. The change got a lot of pushback in many states, not unlike the removal of Confederate statues did as recently as the 2020’s. 

The thing was while this trope was fazed out in the USA, it didn't entirely disappear overseas. The big lipped characters in pop culture could still be seen through Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball in 1988 (R.I.P. Akira Toriyama), Chocolove McDonnell from Shaman King in 1998, and as recently as 2012 with the release of Anarchy Reigns, the follow-up to Mad World by PlatinumGames. This is why I want to talk about context of the gardeners, including B/W. Lau intended on creating figures based on the street culture that his friends, and he had grown up in. He didn’t go in trying to specifically hurt any ethnic group specifically. Of course that doesn’t prevent people from being insulted. 

As for all of the artists from Hong Kong, and Japan that came out right on the heels of his work, they also had to be put in context. Were they releasing figures because they were going for a cash grab? Were they doing this as an homage to Mr. Lau? Could it be both, or neither? Again, it depends on the way we look at it. Designers like Colan Ho, and Joel Chung were releasing pieces very much out of left field. Their figures weren't workers, skaters, breakdancers, or anything else like that. They had their own signature style, but could also work with a license if they had to. It was an interesting time for collectors that wanted unique, high quality pieces. The urban vinyl craze spread like wildfire throughout Asia. Some artists were turning sketchbook creations into 3D representations, some were remixing kaiju monsters with cute, and cuddly toys. This approach was evident in some of the early pioneers like IT Rangers, and Bee Wong. 

In 2008 South Korean figure artist CoolRain made his debut. He was heavily influenced by Lau, and managed to secure some high profile clients in a relatively short span of time, including Nike, Adidas, Vans, and the NBA. Although he designed a number of smaller 6” mini gardener-type figures for the NBA, he rarely produced a 12” figure that wasn’t a prop for a commercial, or gallery show. Very few people were able to get their hands on his original 1/6 figures, and these tended to be rappers, and star athletes. CoolRain was kind enough to do an interview with me. He gave all the credit to Lau for inspiring him. He definitely approached figure art as an art form, and not a way to make a quick buck.

Lau had also collaborated with Nike, and Sony, but he was notoriously hard to pin down by any company. When in doubt it seemed that the corporations could go to CoolRain if they wanted to use the aesthetic, rather than wait on Lau. Was this an example of an artist holding onto his integrity, or being selective about clients? Was CoolRain selling out the culture? It all depends on the context. He understood the line was blurring between art, toy, and collectable. He taught classes, and presented workshops to the new generation of creatives in South Korea. He was very mindful of the communities he was asked to recreate, whether they were skaters, basketball players, or even professional futbol / soccer players. He was just one of many voices helping spread the word about “urban vinyl” and the larger art movement.

The respect I had for CoolRain remained consistent over the past 20 years. It made me reconsider what I thought about other artists appearing in the early 2000’s as more than just poaching the work of Michael Lau. I’ll talk more about it in a future blog. For now I’d like to hear your thoughts. Could art be controversial, or accidentally racist? Would context be important in exploring, or explaining the relationships between ethnicity, stereotype, and culture? Tell me 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!

Garou Mark of the Wolves, how some characters evolved from concept art

At the EVO 2024 tournament in Japan SNK showed off a playable build of Fatal Fury City of Wolves, this was the sequel to the 1999 fan favorite Garou Mark of the Wolves. I had written about the original title, and updates on the sequel a few times on the blog. Most recently I talked about Preecha the Muay Thai genius. The entire character lineup hadn’t been revealed yet. There was a lot of speculation as to who was next to be unveiled. I wondered if the concept art of the original game might give us a hint as to how some of the cast evolved. Thanks to Zero an Italian friend of the blog (Grazie!) I was able to put together this quick writeup. 

Preecha was not in the original game, however a sprite sheet of the Garou 2 cast had been revealed a few years ago. In the lineup there was a Muay Thai girl that was an understudy of Joe Higashi. If we looked at the original concept art we could see there had been a few girls in the planning stages. One of them had shorts, and padded feet, and hands. She might have been the prototype design for Preecha from 25 years ago. There was also a girl with a briefcase. I think this might have been one of the conceptss for the pirate princess B. Jenet.

