While the Street Fighter storyline isn't the most compelling thing you'll ever read about, USA Today has a nifty article offering 5 things you didn't know about Street Fighter.• Dhalsim has a grudge against Balrog the boxer. In Dhalsim's original Street Fighter II background, you see six elephants trumpeting in the background. According to canon, the second elephant on the right is Dhalsim's pet elephant. The best friend of Dhalsim's pet elephant was killed by Balrog while he was practicing his "gigaton punch" technique, and the two have been sworn enemies ever since.
• With his blonde hair and Californian love of convertibles, Ken is known as the all-American Street Fighter, but he's actually three-quarters Japanese. The blonde hair? He dyes it.
Also, Gary pointed out that Ken's original stage music bears a striking resemblance to Cheap Trick's song Mighty Wings.
I knew that Guile and Ken are brothers in law , but i did not know any thing else
Already knew the Ken thing...I mean look at those thick black eyebrows!
I still refuse to believe Ken is in any way japanese.
i dont think capcom considers ken to be part asian anymore, i know that used to be fact but i think its changed over the years.
It is very well known the Ken is 3/4 Japanese and 1/4 American. Gen only taught Yun and Yang. Capcom did not in any way change Ken's back story. He is just an americanized Japanese guy thats all.
Ken references Guile's brother-in-law status in his win quote.
Ken does in fact wear contact lenses. It fits with dyeing his hair and wearing a cowboy costume. He wants to look more "American." Who knows why. Dyeing the hair blonde has a certain cultural connotation in Japan (and perhaps to a lesser extent elsewhere)...youth, wildness, et cetera.
Julia and Eliza are definitely sisters. More than one win quote mentions this, in fact.
And the Cheap Trick song definitely "inspired" the intro to Ken's theme music, although not Ken's A-tune :)
the only thing i didn't know about was dhalsim's grudge against balrog. yes, i am hardcore.
SFIV has one win quote in which Ken says something about getting in trouble for beating up his brother-in-law, and there's another where either Ken or Guile references the relationship regarding a visit. I bet you could find a list of the quotes on Gamefaqs or somewhere similar, though I don't know if anyone has made a list of Super quotes yet.
Ken's background was laid out in design docs, though the story of the last name "Masters" was partly an outside deal with its own history and necessitated some reimagining. Some of it has been publicized through books; not sure if there are any direct references to the breakdown of his heritage in a game (I don't imagine this would make good prefight dialogue, but I haven't played the Alphas in a while and don't rightly remember).
#20: "didn't know they have hair dye back then but ok"
Back when? The 80s? People have been dyeing their hair since long before video games were invented.
Ken is never hinted at being anything but pure American.
In the incredibly NON CANON SFII V anime though he is.
He also studied under Dhalsim to learn the Hadouken with Ryu as adults, see where I'm goin' with that one?
The balrog/dhalsim one and the ken and guile step brothers I knew about, but ken being Japanese is new to me. Then again, it makes sense seeing as how his eyebrows are a different color than his hair :P
@irrenmann
The last name Masters came from CAPCOM making a partnership with Hasbro to produce SFII toys, and to differentiate him from their already existing Ken. (Barbie's famous on again off again bo)
It's a little hard to tell ethnicity in this game because none of the Asian characters have much difference in terms of facial structure. But I always thought the similarity between Ryu and Ken's eyebrows was meant to imply the same thing. Also, Ken clearly has brown eyes in his character select portrait.
Regardless, I would also like citations for Ken's heritage and the Dhalsim/Balrog feud. I knew of them before, but I have no idea where/if either is actually mentioned in a game.
@irrenmann again
Where do you get he wears contacts and dyes his hair from?
The latter's only jokingly brought up by developers to explain his eyebrows being like Ryu's and I've never seen either of those mentioned in game or UDON comic (which CAPCOM has stated is the Canon of the series)
This post bugs me. Too big of a SF historian to leave it be.
Please rename it to "5ish things that someone told you at the arcade when you were younger but may not be true"
Anyways, What the hell does USA Today know about Street Fighter trivia. They probably googled the Ken being Japanese thing and picked the first topic that showed up!
#26: "The last name Masters came from CAPCOM making a partnership with Hasbro to produce SFII toys, and to differentiate him from their already existing Ken. (Barbie's famous on again off again bo)"
Close...it's Mattel that actually makes the Barbie toys, and it was concern over legal wrangling that prompted the name assignment. As I said, an outside concern. Before this, most guessed his last name to have been Japanese, so some things had to be reimagined.
#28: "The latter's only jokingly brought up by developers to explain his eyebrows being like Ryu's"
It's an old idea, floated publicly as early as publicity materials for SFII: Champion Edition. You can find all the references to it with Google or something as easily as I can. "Canon" is rather fluid in Street Fighter, but you're getting the official statements from a paid Capcom employee in that article...it may have to do you until and unless the writing degrades to the point that hair dye and contact lenses play a role in Ken's main story line. We may still hope that will never happen, although with Rufus and his mistaking of identities in the mix, it's not impossible :)
#32: "lol in SF4 ken has blue/green eyes."
Brown in his portrait, though. The contacts thing is your answer on that. I remember that some interviews bringing this up were covered on EventHubs. We may take the fact that the eye color for Ken's SSFIV character select portrait was not altered to be consistent with his in-game appearance (or vice versa) as a sign that this rationale is accepted. It's certainly more interesting than saying "LOL I FOUND A MISTAKE," and completes the rebelliousness image for Japanese gamers, with a Dragonball Z meta-reference in the bargain.
#33: "Anyways, What the hell does USA Today know about Street Fighter trivia."
Likely very little, which is why they spoke to Seth Killian. But it's nice to see Street Fighter get mainstream press even for its obscurities.
Well hopefully some of the pointless conflicts on Kens ethnic background will die lol... I mean have we missed the main issue here? If Ryu was originally a red head... why did he dye it black? I mean that would have to be the case sinse in the first street fighter and and the alpha series its red then it goes to brown like in II, then finally black from IV and further.. Or is it a phase..
Does he have mood hair?
Another little known fact:
EVERY male character in Super SF4 is gay EXCEPT M. Bison. In an interview, Ono once said, "We felt that all the male characters in this game, with the exception of M Bison, were such pussies that we had no choice but to add a homosexual background into their storylines. I need to also mention that Ken and Guile are EXTRA gay. And they blow each other every night after a long day of spamming sonic booms and dragon punches. Eliza and Jane are just beards."
Ken was born in America and raised there until he was about 12 years old. So yeah, he's American.
It is "bears", not "bares", Catalyst.
-Spelling Nazi Nyoronoru