page five
The SonSon store, most famously depicted in the background of Ryu and Guy's Alpha stages and in Sakura's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo stage, reappears again in Capcom Vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 at the far left of the Kyokugenryu Dojo stage. Kyokugenryu karate is practiced by SNK's Sakazaki family; Takuma, Ryo and Yuri (from the Art of Fighting and King of Fighters series). Ryo's Italian friend Robert Garcia is the first foreign practitioner of this form of karate.
Just as the release of Street Fighter IV was accompanied by The Ties that Bind short film promoting series' newcomer C. Viper, when Super IV was released in Asia, owners of the collector's editions of the game were were treated to a thirty-five minute anime based around Juri. With a plot centred heavily on the devastating damage Juri is able to inflict with the aid of the Feng Shui Engine this film is popularly referred to as the 'Juri OVA'. Besides a notable encounter in which Chun-Li is hospitalised (for the second time in a Street Fighter movie!) the film is perhaps most memorable for reintroducing Bison's dolls, rarely seen since the Alpha era. Juri makes short work of the bodyguards in an encounter that climaxes with her pushing Juni out of a VTOL, thus explaining why Juni is seen recovering in hospital in Cammy's Super IV prologue and ending, seemingly free of Bison's mind control. Juli(a) appears in T. Hawk's Super IV ending but sadly she remains in a catatonic state. The fate of the other dolls remains a mystery.
Street Fighter IV's Abel was originally conceived of as female, evidenced by early character designs revealed in the devopment blog. Rather than being an MMA practitioner this Abel was a karateka, depicted wearing geta (traditional Japanese wooden footwear). The blog also revealed that Rufus's place on the roster was originally destined for a black karateka wearing a fur-trimmed gi and trainers (a far more appealing design for many players). The costume would see the light of day as an alternate outfit for Ken though the character was ultimately rejected.
Intriguingly, Q's full cryptonym is revealed in his Third Strike ending. In the background a newspaper is visible with the headline, 'ROBODEKA-Q' above a picture of RMS Titanic (implying that, along with the '13 bizarre cases in the last 10 days', Q was somehow present and involved in the disaster in 1912). This codename, Robodeka-Q, is a nudge and a wink to the character's inspiration, in appearance at least: Robot Detective Keiji, the principle character in Shotaro Ishinomori's 1973 television series (Japan) and spin-off comic series. Both characters share an iron face, yellow eyes, trenchcoat, shirt and tie. The word 'deka' holds the meaning of detective in Japanese so Street Fighter's Q is, in fact, Robot Detective Q, creating many interesting possibilities for his future involvement in the series.
According to Gamest's Super Street Fighter II issue the name 'Cammy' was given to her by Colonel Wolfman. In this version of events, Colonel Wolfman discovered her clutching a pendant in her hand bearing the inscription 'CAMM 740106' upon her reawakening at Fraser Bala Castle. Whether this is still canon is a point of debate; Udon's comic has Rose give her the name 'Cammy' after bringing her out of Bison's mental clutch and in Masahiko Nakahira's Sakura Ganbaru! it is said that Sakura was the first to call Cammy by that name, after a cat she once owned.
Considerably rarer than the Street Fighter sticker albums produced by Merlin (now Topps) are the Kuroczik Susswaren produced stickers that were once given away in Vidal Golosinas bubblegum. Known to the author are three sets, one to promote Turbo, one for Super and one for Warriors' Dreams. It is thanks to an outstanding and compelling blog by Michael Wayne (wayninginterests.wordpress.com/the-number-33) that rather more is known about the Alpha set than the others; it was produced in 1996 and contained thirty-three stickers; #18 being very common and #33 impossibly rare. There was even an official album made to house them. The vast majority of the drawings contained in this set are by CRMK (alias Bengus). Just how many of these albums (let alone completed sets) still exist is anyone's guess; even images of stickers from any one of these three sets are extremely elusive. Potential collectors might also note that Vidal Golosinas also put out a range of Street Fighter themed pogs and fake tattoos in their pocket-money confectionary. The pogs appear to be of World Warrior era and are somewhat more common than the stickers. It's likely that tattoos were produced alongside all three sticker sets, as was common practice, and may well be even more scarce....
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, considering the aforementioned Street Fighter II pachislo and pachinko games, there also exists a Street Fighter II pinball machine, produced by Gottleib in 1993. The machine was designed by Ray Tanzer and Jon Norris, with art by David Moore and Constantino and Jeanine Mitchell. It was marketed with the slogan, 'No location is complete without this pair' and has the subtitle Champion Edition in accordance with the arcade game released the year before. The accompanying flyer contains a notoriously ugly picture of Chun-Li (!) but the game itself was received favourably. This image of Chun-Li also features on the backbox of the machine itself alongside pictures of Ryu, Ken, Blanka and Bison.
