Dan



Dan Hibiki (火引 弾, Hibiki Dan) is a character from Capcom's Street Fighter series of fighting games. Dan is consistently portrayed as an arrogant, overconfident, awesome, yet utterly feeble character in many of the games he is featured in. He is widely considered to be the comic relief of the series because of his over-the-top poses, battle cries, and overall weak moveset. In essence, Dan is considered to be a joke character. In his most recent appearance in the home versions of Street Fighter IV, however, his moves have been slightly upgraded in order to be balanced with other characters.

Concept
Not long after Street Fighter II was released, rival video game company SNK released a fighting game, called Art of Fighting, starring Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia. Ryo managed to bear a similarity in appearance, fighting style, and name to Ryu, and had the same hair color as Ken. In humorous retaliation, Capcom included Dan as a secret character in Street Fighter Alpha.

Connections to SNK Characters
Dan's pink clothing is a spoof of Ryo's orange attire, while his head is a spoof of Robert's; he also taunts similarly to Yuri. Instead of using both hands to unleash his Gadouken (as Ryu, Ken, and even Sakura do for the Hadouken), he propels it with one hand, like Ryo, Robert and Yuri do for the Ko-oh-ken (that Robert calls Ryuugeki-ken). Dan can also taunt infinitely like the Art of Fighting games, unlike his fellow Street Fighter characters. In addition, he also had four unique taunts- one when he stands up, one crouching down, a short one when jumping, and a taunt exclusive to one of his special moves, Roll Taunt. Each taunt slightly fills up his Super Gauge.

Dan's fighting style, the Saikyo-ryuu, is a parody of Kyokugen-ryuu, the fighting style used by Ryo and Robert. To further the parody, Saikyo-ryuu means "Strongest style" while Kyokugen-ryuu means "Extreme Style."

In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dan is Ken's secret challenger (reached by finishing several fights in a row with super combos) and they exchange dialog, one line of which is Ken asking Dan if he knows the "art of fighting."

One of Dan's win quotes in Street Fighter Alpha 3 is "I hate the art of fighting, but I want to be the king of fighters!"; this is a direct reference to Art of Fighting and The King of Fighters series by SNK.

In Dan's ending in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Dan's sister appears to prevent him finishing off Cyber-Akuma saying "Don't you know who he is? He's our...", parodying the ending of the original Art of Fighting where Ryo was about to kill Mr. Karate before being told he is their father by Yuri (Dan's sister even looks like her).

In the SNK vs. Capcom series (more specifically in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom), there is a running gag where Dan is often mistaken for Ryo or Robert, even by himself in a mirror match (Kasumi Todoh is one example: even after Dan tells her he is not Robert, she still does not believe him). In these games, Dan parodies even more of Ryo's attacks. He also mistook Mr. Karate for his father's ghost (though, in his ending in Neo Geo Pocket's SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, he seems to acknowledge that Takuma and Go are different people). In Ryo's ending for Capcom vs. SNK 2, it is hinted that Dan came to the Sakazakis' Kyokugenryu Karate school to sign up.

In Pocket Fighter, Dan can call on the ghost of his father, whose face resembles the same tengu mask as Mr. Karate. This is mirrored in Capcom's official artwork for Street Fighter Alpha; earlier works featured Dan's father as wearing a tengu mask while later ones show that the long nose was indeed a feature of Go Hibiki. All other instances of Go Hibiki's face are obscured, such as the image of young Sagat clutching Go's face shown at right.

Appearance
Dan has a similar outfit to Ryu and Ken, wearing a traditional Karate gi. Dan also wears a black undershirt like Ryo. His head and face closely resembles Robert from Art of Fighting, while his outfit is bright pink, reminiscent of Ryo's orange outfit in Art of Fighting. Coincidentally, orange is one of Dan's primary alternate colors.

His fighting stance is similar to Ken and Ryu's (being how he was simply a palette-swap of Ryu/Ken); in later games, it is more "loose" and animated. As seen below, his appearance in Capcom VS. SNK 2 is more distinct in that he's lighter on his feet and his arms are positioned differently. In Street Fighter IV', he forgoes bouncing around in his stance in favor of hand and arm movements reminiscent of Tai Chi movements. Many of his mannerisms directly mirror those of Yuri Sakazaki.