In the official canon B. Jenet came from a rich family, however she was bored with her lifestyle. She rebelled by forming a pirate crew, and going on treasure hunts. I think the girl with the briefcase might have been how Jenet would have looked when she was running away from home. An actual pirate girl would pop up in the concept art as well. The character had a sword, had a classic skull, and crossbones tattoo on her shoulder, and wore tattered clothing. She looked much more aggressive, and mysterious than the final design for Jenet. The character’s hair would get longer, and much softer in revised drawings. Eventually setting the template that would become the sassy blonde pirate queen herself.

I’m a firm believer that no good idea goes to waste. There were a few character designs that didn’t seem to work for the original Garou, however they would be revisited in other titles by SNK. One of the early concepts was a bald fighter with an oversized coat. He seemed to have sharpened nails. At a quick glance he might have been confused for Mr. Big, one of the South Town bosses that had first appeared in the Art of Fighting. So this character was redesigned a few more times. The coat was made more stylized, not unlike Jedah from the Vampire/Darkstalkers series.

His costume, and overall look would continue to evolve. Eventually he appeared like some sort of martial arts assassin. This character seemed to be one of the poison fist fighters like Duo Lon, A.K.I., Kurow, and Red Snake. Although this character wouldn’t appear in Garou in 1999, the design seemed to be the prototype for Lin. He would debut a year later in the King of Fighters 2000.

This wasn’t the only character destined to appear in a related game. Another concept character looked like a wild bruiser with a metallic arm, or brace. This arm was a weapon, a sort of cannon that could be used to fire projectiles. Long time fans of the SNK universe could remember that there was another fighter that had a similar mechanic who debuted in 1999. Maxima was a soldier that underwent a cybernetic transformation to make him bigger, stronger, with a false arm that could shoot projectiles. The weird thing was that this character had actually been in the planning stages from the team much earlier than that.

I argued that the designs for K’, Maxima, and Kryzalid from the KOF games were pulled from Daraku Tenshi: the Fallen Angels. The design for a large fighter with an arm cannon was seen in 1998 with the US soldier Harry Ness. The Steel Hearts team that developed the Fallen Angels for Psykio was credited for designing KOF 2001, and 2002, I would argue that their designs were influencing SNK as early as 1999. There was simply too much crossover with what would appear in the SNK games for it to be a coincidence.

There were two concept characters in Garou that only needed a little bit of polish in order to get them ready for the game. There was a classic martial arts villain, and a mysterious warrior in the planning stages. These designs could have been revised again, and again until the best elements of each ended up creating a single character. Instead the team saw that there was enough to make two distinct warriors out of them.

One of the designs was fairly straightforward. What if there were a fighter that was stylized on classic Chinese villains. Someone with a long ponytail, long pants, and wushu sash belt. He would appear similar to Feng Wei who debuted in Tekken 5 in 2004. In the earliest draft this character had massive black tattoos on his hands, and forearms. Perhaps they were tattoos, or they were to signify that he had some sort of poison fist. It was also possible that this marker was transferred to Lin for the King of Fighters game instead.

The look of this character was refined so that he looked more classic, and distinct from the other fighters they were working on. Gato ended up being one of the main villains in the Garou manhua (Chinese comics). His look was a little too traditional in my book. There weren’t any elements in his design that could have connected him to the modern era. He could have fit right into the feudal era of Samurai Spirits, or the Last Blade rather than the modern world. It didn’t take a lot to make the difference either. Something subtle like giving him sneakers (as Capcom did with Yan, Yang, and Jamie) could bring him into our time, while still allowing him to represent classic kung-fu forms.

The other villain that SNK was working on was supposed to be more mysterious. One of the ways they did this was by making his costume more stylized. Perhaps he would have only one arm in a sleeve, or even have him wearing a cape, and mask. These things were rarely seen in fighting games, and usually only appeared on bad guys. This rough idea would be the basis for the masked Grant. He would become the enforcer for Kain R. Heinlein, the main villain in Garou Mark of the Wolves.

