[Article] The curious origin of Dan Hibiki

We all know the case of a game that has stood out at a certain time and has caused dozens of similar games to appear that tried to achieve a bit of that glory, with better or worse results.

If we stop to think about one of the genres that had its peak in the nineties, such as the one-on-one fighting genre, the first name that will appear in the minds of many will be Street Fighter II. The acceptance of this title was so great that it was taken as a basis in practically every possible sense., the other fighting games included similar characters, with special attacks that were executed in the same way as in the Capcom game, getting to the point where you could try an unknown game and ask What is the Ryu in this game? and choose a character who would be the distant cousin of the protagonist of the Capcom game in every possible sense.

Although there were many games inspired by Street Fighter II, and many companies that tried to gain fame with similar products, I would like to focus on Capcom's most direct competition, I am obviously talking about SNK.

SNK tried on multiple occasions to dethrone the Capcom game, to the point that it practically saturated the arcades with fighting games, each with its own peculiarities, but on most occasions, with a strong inspiration from Street Fighter II (although I know that many SNK fans will never accept this fact in public).

The best example of this is Art of Fighting, a fighting game that included some playable novelties that were very important for the genre (for example, the super attack bars) and others that were not so important, but were very striking (the possibility of mocking the rival or for the characters to suffer bruises during combat), however, the first thing you saw when playing that game was a karateka named Ryo, who did the same special techniques (or almost) as Ryu, and his friend and rival Robert, who also It fulfilled that characteristic, but this time to replace the character of Ken (millionaire, extrovert, lover of risk and women) and that was what made many people throw their first coin into that arcade, which had an impressive appearance (thanks to the huge characters and the zoom) and a somewhat tough, but innovative gameplay.

If we take into account that Capcom sued Data East because one of its games (Fighter's History) looked too similar to Street Fighter II, we can ask ourselves: What did Capcom do in the face of the increase in SNK titles with such blatant similarities? Well, the truth is, as far as I know, Capcom never denounced SNK, however it did have a particular way of laughing at SNK in general and at Art of Fighting in particular.

The beginning of that mockery was to show an image of Sagat, grabbing a karateka who was wearing an orange kimono (in reference to Ryo Sakazaki) and who had his long hair tied in a ponytail and was wearing gloves (in reference to Robert Garcia). Said character was completely defeated, making it clear that Sagat had beaten him to death.

That unnamed character ended up returning to Capcom's mind years later, which included him as a secret character in Street Fighter Alpha, under the name Dan Hibiki.

Dan would have similar techniques to Ryu and Ken, but in the style Art of Fighting, so his projectiles disappeared a short distance from his hand (similar to what happened in the SNK game when you did the Kooh ken with the special bar empty, and also similar to Ryo and Robert's projectiles in various king of fighters) making his Gadouken a mockery next to the usual Hadoken.

This was only the first step, since in Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dan was modified, making him much more ridiculous (including much more taunting, a smaller projectile, and changing the color of his clothing to pink). The character's specials also tried to imitate those seen in Art of Fighting, but always with some ridiculous detail or sensation present. In later games we could see some peculiarities, such as Dan being the only character who could make fun of rivals unlimitedly (instead of just once, like the rest) in clear reference to the importance of teasing in Art of Fighting. Not content with this, Capcom added some victory phrases with double meanings, making references to competing games, such as "I hate Art of Fighting, but I wanna be the King of Fighters."

Dan's story in these games was very simple, he was looking for Sagat for having killed his father, under this premise some jokes were also made, because in several games of the Alpha saga, we can see a special introduction between Ryu and Sagat, where the second grabs by the head the character who could be Dan's father (or Dan himself) based on the illustration that created him for the first time.

If we stop to study Dan Hibiki a little more, we will discover that the references to Art of Fighting They were very numerous, and some more obvious than others. For example, the character keeps talking about his fighting style (Saikyou Ryu) as opposed to that of the SNK characters (Kyokugen Ryu). In one of his specials, which makes two uppercuts in a row (Koryu Rekka) and although we all thought it was a reference to Ken's special attack (Shoryu Reppa) we can hear how he says "Saikyo Ryu Oki" when starting it, coincidentally the SNK characters said "Kyokugen Ryu Oki" when starting their Ryuko Rambu special, where they launched themselves against the rival and hit him repeatedly until finishing with one or two uppercuts in a row (which was what really parodied Koryu Rekka).

Another running joke in SNK references comes from the fact that Ryo Sakazaki's father (Takuma Sakazaki) appeared in the first Art of Fighting with the same sprite as his son, but with a tengu mask to hide his face. This fact was referenced several times by Capcom, for example in Pocket Fighters (Super Gem Fighters) where Dan could attack with a character identical to him, who wore a tengu mask, this joke continuing many years later in the different versions of Street Fighter IV, since one of Dan's alternative clothes also has that same appearance. As if this were not enough, in Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter, Dan's ending was identical to the ending of the first Art of Fighting (replacing Mr Karate with Cyber ​​Akuma).

The parody took a step further when it was time to include Dan Hibiki in the saga Capcom vs SNK where some references were also made, such as Dan and Yuri Sakazaki (Ryo Sakazaki's sister) doing the same poses before the fight. It is worth mentioning that Yuri Sakazaki herself was also becoming a parody character, but from SNK to Capcom, since in each game they used to include some type of special attack that was reminiscent of those used by Ryu and Ken in the different stages of Street Fighter, yes, gentlemen, Dan had created a school.

And how did SNK take that Capcom tried to ridicule Art of Fighting with such a stupid character? Well, frankly, they took it too well, because they not only continued the joke, but extended it as much as possible in their own games.

For example, in king of fighters 2000, one of the characters selected for our team did not participate in the battles, but we could take him out during the fights so that he could make an attack at a certain time (the commonly called Strikers). The importance of the Strikers in that game was such that there were alternative versions of characters and some characters that were not selectable and were only available as helpers. One of the alternative versions selectable as Striker, was Robert Garcia dressed in a Kimono (instead of his usual fancy clothing), seeing him in action, it was inevitable to compare him with Dan Hibiki, who had been the “Robert Garcia in Kimono” for many years.

However, that reference remained something tremendously subtle, when we see that in the games of SNK VS Capcom developed by SNK, Dan Hibiki is a very striking character. Instead of ignoring the character, SNK added even more references to Art of FightingFor example, Dan could make the giant energy ball of the Kyokugen (the Haoh Sao Koh Ken) but since he is such a particular fighter, that attack disappeared shortly after leaving his hands (being quite useless), another technique added to his abilities was to imitate the punch that Ryo Sakazaki used in the king of fighters (if it hit you it would leave you stunned) but of course, when the Capcom karateka imitated that blow he hurt his hand and knelt down to complain, and then looked at the player and raised a thumb and pretended that nothing had happened. As if this were not enough, SNK surpassed themselves in the comments before the fight that the fighters exchanged, because if we confronted Dan with some characters, they would confuse him with Robert Garcia and say things like "man Robert, you finally put on the Kimono to fight", this fact infuriated Dan. The joke continued at the moment when we pitted Dan against Mr. Karate, as he would confuse him with his late father, showing that SNK had caught the references to him, in Pocket Fighters.

And with that I end this article, I suppose that the most veteran readers, who left their coins in the aforementioned arcades or played the console versions for countless hours, already fully knew this story, but I am sure that someone will have been amused to know these curiosities, which went from being a fight between two of the best fighting video game companies, to becoming a pleasant handshake.