Story
According to the Super Street Fighter IV blog, Dan was born on November 25. Dan's father, Gou, was a mixed martial artist and a rival of Sagat. Gou gouged out Sagat's right eye and Sagat beat him to death in retaliation. Because of this, Dan sought revenge on Sagat, training to become a fighter, but was expelled from Gouken's dojo when his motivations were learned. Dan thus developed his own style of Gouken's martial art merged with Muay Thai elements and called it Saikyo-ryu or, "The Strongest Style," despite the complete weakness of his techniques. He set on a quest to find Sagat and take vengeance for his father's death

Street Fighter Alpha 2
In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dan finds Sagat to avenge his father's death. During Dan's travels, he encounters Guy, who calls his moves cute. Guy then explains he is looking to challenge fighters. Dan accepts his challenge and fights Guy. He eventually encounters Sagat. When Dan taunts him on wanting to make the left eye match the right, Sagat comments that the man who took out his right eye paid with his life. Angered, Dan brands Sagat a murderer, knowing the man was his father. Sagat then comments that Dan should join his father, which then led to their fight. Dan's story is canonical; after their fight, Dan wins, although he doesn't know Sagat let him win, realizing how anger makes people do things they will regret. Satisfied that he finally avenged his father's death, Dan returns to Hong Kong and sets up his Saikyo-ryu Dojo.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
"Dan finally defeated the man who killed his father... He made his own fighting style called Saikyo, "the strongest". But his ambitions will not rest until he achieves perfection..."

- Dan's Street Fighter Alpha 3 Profile

Dan travels the world, promoting Saikyo-ryu, until Chun-Li comes and questions him and asks if he is involved with Shadaloo. Dan fights her, wins and flees. While back in Thailand, he fights Sagat, hoping to take him under his wing, but refuses. After winning, he meets M. Bison, leader of Shadaloo and Sagat's employer, Dan remembers his fight with Chun-Li, blames him for it, then Bison orders Balrog to fight him. He wins, then fights Bison, after that, he finishes Bison off with his Hisshou Buraiken. He then turns the Psycho Drive Plant into his Saikyo Thailand dojo, where he and Blanka, who he correctly refers to as Jimmy, learn Rolling Attack. Later, Charlie, who arrived late, comes with a flight squad and bombs the base, and Dan and Blanka escape. In an unknown time, he takes Sakura, the number 1 fan of his former master's student (Ryu) under his wing, unaware that she's using him to get to Ryu.

Street Fighter IV
In Street Fighter IV, Dan is shown to be annoyed that he wasn't told of the second World Warrior Tournament, asking Blanka whether the crowds were bored to tears without a star like him to provide real action; in reality, Blanka tried to get in contact with him about the tournament, but couldn't, as Dan hadn't paid his phone bill and his phone was disconnected. Sakura also asks Dan whether he's heard anything about Ryu lately, since Dan has claimed that Ryu was an apprentice of his. To keep up this appearance, Dan says that Ken Masters is rumored to be entering the next World Tournament, which makes it likely that Ryu will also show up.

Dan enters the new tournament to spread the popularity of his Saikyo style, barely getting enough points to qualify as a last-minute entry. At the end of the tournament, Dan is seen at the S.I.N. base, bumping into Blanka before an explosion threatens to engulf them both. They are saved by Ryu and Sakura, at which point Dan tells them to be more careful, as "even with [his] awesome powers" they may not survive the next wave. He then makes his exit to the amazement of all. In an effort to capitalize on his association with great fighters, he broadcasts a commercial advertising the Saikyo-ryu dojo, telling people to drop in to enroll (his phone is still disconnected). However, when no-one turns up, Sakura points out that the ad didn't contain the dojo's address, whereupon Dan realizes his mistake and screams.

