Reticulating Splines

A classic geography lesson provided by Street Fighter II; likely where most American kids in the ’90s learned where other countries were.

As with most middle class kids growing up in America in the ’90s, I was raised on videogames. Atari, Coleco, Nintendo, Sega, Sony PlayStation…these were staples of my childhood as important as many albums, movies and books were. Fighting games were never my favorite genre, but I did (and continue to) enjoy a good brawl from time-to-time as an outlet and break from homework, reading, or even from other videogames (more intensive, involved RPGs and the like). Street Fighter and Tekken remain two of my favorite games in the genre…I have the latest iterations of each and occasionally visit their predecessors when I crave the nostalgia. Something I’ve observed even as a child from these two games in particular that’s never been directly pointed out (as far as I know) is how blatantly they illustrate the way the Japanese think of the rest of the world (in a very hammy, exaggerated way, of course). Nowhere else in Japanese popular culture is their perception of other countries and their peoples as evident as in videogames, and specifically fighting games. Both Street Fighter (SF) and Tekken are developed in Japan and contain characters of an array of nationalities and ethnicities. More than that, they share in common the ways they depict specific cultural backgrounds. In each game, there are Japanese characters who are the typical silent, stoic warriors, noble and strong-willed (Ryu in SF and Jin Kazama in Tekken being the two prime examples, and each being their respective game’s lead character). The Americans, on the other hand, are depicted as cocky and flashy, very self-assured and boisterous in their display of it (Ken and Guile from SF, Paul Pheonix from Tekken); the Chinese are all either Bruce Lee lookalikes, chefs, or detectives (Fei Long from SF and Marshall Law from Tekken both sharing many traits of Bruce Lee including his signature fighting style and battle cries). Koreans are hot-tempered and similarly arrogant & flamboyant as Americans…Russians are very large, hairy bear-guy commies…Indians are stick thin from fasting, pseudo-spiritual and habitually in a meditation pose…South Americans are either dread-locked Rastafarians or green jungle monsters… the list goes on and on.

This always struck me as, while not exactly racist, a blatant perpetuation of stereotypes hammed up and taken to a cartoonish extreme. It reveals an inherent Japan-centric view of the rest of the world (quite literally - notice how Japan is the center of the world on their map in the above image) – their society is one of quiet, honorable stoicism, and by comparison, many other cultures are obnoxious, narcissistic, overly emotive & conspicuous, or just plain zany from their perspective. This is a topic worthy of a master’s thesis, and while I have no intention of reading that deeply into it (I’ve already spent a lot longer on this blog entry than I intended to), there is a pile of subtext in what appears on the surface to be mere button mashing time wasters enjoyed primarily by testosterone-driven males aged between ten and thirty. What little back story there is in both Street Fighter and Tekken has always been very vague and continually amended to suit new sequels, but all the background one really needs for these characters can be provided by observing their mannerisms and presentation in the context of who develops these games and for what market.