Gill

"My methods may seem harsh in contrast to my true intentions."

- Gill

Gill (ギル, Giru) is the main antagonist and the main boss of the Street Fighter III series. He is voiced by Bruce Robertson in New Generation and 2nd Impact and by Lawrence Bayne in 3rd Strike.

Appearance
Gill's appearance is characterized by his half red and half blue muscular body and flowing blond hair. He bears a distinct and intentional resemblance to a Greek God.

Gill's asymmetrical color scheme was a device for Capcom to display the graphical power of the CPS-3 board. In previous 2D Street Fighter games, details such as Sagat's eye-patch would switch sides depending on which way the character was facing. Originally, Gill was to be colored black and white. It was later decided to color him red and blue, to better show off the game's graphical power. The black and white palette is used as a secondary color. Additionally, Gill was designed wearing a loin cloth to show off as much of his red and blue hues as possible.

The sprite of Gill's secretary, Kolin, has an intentionally asymmetrical haircut, so, like Gill, she appears graphically impressive when rotating from facing one direction to another, instead of being a mirrored sprite. In 3rd Strike, a special glow has been programmed to constantly render his sprite in both positive and negative coloration, further showing off the CPS-3 board's impressive graphical power.

Concept
Gill is physically modeled after the Greek Gods of antiquity. His personality comes from various Judeo-Christian sources. Gill's name might come from the Hebrew Gilead, meaning "eternal joy." It is also a common Sikh name.

He is similar to Jesus of Nazareth in his claims of being the messiah, the savior of mankind. In that respect, Urien, his jealous brother, can be compared to Judas Iscariot; Urien's nickname in the Japanese Street Fighter III manual even refers to Judas. Gill's Resurrection technique may also be based on Jesus' resurrection from the dead, and the posture Gill assumes during this technique, suspended in the air with his arms outward, evokes the image of Christ during crucifixion. Gill's Seraphic Wing technique refers to seraphim, the six-winged, highest order of angels in Jewish and Christian beliefs. When Gill performs Seraphic Wing, he takes on the six-winged angelic form, "offering" salvation. Finally, in Gill's 3rd Strike ending, he parts the ocean and leads his people to the promised land, likening him to Moses.

In addition to his Greek God and Hebrew Abrahamic influences, Gill was also envisioned as a "Greek Pankration like Gandhi" by Akiman during conception of his character, and some of his aspects were lifted from the Sentai character Kikkader. He also bares a major resemblance to Kars, a major villain in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Personality
He is presented as a cult leader who would become a benevolent monarch over his worthy subjects. Worldly, majestic, and charismatic in his pursuits, Gill is not without flaws however, being haughty, arrogant, and even outright draconic and elitist at worst, with his cult using immoral ways such as kidnapping, coercion, DNA manipulation, brainwashing, and extreme force in a similar way to Shadaloo in order to select their chosen people, and they have been behind a majority of the world's events and criminal organizations to attain their ends. Gill is also not above murdering innocent people to compete his ultimate ambition.

As far as achievements go, Gill often takes a loss, sometimes in order to fulfill a much bigger goal; other times, he does so out of respect for his foe's fighting ability.

Street Fighter III series
Gill is the leader of a mysterious cult-like organization called the Illuminati which has manipulated world events for over 2000 years, and is dedicated to the salvation of mankind, and creation of a new utopia. The Illuminati had genetically enhanced Gill in his youth, increasing his strength and speed so that he could participate in an intense hand-to-hand combat training program. Gill became the top student out of the hundreds of enhanced warriors involved, surpassing even his own jealous brother, Urien.

According to Illuminati legend, the soul of the previous Illuminati Emperor would be reincarnated into a new body after death; the organization determined, through the results of their special training program, that the latest incarnation of the Emperor was Gill. Therefore, at the age of 22, Gill was appointed President of the Illuminati. Urien was overlooked due to his emotional instability, and appointed vice president under Gill. Later, Urien challenged Gill for the presidency of the Illuminati and succeeded. Urien then became the president of the Illuminati. However, Gill was not demoted - in fact, he was promoted out of the title of president and became the new Emperor and messiah.

Under Gill, the Illuminati continued to gain power and resources, acquiring capital and estates through various business transactions. When the organization came into possession of a certain Jaguar automobile from the father of a British heavyweight boxing champion known as Dudley, Gill himself was challenged by the pugilist in order to have the automotive heirloom returned. Gill, being respectful of powerful fighting ability, agreed to return the precious car, as its worth was insignificant compared to the coffers of his organization.

The Illuminati continued to conduct genetic enhancements and other intrusive mutations on humans, either kidnapping their subjects or creating and/or enhancing them artificially, in a development series known as the G-Project. These experiments resulted in the creation of the super soldiers known as Necro and Twelve, enhanced beings designed to carry out the bidding of the Illuminati (though Necro went rogue). This project also led to the abduction of a young girl who was under the care of the ICPO agent Chun-Li.