Street Fighter X Tekken
In the debut trailer of Street Fighter X Tekken, Dan is badly beaten and "killed" by Kazuya Mishima from the Tekken universe, during which he elaborates on events regarding the plot. However, he makes a non-playable apearance as the training mode instructor. He is also shown to be trapped in Pandora in Sakura and Blanka's ending.

Other Appearances
In the unofficial events of Pocket Fighter, Dan's story begins with himself looking to expand his Saikyo-ryu school, and subsequently chooses Sakura as his student. Upon meeting Sakura, he offers to teach her his style, and she accepts after Dan defeats her in a fight. Sakura masters the entire Saikyo-ryuu style, after which writing a letter to Dan commenting on how she has purposely forgotten the entire Saikyo-ryuu style, calling his moves "retarded", thus humiliating Dan.

In the Street Fighter Alpha animated OVA, Dan is seen fighting Vega, as well as Birdie in another scene. Dan loses and is brutally defeated in both battles.

Connections With Other Games/Media

 * Ran Hibiki from the fighting game series Rival Schools shares a number of similarities with Dan, and it is implied that the two are related. A classmate of Ran is Chairperson, who learned to fight from a Saikyou-Ryu correspondence course.
 * Sean from the Street Fighter III series, a student of Ken Masters who has a very limited mastery of the fighting style, has the win quotes, "Don't call me Dan!", "Rule #1: Never give up! Rule #2: Don't fight me! Rule #3: Don't be like Dan!" and "You fight like Dan. You ARE Dan!".
 * In a Kamen Rider Decade episode, in which the characters are in Kamen Rider Hibiki's episode, Kadoya Tsukasa wears a pink kimono. This may be a reference to Dan, since the world's Rider shares his name with Dan's surname.

Gameplay
Due to his somewhat clumsy, slow and short moves, Dan is widely regarded as a joke character, not recommended to be used for any serious competition. He is also popular as a handicap to skilled players, as his weakness makes winning matches more difficult when against notably powerful characters such as Ryu, Ken and Charlie. As such, selecting Dan can in itself be seen as a taunt, since doing so implies high confidence that a player is superior in skill to his or her opponent. Strangely enough, the sheer comedy value made Dan a campy fan favorite of sorts. Although being inferior to Ryu and Ken, in some areas he is slightly stronger. For instance his Dankukyaku can not be ducked under like Ryu and Ken's Tatsumaki Senpukyaku can, his taunt jump allows him to jump higher than Ryu and Ken normally and it can interrupt in-air attacks. Each taunt also increases his super bar where Ryu and Ken's do not and his crouching and rolling taught and be good for avoiding and interrupting most attacks. He is difficult to use but he can be better than some of the other characters if used properly. In Street Fighter IV, however, although his comical mannerisms remain intact, Dan appears to be more serious, and his moves have been notably upgraded and although look comical, they do epual damage to the those of the other mid-weight characters. His buffs and updates to his moves in the more recent games have actually allowed Dan to becom a legitimate choice in the tournament setting, to the point that players say that Dan's greatest strength is the illusion that he's supposed to be bad.

Techniques
In the games he appears in, Dan is distinguished from Ryu and Ken by his ineffective special moves, such as a projectile with a comically short range (Gadouken, or Self-Taught Fist) and a triple-hitting flying kick that is easy to block (Dankukyaku, or Gale Kick); both are reminiscent of special attacks in Art of Fighting (if one had no Spirit Power in that game, special attacks become useless). Dan also possesses Koryuken, an anti-air uppercut (initially different, but eventually mimicking Ryu and Ken's Shoryuken) with very little horizontal range, during which he sometimes flashes and becomes completely invincible. He can also perform Premium Sign, where he autographs a portrait and flings it at the opponent.

Dan has a move known as the Hisshou Buraiken, which is a standing parody of Ryo's flying Desperation move, the Ryuuko Ranbu. Dan also possesses a "Shoryu Reppa" type move called the Koryu Rekka, which was borrowed from the double uppercut at the end of Ryo's MAX Ryuuko Ranbu (he even imitates Ryo's "Kyokugen-ryuu Ougi!"/"Kyokugen-style secret!" yell that is used at the beginning of Ryuuko Ranbu, instead declaring "Saikyo-ryuu Ougi!"). Both moves have little to no range at all, and leave Dan wide open for attack if the moves are blocked.