Not every concept piece had potential. Some ideas were scrapped, some ideas would be revisited in sprite form for the proposed Garou sequel. There were some rough ideas that I was glad were changed early on. One of which was for the Black karate master Marco Rodriguez. This was a character that I had celebrated a decade ago in my second blog entry. In his original design he had an afro, rather than a pompadour. The afro was a trope that I had talked about previously as well. It was a bit lazy from Japanese developers to stick Black characters with a basketball, or afro because they simply couldn’t be bothered to have better representation.

There were some other ideas in the drafting process that I’ll talk about more in the future. How other popular characters evolved from concept art to the screen. Until then I’d like to hear your thoughts on the comments section. Were there ever any concept characters that you wish had appeared in your favorite games? Tell me about it. 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!

Dee Jay is back in Street Fighter 6, is he better than we remember?

Today we're going to talk about a returning character to Street Fighter 6. Dee Jay made his first appearance in Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers in 1993. The new challengers the title referred to were T. Hawk, Fei Long, Cammy, and Dee Jay. Capcom was in the planning stages of Street Fighter III, and those four were the earliest characters slated to be inserted into the series. Several of the fighters in the SF series were inspired by pop culture, whether they were film characters, or actual martial artists. Dee Jay was no different. The character was created by James Goddard. The Capcom employee was Co-Lead Designer for Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. The studio had long sought to add a kickboxer to the game. The last time a fighter of that style was featured was with the non-playable Joe in the original SF from 1987.

For inspiration Mr. Goddard looked at Billy Blanks who is an actual martial arts practitioner, and fitness guru. Billy's first major role was as the villain Khan the Great in The King of Kickboxers. The film came out in 1990, after Final Fight, but before SFII was released. Billy's next starring role was in TC 2000. In that film he played Jason Storm. The film debuted in August 1993, Super SFII would come out a month later. Many people mistake TC 2000 as the film that inspired Dee Jay, but there's no way a studio could create a character, and their move set in less than a month. Blanks had a great physique, and a trademark fade that was made for game characters. Although there were a few notable Black martial arts film stars in the late '70s like Ron Van Clief, and Jim Kelly, there weren't too many in the late '80s/early '90s. Blanks (and Wesley Snipes) helped spark a new trend for actors like Michael Jai White, Marrese Crump, and Lateef Crowder. As for the character I think his new design was a bit better than his original.

Dee Jay had ditched the fade, and braids for natural hair. This was a nice touch. He was also wearing the colors of the Jamaican flag (green, yellow, and black) on his pants, and the Pan-African colors on his shirt. You know by now that I believe that the most memorable characters were assigned solid colors. Wrapping a character in a multi-colored national flag might be pandering, or a good substitute depending on your perspective. The reason I think for Dee Jay’s multicolored costume in this game was because yellow with black accents were already assigned to Sean in Street Fighter III, and green with yellow trim was assigned to his sister Laura in Street Fighter V. The updated look also includes gold jewelry around his neck, along with a medallion that reads MAXIMUM. This was a nod to his original costume. The studio had originally wanted to put MANTIS on the side of his pants, as in praying mantis. The problem with this was sprite mirroring, the N, and S would have been flipped on the screen. Maximum reads the same when mirrored vertically. The sticking point for me with the character was his stupid grin. It harkened back to an uglier time in US history, and I'm not talking about the '90s.

I am for more minority representation in the series. With that said I would like to see it in a positive light. I did not appreciate the gimmicks, and racial overtones applied to El Fuerte, Birdie, T. Hawk, and Hakan. Also I thought that there could be fat representation without it being used for the sake of comedy like Rufus. I had talked about the perpetually grinning Dee Jay, and the stereotypes behind black characters in Japanese games earlier on the blog. Younger readers may not be aware of it, especially out-of-touch Japanese developers, but the grinning black character was a trope from the days of Jim Crow. In short, to make a Black character more appealing (less threatening) to audiences he often had to be presented as a grinning entertainer. Even if Dee Jay now wore the colors of the Jamaican flag, and sported natural hair, he also wore a lot of jewelry, and never lost that wide grin. I’ve no doubt he would be fun to play with in the game. I also have no doubt that the new developers meant no harm in his return. I just hope that if the studio takes more careful consideration when adding minorities into the franchise. What do you think of Dee Jay? Are you eager to see his return, or would you rather have seen a different, or new character instead? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. 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!