Gouken

Gouken (剛拳) is a non-player character in the Street Fighter series. He is the martial arts master of Ryu and Ken, as well as the older brother and former sparring partner of Akuma. Gouken is usually depicted as bearded man who wears prayer beads on his neck and a karate gi with the kanji mu, or "empty" sewn to the back. While he has never been a playable character in the series, he plays an integral role in the series' backstory and was first depicted in Akuma's ending in Street Fighter Alpha.

History
While earlier Street Fighter games made references to Ryu and Ken's master, the character made his first illustrated appearance in Masaomi Kanzaki's manga adaptation of Street Fighter II, originally serialized in Family Computer Magazine in 1992. According to the comic, Gouken accepted Ryu and Ken as his pupils and taught them their fighting style in his solitary home located in the Japanese wilderness. However, one day M. Bison and his men stormed the dojo and killed Gouken, leaving Ryu and Ken with the duty to avenge their master's death.

While the comic itself was non-canonical, Gouken's name and character design was canonized in the Street Fighter video game series with the introduction of Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. According to Capcom's official account of Akuma's backstory, Akuma and Gouken were once students of Goutetsu, the original practitioner of the unnamed Ansatsuken (Assassin's Fist) style. Goutetsu taught his skills to Gouken and Akuma. While Akuma embraced the killing aspect of the art to the point of succumbing to the "killing intent" (Satsui no Hadou) and killing Goutetsu, Gouken developed his own style, turning techniques such as the Hadoken and Shoryuken into defensive non-killing techniques. Gouken would go on to pass his knowledge to Ryu and Ken before being challenged by Akuma and killed in combat. Gouken makes his first and only on-screen appearance in the video games in the first Street Fighter Alpha game in Akuma's ending in the game alongside their fallen master. According to Dan's backstory in the Alpha series, Gouken was also a one-time master of Dan, but Gouken rejected him because of his vengeful motives.

It should be noted that the early English localizations of the Street Fighter II games referred to a "Master Sheng Long" as Ryu and Ken's master. The name was derived from one of Ryu's win quote in the arcade version of the original game, which was actually a mistranslation of Ryu's signature move, the Shoryuken. After the Sheng Long April Fools' prank by Electronic Gaming Monthly, Capcom USA dropped the name Sheng Long and later adapted the name Gouken in their localizations.