Akuma is going to be godlike in Street Fighter 5... literally; here's the translation for the kanji we saw in his teaser

Posted by John 'Velociraptor' Guerrero • November 6, 2016 at 6:45 p.m. PST • Comments: 125

As exciting as the North American Regional Finals were, they didn't prepare us for the sudden teaser we got as Capcom's Yoshinori Ono performed his trademark Shoryuken with the crowd.

Click image for animated version

Akuma is on his way to Street Fighter 5, and though most all we see in his teaser is the new kanji on his back, there are a few things we can learn from it. First of these: it's not new at all.

This kanji actually appeared on Shin Akuma back in Capcom vs. SNK 2. It translates to "god" above "man" or perhaps more accurately "god like." No joke.

This is leading us to believe we'll be seeing Akuma at a higher capacity than in his traditional form. Given Street Fighter 5's V-Trigger system, perhaps his activation will see him become Shin Gouki, but that's total speculation at this point.

This symbol was sitting in front of our noses the entire time at Battlegrounds this weekend, draped in plain sight to the side of the Red Bull stage.

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We have seen an illustration of Akuma in SF5 via the Capcom Fighters Network Portal art. This is really the only image we have to cross reference with at this point.

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Image source: Ono's Twitter. Big thanks to MajinTenshinhan for translations.