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Brain Diving - Street Fightin' Man




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reanimator





PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:59 am Reply with quote
Upon reading the review, "Street Fighter:The complete history" sounds like one of those ill-researched fan books. I wonder if it has a list of bibliography and references to back its claims.

BTW, I'm no fan of Street Fighter franchise.
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Pneumekian



Joined: 09 Dec 2009
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:23 am Reply with quote
Brian Ruh wrote:
However, toward the end of the book Carle makes a really good point about the complementary ties between Street Fighter and anime in the 1980s and ‘90s. The time when Street Fighter came out was also the same time that US anime fan culture began to take off. With its unique characters and settings, there was no mistaking that Street Fighter was a game from Japan. At the time, there was a kind of a synergy between the game and the increasing number of anime titles that were becoming available to American consumers. I know I probably first decided to give Street Fighter a go because I was attracted to its anime-esque aesthetics. Still others may have been turned toward the otaku lifestyle because they had become fans of the game Street Fighter and wanted to find other things out there that looked like it.

As someone who grew up in the early 1990s, this was not my experience. I played Street Fighter 2 in the arcades as well as at home on my Genesis, and I didn't give much thought at all to the fact that it was from Japan. Heck, I didn't even think about that until much later. I just knew, at the time, that it was a bad-ass game. And while it certainly had unique characters and settings, I don't think there is anything particularly "Japanese" or "anime-esque" about the aesthetics, at least compared to other games I was playing at the time (most of which, granted, were also developed in Japan).

I've had a similar experience with the first anime I saw: the American dubs of Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Ronin Warriors in the early 90s. Admittedly, as a kid I did notice that there was a marked difference in art style and plot between these animated shows and the American shows I was used to watching -- but, really, the main thing I was conscious of was, again, that these shows were just GOOD.

I don't see much synergy. It seems more like mere temporal coincidence. My guess is that the dudes that grew up around the same time period -- a period marked in their memories by Street Fighter 2 in the arcades, and their first exposure to cool anime shows -- are trying to link, causally and historically, what are largely two separate events.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:15 am Reply with quote
@Pneumekian

I think that really depends on the person and his/her background upon being exposed to the games. I think Ruh is just saying: (anime fan) => (SF / Capcom / SNK interest) My experience is like Ruh's.

When I first got into anime, I didn't know what it was but I knew it was different so I decided to seek out more like it and that's when I, like most people, came to know more of its Japanese origins. Fast foward to the mid- to late- 90's, when I was in high school and college, with that knowledge already in mind, Capcom and SNK fighters aesthetics is also what attracted me (I even bought a Neo Geo system), although that was really secondary to the gameplay itself. Hence I also liked Killer Instinct despite much different aesthetics due to the somewhat similar mechanics, but hated Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, etc

So I would conclude that while others not familiar with, or are not fans of anime may also become fans of the game, it doesn't invalidate the implication that fans of anime are also likely to seek out the game due to its origins and/or aesthetics.

btw Jessica as Chun-li is hot Very Happy
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:33 am Reply with quote
configspace wrote:
I think that really depends on the person and his/her background upon being exposed to the games. I think Ruh is just saying: (anime fan) => (SF / Capcom / SNK interest) My experience is like Ruh's.

I think the reviewer is extrapolating a link that wasn't really in existence. If you wanted to make that connection on Guilty Gear, then I totally get it, but considering that (as the review notes and I also am surprised by) Street Fighter came out in 1987 and the anime scene didn't really ramp up till mid 90s at the earliest, when the companies were starting to put out more than just random OAVs and fansubber distros were making anime truly "accessible". In 1995 Street Fighter moved to Alpha, which I think stepped the series back in popularity for a time.

On the other hand, Guilty Gear came out in 1998, when anime fandom was REALLY starting to hit it's stride (Sailor Moon and DBZ had already seen American release and Evangelion had blazed through the fansub scene). That's why I think GG and anime have more direct connections/parallels (even though I don't like GG).
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 2:15 am Reply with quote
^ it's true that anime didn't really take off until late 90s but like I mentioned, the link is the implication that anime fans were likely to check the games out -- NOT that most of the games' fans were anime fans to begin with, which I also do not expect early on. (Although it certainly doesn't preclude the influence of then introducing anime to non-anime-fan players)
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 2:41 pm Reply with quote
I saw this at my local Borders and read the whole thing a couple months ago. It's not very interesting.
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