Sodom

"Guess I beat you pretty bad. Nothing personal."

- Sodom

Sodom (ソドム) is a video game character who debuted as a boss in the beat-em-up game Final Fight, before appearing as a playable fighter in the Street Fighter series starting with Street Fighter Alpha. He is an American Japanophile, and former member of the Mad Gear Gang.

Appearance
In combat, Sodom wears tabi and zori, samurai gauntlets, blue jeans, body armor, and a samurai kabuto with a mask, which obscures his facial features entirely; it is known, however, that he has blue eyes.

On the front of his outfit, Sodom has attempted to scrawl the Japanese kanji shi (死), meaning "death". However, he has not written the kanji properly, and thus its meaning is lost.

He is never seen fighting without a pair of jitte or katana blades, making him one of the few characters to appear in the Street Fighter series to use weaponry. In the Japanese version of Final Fight, the katana are named Masamune and Muramasa.

In Street Fighter V, Sodom's primary outfit has minor changes and his body armor is now have long sleeves and his outfit resembles the football uniform and his samurai kabuto with a mask gains a long white hair similar to Garuda's.

Personality
Sodom is a "Weaboo" (a stereotypical non-Japanese person who is obsessed with Nipponic culture and philosophies and thus considers himself a native from that country). He is well-versed in many elements of Japan's culture; a source of humor, however, is that his usage of the Japanese language is questionable, as shown with the kanji on his costume and several of his win quotes.

Final Fight series
In the original Final Fight, Sodom controlled the Mad Gear gang from the Metro City Subway. He was undefeated in underground pro wrestling, albeit due to his use of "foreign objects" (the swords), until he met Guy, as well as Cody and Haggar. At first, Sodom was honored to face a true ninja of Japanese descent like Guy, but this honor would turn into deep shame, as Guy beat him. From then on, Sodom hated Guy for not only being one of the people to rid Metro City of his gang, but for ending his undefeated streak, which proved in his mind he was no match for a true Japanese fighter. The incident also cost him a lot of respect amongst his fellow gang members.

Final Fight Revenge showed Sodom's determination to resurrect Mad Gear (this gang actually seems to be the same Mad Gear in Final Fight 2) and his decision to go to Japan to find strong warriors for the new organization. The new crime syndicate was established all about the world, and was held together by a powerful second-in-command: a Japanese kabuki named Retu. Rolento, Sodom's proclaimed blood brother, was also part of the criminal organization. Guy's fiancée Rena and her father Genryusai were kidnapped by them as part of a revenge plot, but this Mad Gear fell at the hands of Haggar, Maki, and Carlos, three acquaintances of Guy. Retu was defeated by Maki and the Mad Gear Gang perished.

Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2 reveals why Sodom wasn't seen in FF2. He was attempting to find more strong warriors for the gang. He had an argument with Rolento over how the militant man had lost sight of their gang's ideals, to which Rolento snapped back that he had never lost sight, but was simply trying to find a successful way to implement them. The two fought and Sodom lost. Sodom had also attempted to recruit E. Honda and fought him in a sumo match, but failed in both regards.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
"The Kabuki Fighter, Sodom, seeks to achieve true "Japanism". How will he reach a higher level of cultural worship? He now wanders the world, in search of his "brothers.""

- Sodom's Profile in Street Fighter Alpha 3

After possibly fighting Honda in a friendly rematch, the Japanese aficionado met Rolento again in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where he once again lost to Rolento in another fight over their values. Despite losing, he tracked Rolento down to Shadaloo's base containing the Psycho Drive, and finds Rolento decrying it as a poor attempt to control people. Sodom realizes that Rolento did not lose sight of Mad Gear's ideals, and the two reconcile their differences. They decided to work together toward making a great utopian nation.

Sodom's own ending in the game where he drives his truck towards Bison's base in a successful Kamikaze attack and dies in the process is not canon, as per the account in Ultra Street Fighter IV below.

Ultra Street Fighter IV
By the time of the S.I.N. tournament, rumors are circulating that Sodom has quit the underground fighting circuit and started a yakitori restaurant.

Other Appearances
In addition to the Alpha series, Sodom also appears as a playable character in Final Fight Revenge.

Sodom also made three appearances in the US Street Fighter animated series. In "The Medium is the Message", he's one of the combatants present in the Street Fighter tournament in India, where he fights Chun-Li. In this episode, the colors on Sodom's armor are saturated and his helmet lacks a mask, revealing that he has blank white eyes. In "Cammy and the Bachelor", he (now wearing his appropriate armor and helmet) and Birdie are both working for M. Bison, until Birdie is captured by MI-5 and Sodom is apparently trapped in the wreckage of M. Bison's destroyed helicopter, abandoned by Bison and the brainwashed Cammy. In the episode "Final Fight" (based on the game), Sodom returns as a member of the Mad Gear gang, just like in the original game. He is fought by an undercover Ryu and Ken as an initiation test to "join" the Mad Gears. He speaks very little in all three episodes, though in "Cammy and the Bachelor", he does have one full line: "What about Birdie? He's not back yet!" and lets out a deep cackle in response to one of Birdie's jokes.

Cameo Appearances
Sodom makes a couple of cameos in Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix and Mighty Final Fight.