With the aid of his faithful secretary Kolin (pronounced "Colleen") and despite his younger brother's meddling, Gill organized the third World Warrior tournament with the aim of finding those strong enough to be worthy of repopulating humanity after the end of the world. During this tournament, Ibuki was tasked by her clan to retrieve the G-Project files. Fortunately for her, Gill gave up the files voluntarily; the project was already underway at the time, meaning that the files would no longer be needed.

At some point during the end of the tournament, Gill was defeated by Alex, and then killed when Akuma caught him by surprise with the Shun Goku Satsu, though he resurrected himself as Akuma left the battle.

UDON comics
Gill appear in UDON's Super Street Fighter: New Generations comics.

Capcom Fighting Evolution
Gill makes a cameo appearance in M. Bison's Capcom Fighting Evolution ending, where Bison is seen fighting and defeating him with Balrog, Vega, Sagat and the twelve Dolls watching. However, as M. Bison and his followers leave on the Shadaloo plane, Gill resurrects himself, looking completely unscathed from the recent fight.

Gameplay and fighting style
Gill's fighting style appears to be based on the ancient Greek Olympic discipline of Pankration, and relies on the manipulation of fire and ice, as well as elemental clotheslines, headbutts, and knee-drops, all of which are used as well by his brother, Urien. He also has several other powers at his disposal, also mentioned above.

Gill's elemental control is such that fire and ice are perfectly balanced; this is reflected in both his appearance and a rather unique gameplay trait that changes the element of certain attacks (e.g. Pyrokinesis and Cryokinesis) based on the direction he is facing. This simply serves to demonstrate the CPS-3 board's power, and has no effect on damage and stun. Gill is both the first known character to utilize ice-elemental attacks, and also the first character known to have attacks with properties that depend on the direction he is facing.

Gill's overall style focuses on being offensive at all costs while negating anti-air attacks. Unlike Urien, Gill has the advantage of not needing to pause to chage his attacks, and can easily overwhelm a careless opponent. As the final boss, Gill is much more powerful than every other character in Street Fighter III (save for Shin Akuma). He inflicts heavy damage, does an extremely large amount of stun, and can string together very long juggles. He can also inflict block damage with normal attacks, which makes it difficult to employ defensive strategies against him. This also makes it virtually impossible to achieve a perfect victory against Gill. For this reason, he is often unusable during regular game play. However, he has almost no combo extendability in contrast to his brother, but it does not hinder him too much, since two of his Super Arts can be used as a counter at almost any given moment.

The only true way to play as a copy of Gill in the arcade version of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is to use Twelve's X.C.O.P.Y.; in home releases of Street Fighter III, Gill can be selected after he has been defeated at least once by every fighter, or by purchasing him as DLC in Online Edition. He is even playable in Xbox Live matchmaking service games; however, he is only usable in player-matches and is unusable in ranked-matches.

Super Arts
Arguably the most dangerous gameplay element of Gill is his Resurrection Super Art. If his life bar is emptied by the player while his Super Art Gauge is completely filled, Gill will rise from the ground with his health gradually restoring itself. During his rising animation, his opponent is constantly pushed away from him, making it difficult for a player or their projectiles to approach and knock him out of it.

In Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, Gill gains a Super Art called Meteor Strike, where around twenty Cryokinesis and Pyrokinesis projectiles will fall from the sky onto the opposite half of the screen from his position. This can deplete roughly 80% of an opponent's Health Meter on connection, but will not hit an opponent crouching directly next to him under normal circumstances.

In Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Gill gained the Super Art Seraphic Wing, which causes six wings form on his back and emit light waves from his body. Not only does this move cover the entire screen and do ludicrous damage, it is absolutely impossible to evade or parry, making Seraphic Wing Gill's most powerful ability. Its only weakness is its massive startup, though if he is hit out of it while he is rising into position, his Super Art Meter will not be depleted.

Gill possesses the relatively unique ability to use all three of his Super Arts in one battle, rather than selecting one at a time; the only other character with this ability is Akuma, who may use three of his five.

Quotes
See: Gill/Quotes

Trivia

 * A boss from Captain Commando known as Scumoside has the same powers and a similar moveset to that of Gill. Scumoside, however, resembles more of a demon, in contrast to Gill's angel-inspired design.
 * Gill is known as one of the first "supernatural" bosses in fighting games who is able to manipulate energies. Thus, he bears a strong similarity to Algol from Namco's Soul Calibur series.
 * In Soul Calibur V, Algol's costume bears resemblance to Gill as well as Urien.
 * In Street Fighter X Tekken, the Tekken final boss Ogre has a Swap Costume modeled after Gill.
 * Both Gill and Urien share the same voice actor in 3rd Strike, Lawrence Bayne.