Despite being the lowest tier amongst the main characters, Dan is still an above-average martial artist when compared to typical fighters. In the first volume of the manga Sakura Ganbaru!, Dan enters a street fighting competition and is shown doing rather well (though he admitted to using underhanded tactics, as he would "do anything to win"), only losing to Ken, who later went on to win the entire competition.

This seems to tie in to his appearance in Street Fighter IV, when he appears to be more serious, and his moves have been slightly upgraded in order to be balanced with other characters. He gains the new and quite powerful Haoh Gadouken Ultra Combo in Super Street Fighter IV, which is much similar to Ryo's super fireball. Dan's other Ultra in the Street Fighter IV series is Shisso Buraiken, which is basically his Hissho Buraiken, but he runs towards the opponent to connect. Similarly to the Haoh Gadouken, one can combo into the Shisso Buraiken with the Legendary Taunt.

Taunts
A running gag in all games that Dan appears in is his ability to taunt. In games where the player is limited to only one taunt, Dan is able to do an unlimited amount. Each Taunt also adds to his Super bar, generally (it varies by game) by a healthy amount. In Street Fighter IV, he is also able to perform a special Super Combo: the infamous "Super Taunt" (Chohatsu Dentetsu), which is simply a taunt dragged out for several seconds. It does absolutely no damage, and Dan is vulnerable throughout the entire escapade. It takes a whole Super Combo Gauge to perform.

This attack is often seen as the ultimate insult, as it shows the player's confidence in victory enough to make him waste a chance at using a super move in favor of this, and performing it under any situation other than total victory is suicide. The interesting thing about this move is that Dan can perform his Ultra during the taunt, and, by starting this combo with the Gadouken, is the easiest way to hit with his Ultra.

Dan is one of only two characters in the Street Fighter series that has a super taunt, along with Sagat: Chouhatsu Densetsu (Legendary Taunt) and Chouhatsu Shinwa (Mythical Taunt).

Parody Attacks
In addition to his normal moveset, which parodies the moves used by "shoto"-style fighters, Dan has a move in some games known as the Otoko Michi (Way of the Man), which parodies Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu. The Otoko Michi is performed by doing the command for the Shun Goku Satsu in reverse. Depending on the game, the Otoko Michi can be as powerful as the Shun Goku Satsu, which can take off more than half of the opponent's lifebar, or it takes off a minimal amount of life from the opponent. In most versions, it leaves Dan with only 1% of his own life. Due to its slow speed and high costs, this move is considered highly unreliable and only used when absolute victory is certain. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, it is the strongest single Hyper Combo in the game, even greater than the Shun Goku Satsu. In SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, it not only does a considerable amount of damage when used, but he loses no life from performing it: this is due to the fact that it is his Exceed attack, all of which can only be done once per match and need a low amount of life remaining to become usable to begin with.

Ironically, Dan parodies even more Kyokugen-style attacks in the SNK-produced games of the SNK vs. Capcom series. He gains the Gadou Sho Ko Ken (a Gadoken-ranged version of the Haoh Sho Koh Ken) in both SNK-produced games (as a Level 2 version of Shinkuu Gadoken in The Match of the Millennium, and a regular special move in SVC Chaos). In SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, he also gains a parody version of Ryo's Tenchi Haou Ken called Kyuukyoku Tenchi Gadou Zuki that is able to block any attack during the charge-up period, even normally unblockable moves, but does not do much damage and has an extremely long recovery time since Dan punches the opponent so hard that he breaks the bones in his hand, and needs some time to tend to it.

In Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, one can input a code just before the start of the match, in which Dan falls onto the ground, creating a comically huge explosion, instead of his normal entrance. He then gets up and the fight starts. This has absolutely no effect on gameplay.