Sodom can be spotted in the Mad Gear Hideout stage in Street Fighter X Tekken and Ultra Street Fighter IV. He wears a kabuki wig and costume along with the other Mad Gear members, and performs a "very original" kabuki dance (which mainly consists of headbanging). After the first round, Sodom appears in the middle of the stage. After the second round, Haggar appears and starts chasing Sodom throughout the stage.

Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation
Sodom makes a cameo appearance in the animated movie, Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation, as a fighter who travels with Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and some other fighters to Dr. Sadler's laboratory to find and rescue Ryu's alleged younger brother, Shun, though Sodom's comments hint that he is only doing it to prove he is not a coward. As the fighters battle it out to demonstrate their skills to Sadler, Sodom takes on Ken, but is beaten. He and the other fighters are later imprisoned in a cell to have their fighting energy stripped, but they are released by Ken and Chun-Li.

Street Fighter Alpha manga
Sodom is featured in the "Street Fighter Zero" (released as Street Fighter Alpha by UDON) manga by Masahiko Nakahira, in which he fights with the back then brain-washed Cammy. About to finish her off, Chun-Li intervenes, and starts fighting Sodom. Ironically, he unintentionally saves his opponents by holding up a ceiling that falls down on them with his jitte. After the falling ceiling was stopped by Guy, Sodom lets his guard down and gets his mask destroyed by Chun-Li and Cammy, and he instantly ceases the battle while covering his face in shame, as he claims to be unable to fight without his samurai mask.

Fighting Style and Gameplay
Sodom is the only character in Street Fighter Alpha 3 whose weapons he uses depends on what '-ISM' is used. If using the X-ISM fighting style, he'll use his katanas; otherwise, in the A-ISM and V-ISM styles, he will use his jitte. This is because his X-ISM visage is based on his Final Fight appearance.

Sodom was notable for being fairly difficult to defeat head-on in the original Final Fight, due to his dash attack being nearly unstoppable and quite damaging. However, it is possible to defeat him without actually taking any damage at all if the player approaches him along a vertical axis and uses grabbing and throwing moves, since his dash attack can only move horizontally or diagonally. Successful application of the above method can allow the player to easily defeat Sodom without harm, since he and Rolento are the only boss characters in Final Fight who do not have henchmen to back them up during battle.

Trivia

 * Sodom was renamed to Katana in the North American SNES versions of Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha 2 due to name issues.


 * Sodom, along with Ryu, M. Bison and Akuma, has two different themes in Street Fighter Alpha 3. He is the only character whose theme depends upon the '-ISM' chosen, having a different theme in X-ISM.


 * Also in Street Fighter Alpha 3, Sodom has a winpose exclusive to X-ISM, in which he uses his dual katana, and his default color scheme is the same as the more muted colors he wore in Final Fight.


 * Sodom's taunt in the Street Fighter Alpha games, which consists of a generic Japanese bow, actually damages the opponent if used close enough.


 * There are three Sodoms (or Katanas, as the character is referred to as in the SNES version) known as the Three Katana Brothers in Mighty Final Fight. The game, however, is not canon in the Final Fight series.


 * Sodom shares some similarities with Yoshimitsu from the Tekken and the Soul Calibur series. Both wear samurai-inspired armor and masks, and both use two swords in combat (although Yoshimitsu hasn't always used two swords in combat). In addition to this, they both appear in two different games (Sodom in Final Fight and Street Fighter and Yoshimitsu in Tekken and Soul Calibur) and both also have a serious and determined personality, but often leave a rather goofy and comical impression. One major key difference between the two is that Yoshimitsu is actually Japanese, while Sodom is not.
 * In her win quote against Yoshimitsu in Street Fighter X Tekken, Poison says that he reminds her of Sodom.
 * Additionally, in the same game, one of the swap costumes has Heihachi Mishima wearing a samurai armor and helmet looking very similar to Sodom's.


 * In his Street Fighter Alpha ending, Sodom unfurls a scroll that is meant to read "Mad Gear", using Japanese kanji. However, Sodom has failed to write the scroll in katakana, and instead used the kanji '魔'-(ma), '奴'-(do), '義'-(gi, miswritten) and '亜'-(a) to phonetically spell out Mado Gia (Mad Gear). Because each kanji has meaning, this appears to the Japanese reader to be a nonsensical coupling of characters: "devil", "guy", "honor", and "to come after" as in a rank or position. '亜' can also mean "Asia" or "mute".


 * There's also a character named Sodom who appeared with another character named Gomorrah working for the crime lord Lean in the Street Fighter II V anime series. It's unsure if this is the same Sodom from Final Fight before his Mad Gear Gang days or a different character altogether, though Charlie Nash in the anime series also looked different from his game appearances as well.


 * Sodom's win quotes in Japanese is very different from English. In the international version, he speaks proper English. In the Japanese version, he tries to speak in Japanese using English phrases, emphasising his Weaboo personality.


 * Sodom's characterization predates the slang word Weaboo, which is derived from Wapanese, a derogatory term for a non-Japanese person who has a huge fascination with Nipponese culture. This term was first coined at the controversial image board 4chan, a Western counterpart to the Japanese message board 2chan.

Quotes
Sodom/Quotes

Gallery
Sodom/Gallery

Sprites
Sodom/Sprites