page two

Chun Li mini-comicEarly copies of the 2006 re-release of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (Uncut, Uncensored, Unleashed) came packaged with a Chun Li mini comic, created by Udon Entertainment. Although small in size and short in length, this is nonetheless an item to be treasured, containing Udon illustrations not seen anywhere else; monitor cyborgs, Dr. Senoh and one of the Interpol investigators introduced in the film. The story, by Ken Sui-Chong, has Chun-Li attacked by a host of monitor cyborgs. Chun Li swiftly takes them apart and Bison reacts by assigning Vega to handle her, teeing up their awesome fight in the film itself. In tribute to the film, the comic also gives 'B. Lee' as Chun Li's master in the monitor cyborgs' data-scan!

Seventh chapter of Cammy GaidenMasahiko Nakahira's Cammy manga was originally published in six parts in Japan's Shonen Sunday comic anthology in 1994. Later the same year the six parts were compiled into one volume and in 1997 the compilation was published by Viz comics in the English language. What few readers know, however, is that there exists a seventh chapter, printed in September 1994 as a bonus supplement in Takayuki Sakai's comic adaptation of The Animated Movie. To date, this has never been officially translated into English but Stefan at cammyfan.com has done a great job, not only at a translation but for disseminating the chapter in this first place. In this final chapter Cammy successfully retrieves personal data belonging to the members of Delta Red after it was stolen by a computer hacker.

Look and FindCapitalising on the monumental popularity of the series, Capcom authorised Publications International to publish a Street Fighter II themed 'Look and Find' book in 1994. Ostensibly Where's Wally/Waldo? but with Street Fighter properties, this book comprises twenty pages each featuring a different scenario loosely (note the emphasis) based on a stage/character from Street Fighter II. For example, Ken's pages have a nautical theme (showing just about every type of boat known to man) and Zangief's depict a factory (populated by robots, naturally....) As well as having to hunt for the sixteen playable characters from Super (id est no Akuma), readers are also tasked with finding a list of other people or objects on each page, for example, 'An electric eel', 'A pair of boxing gloves', 'An eagle', 'A sailor', et cetera. There's some humour here and it would no doubt appeal to kids in the mid-'90s (which, let's not forget, is who its aimed at) but for all of the hoopla the artwork is rough and bromidic throughout which, in the end, leaves the feeling that its a pity Capcom didn't produce this in-house.

Two P.Previously covered is how several of the characters' names from Final Fight seem to have come about via misstranslation of European names. On a similar theme, the enemy character Two P takes his name as a homage to the character used by Player Two (aka Unknown Soldier Red) in the 1988 Capcom arcade title Forgotten Worlds (Lost Worlds in Japan). A glance at the characters side by side shows an uncanny resemblance, notwithstanding the Two P/Player Two wordplay. In the non-canonical Final Fight: Streetwise Two P has reformed and goes under the new moniker 2-Ill.

Fan PollIn February 2013, via the Capcom Unity website, Capcom gave players from around the world the opportunity to vote for their favourite Street Fighter characters. Visitors were able to choose from Japanese or English language options and then had to rank their top five characters in order. All playable characters from Street Fighter through Arcade Edition were included with an additional 'Other' option for non-playable characters. The results of the Japanese poll, in particular, were revelatory. Perennial favourite Ryu was toppled from his #1 spot by Karin, with Ken placed 9th behind six other female fighters. Other notable discrepancies between the two results are Ingrid (English 44, Japanese 4), Guile (9/26), Blanka (11/48), C. Viper (31/55) and Sean (40/61). Tellingly, Rufus placed 63rd on both lists trumping only three characters, and those haven't been playable since 1987! Full results in the image.

Rocks in Sagat's stageAkira Nashitani (Nin-Nin), began revealing interesting bits of information about the development of the Street Fighter II titles via his Twitter account in late 2013. One of the most notable revelations involved a very small detail in Sagat's stage previously undocumented, which is astonishing considering the incalculable number of games of Street Fighter II played around the world since 1991: the rocks move! The position of the two rocks (foreground and middleground) move randomly, within a tolerance, from one round to the next. The image here shows five rounds layered with a high transparency as verification. Nin-Nin explained that the programmer didn't want the rock to be used as a landmark for Ryu corner traps and so implemented this subtle adjustment.

Unused Fire KickIn addition to the prototype sprites for Ryu and Ken, deconstruction of the Street Fighter arcade ROM shows what appears to be an unused super move for Ryu and Ken. The sprites (overlayed here) depict the animations for a ball of fire at an angle that best fits the downward arc of a jumping kick. This opens up the possibility that Ryu and Ken originally had a fourth super move planned in addition to their three trademark attacks. In support of this theory and probably proving it, in fact, is an unused sound effect, 'Fire Kick!' spoken in English in the same voice as used for the other super moves. Several years later a flaming kick attack was used for Fei Long, the Shien Kyaku, but this is a rising/vertical move more akin to the Shoryuken than that suggested by the unused sprites found in Street Fighter.

next page....

"street fighting is all about analysis, prediction, and reaction. that's it."

NAME: Abel

NATION: France

HEIGHT: 198 cm

WEIGHT: 85 kg

B/W/H: 130 85 89

BLOOD_TYPE: A