Other Games
In the parody puzzle game Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Dan's joke status continues. The gameplay in Puzzle Fighter revolves around setting up large blocks of "gems" to be broken, which will then drop countering gems on opponents in complex patterns in order to fill up their screens. Usually these attack gems fall in complex patterns designed to make it harder for opponents to successfully break them up. However, in Dan's case, every single gem dropped is red. This makes it comically easy for an opponent to break them all at once and create a massive counterattack that usually buries the Dan player completely. Perhaps even more so than in his traditional games, choosing Dan is considered the ultimate "sneer" to your opponent, since the amount of skill required to successfully play or beat someone else as Dan is so high that it is considered that no player of sound ability should ever lose to someone else playing as Dan.

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Trivia

 * Although Dan's face was originally designed to resemble Robert Garcia of Art of Fighting, his more recent portraits indicate that he may also be a spoof at Steven Seagal.
 * Dan is one of the 19 characters in Street Fighter IV to not have second rivals in Super Street Fighter 4, despite having a ultra combo video to include his second rival (Sagat).
 * The Dan is a Japanese mark of level, which is used in traditional fine arts and martial arts.
 * In Street Fighter IV, Dan was unaware of the Second World Warrior Tournament, but in the Udon Comic Street Fighter II Turbo, Dan attempts to enter the finals of said tournament by stealing Guy's invitation. Guy lets him get away with it but Dan is unable to make good use of it as he is beaten by Sakura, after believing he was a contender by default.
 * Dan has recently gone up in the tier ranking for Super Street Fighter IV; he is at rank 32, leading in front of Hakan, Gen, and Makoto.
 * Using Dan's crouching and air taunt in SSFIV against an opponent allows him to attack, but not cause any harm to his opponent. Despite this, certain characters with counters will register them as "attacks". Additionally, using his air taunt as soon the jump animation starts increases his jumping height, making possible for him to dodge attacks such as a strong Shoryuken from Ryu, Ken, or Akuma.
 * In UDON comics Dan too seems to posess Satsui No Hado. While dueling Sakura, he gets consumed by this power and kanji 'father' appears on his back as he tries to deliver an attack reminiscent of Shun Goku Satsu. In a typical Dan manner, while dashing towards Sakura, he trips on her school bag allowing the girl to make short work of him.
 * Later on, Seth kidnaps Dan for the purposes of BLECE project which harnesses the power of Dark Hadou.
 * According to a few of his in-game win quotes in SSFIV, Dan is unemployed, despite being able to pay for an infomercial that airs at 3am, which should actually cost more than a phone bill, thus saying Dan does not set priority on his own account.
 * According to Dan-specific win quotes in SFIV and SSFIV, most characters find Dan "entertaining", while others "can't stand him" or believe he is "all talk". Abel in particular even thanks him for the laughs.
 * Nothing is ever stated about Dan's mother; she was possibly/most likely dead before the events pre-dating Street Fighter, although there's no source confirming that.
 * It is possible that Sakura based her Focus Attack on Dan's Light Dankukyaku.
 * Dan's Gadouken range has noticeably increased since his last canonical appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 3; it is much more reliable, but at the cost of him having a much slower release. The animation is also different: he extends his arm forward while launching the projectile.
 * Dan's second costume color for his original costume is a reference to Ryo Sakazaki's default costume in the Art of Fighting and King of Fighters series. Capcom has a history of putting in subtle nods to Dan's origins as a parody of SNK fighting games, and Dan has had the orange gi/blue shirt costume since Alpha.
 * Dan's second alternate costume in Super Street Fighter IV might be a reference to what tribes in South America wear. Similarly, Blanka's second alternate costume is Dan's gi and outfit. These costumes are references to Dan and Blanka's friendship.
 * In a Top 10 list hosted by Screwattack.com, Dan was placed at #7 of the top 10 P.A.B's in the game history.
 * In the upcoming patch for Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Capcom has again improved Dan, albeit mildly on a basis of comparison to other characters. Quote: "In a lot of ways, we are aiming to make this the strongest version of Dan ever in a Street Fighter Series, so we have changed many things."