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Sodom is an American infatuated with Japanese culture and, dangerous though he is, he is also a comedic character in his failed attempts to grasp the Japanese language and his mash-up of Japanese fighting styles. The scroll that he unfurls in his Warriors' Dreams ending is meant to read 'Mad Gear', indicating his intention to reform the gang from Final Fight, but he fails to use the correct katakana and has instead spelled out 'Ma-Do-Gi-A' phonetically! On a similar note, the kanji written on his chest is meaningless, it is probably meant to be shi, 'death', but is improperly drawn.
Super Puzzle fighter II Turbo hit arcades in 1996 and was shortly ported to PlayStation and Saturn, then revived on Gameboy Advance in 2003 (where it dropped the Turbo part of the title). It was then given a HD Remix for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2007. The original game features ten super-deformed versions of characters from Street Fighter and Darkstalkers, namely: Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Sakura, Akuma, Dan, Morrigan, Donovan, Hsien-Ko and Felicia. In console versions several additional, hidden characters can be unlocked: Devilot from Cyberbots (the only character outside of Street Fighter and Dark Stalkers to be included), Mei-Ling (Hsien-Ko's twin sister, transformed into the ward-paper in her hat) and Anita (Donovan's orphan companion). The sprites seen in Super Puzzle Fighter were subsequently reused and expanded in Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix (a.k.a. Pocket Fighter) in 1997.
More translation fun! Arcade versions of Final Fight and Street Fighter II: World Warrior both contain English typos in the games' debug areas. The misspelled subtitle World Warrier can be found in the object test of World Warrior and, in the scroll test of Final Fight, tiles that spell out the name 'Gay' instead of Guy (alongside Haggar and Cody) can be extrapolated. About the latter, Akira Nishitani had the following to say on his Twitter feed: 'Early in development, his name was actually spelled "Gay". But we weren't really aware of English spelling and pronunciation conventions. Of course we were soon told to change it.'
Mega Man Legends is a 3D action-adventure game first released on PlayStation in 1997 and then for N64 in 1998. It stars an original incarnation of Mega Man named Mega Man Volnutt, the game's playable character. Mega Man Volnutt is a 'Digger', a person in charge of investigating ruins from a flooded Earth. It also contains several humorous references to the Street Fighter series! The following exchanges between a mother and her son can be 'overheard' at the green house in the Downtown North-East block:
Woman's voice: Hurry up! We've got to evacuate! You can leave that here! Boy's voice: No! I can't leave my Street Fighter dolls! Everyone'll make fun of me if I don't have them! ... Woman's voice: You've got to clean up your room... If you don't clean up this mess, I'll give all your toys away to the people next door! Boy's voice: No! No you won't! Not my Street Fighter dolls! ... Boy's voice: Mom, did you know that blue fellow's called MegaMan? Woman's voice: Stop playing Street Fighter and do your homework! Boy's voice: No, mom, not Street Fighter! ... Boy's voice: That MegaMan is kind of like the people in Street Fighter, isn't he? I mean, they're all really strong, and have all kinds of powers, like MegaMan's Buster gun! Woman's voice: Just make sure you don't imitate his atrocious behavior or you'll be in big trouble!
The greatest fighters from around the globe assembling for a tournament is a given in the Street Fighter mythology, but precisely how this tournament is organised (and who fought who) has never been satisfactorily defined. An interpretation of the structure of the Street Fighter II tournament can be found in Udon comics' Turbo series, but an even more thorough version is fleshed out in Masaomi Kanzaki's manga (first publised between 1993 and 1995), where fighters are gathered on the man-made island of Shad:
Street fights are held sporadically and managed by bookies set up at each block. The bookies report the results of each match to Shadaloo.... Each fighters stats and other details of the match are kept on record. These smaller matches are key to qualifying for the Grand Fight tournament.... The rules follow a standard tournament set up. The top three fighters from this year challenge the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ranked fighters from last year's tournaments. The one survivor of these semi-final battles has the honour of challenging the existing champion....
At the end of the West Side stage (Round 3) in Final Fight, if the player picks up Edi. E's gum at full health he is awarded 42910 points. This is Akira Nishitani's birthday (September 10th, Shōwa 42 [1967]). Edi. E spits the gum out just before the fight begins, in case you missed it. Incidentally, Ryu's birthday, July 1st, 1964 is that of Akira Yasuda (Akiman) and Chun-Li's birthday, March 1st, 1968 is that of Miho Kobayashi, the background artist known as Buppo. Incidentally, if you don't have full health, eating the gum will replenish up to half of your life.
Asecond, authorised live-action film based on the series, entitled Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, debuted in cinemas in February 2009. Sitting through all 96 minutes is a grueling task best avoided, in fact, the film is so anemic that the original film adaptation from 1994 is fondly remembered in contrast; for all its flaws Steven E. de Souza's film was colourful and energetic, Andrzej Bartkowiak's is a lifeless bust. Chris Klein's performance as Charlie Nash beggars belief; one wants to believe he's deliberately spoofing the script rather than contend with the conclusion that a paid professional could be this bad. And then there's Bison; the actor playing him is so feeble that the sound effect of... wait for it, a tiger roaring is channelled in to add an ounce of menace to his excruciatingly stupid scenes. The entire film is horrible, failing to entertain even as an aperture for contempt.
