Ryu has been in every Street Fighter game since the first. Edge called him “the star and default player in one of the most successful fighting game series ever”. In December 1998 Edge ran a feature on famous game characters, “A Question of Character”, and asked each character’s creator the same questions. Alongside Pac-Man, Sonic, Lara Croft and Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud, it put Ryu, with the credit “Creator: Manabu Takemura, Capcom”. Takemura’s answers are the fullest public account of why Ryu looks the way he does. Little else about his career has been published.
Fast facts
- Company: Capcom.
- Known for: Ryu, of Street Fighter (1987) and Street Fighter II (1991).
- Main source: his interview in Edge issue 65, December 1998.
Designing Ryu
In the first Street Fighter, Takemura told Edge, Ryu “was the only playable character, so we wanted someone that many people would identify with”. A second player could join as Ken, and the two were set up as opposites: “Ryu symbolises a Japanese martial artist (Budoka), while Ken is a typical young person who likes western culture and wants to be like an American.”
As the character developed, Takemura said, he changed Ryu’s build. Ryu had been “thinner and didn’t look so strong”, so “I made him more muscular, to look like a real martial artist.” Street Fighter II let players choose from eight characters, and Takemura said that was deliberate: “All gameplayers are not the same.”
Asked for Ryu’s defining feature, he named the clothes: “His white karate uniform. Players will know he is a karate master at first sight.” The notes Edge printed around its picture of Ryu explain the rest. The headband is a hachimaki, which Japanese people “sometimes wear when they are facing a hardship or are determined to do something difficult”. The torn uniform shows that “he experienced quite a few fights”. He fights barefoot because devoted karate fighters “train themselves in such severe conditions as fighting barefoot outdoors or swimming in winter”. Even the belt has a job: it moves with his kicks, punches and special moves to show how sharp they are.
Takemura did not claim any grand theory of characters. “I think the best character is the one that is fun to play, or that players feel compelled to play with,” he said. “I try to keep these goals in my mind while designing a character.” He put Ryu’s success down to the game’s: Ryu, he said, “represented the game”. His own favourites were Chun-Li, Guile and Mega Man.
At Capcom later
A “Manabu Takemura” is among the people thanked in the credits of Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand, which Capcom released for arcades and the Dreamcast in 1999 and 2000. His other roles at Capcom, and what he did after, are not documented in public sources.
Sources
- “A Question of Character”, Edge issue 65, December 1998, p. 76: the Ryu profile and Manabu Takemura interview (the credit, “the star and default player”, Ryu and Ken, the redesign, the uniform, headband, torn clothes, bare feet and belt, the best characters, his favourites). Edge issue 66, Christmas 1998, gives the feature’s title.
- Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand (Capcom, 1999–2000), end credits, as transcribed by Sega Retro (web, secondary): “Manabu Takemura” under Special Thanks. https://segaretro.org/Spawn:_In_the_Demon%27s_Hand
- Wikipedia, “Ryu (Street Fighter)” (web, secondary): names Takemura as Ryu’s designer for the original Street Fighter, citing a Takemura interview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryu_(Street_Fighter)