Ryu

Ryu (リュウ Ryū) is the main character and protagonist of the Street Fighter series. Ryu has made an appearance in every Street Fighter game, as well as in every Capcom company crossover game.

Appearance
Ryu is a Japanese man whose basic, and most recognizable attire from the  Street Fighter II  timeline consists of medium-length brown hair, black eyes, a long, red headband; a white karate gi with the sleeves ripped off at the shoulders, bare feet, and a black belt. Ryu’s first appearance in the original Street Fighter replaced the red headband with a white one and depicted him with bright red hair, gray eyes, and red slippers. In the Street Fighter Alpha series, Ryu’s hair became a lighter shade of brown, and he retained the white headband which hearkens back to his appearance in the first Street Fighter. Ryu would not canonically receive his red headband until after a sparring session with Ken during this timeline. In  Street Fighter III , Ryu has black hair, and facial stubble to show his growth in age. Ryu’s gi becomes increasingly tattered and aged throughout the game’s timeline, indicating its years of wear and tear. Ryu’s most recent appearance in Street Fighter IV  has him in his original Street Fighter II outfit.

In many of his appearances, Ryu carries around a large, white duffel bag containing items important to his travels such as: clothing, plane tickets, passports, and local currency.

In some official Street Fighter II artwork, Ryu's belt has four kanji emblazoned upon it: kaze (風 wind), hayashi (林 woods), hi (火 fire) and yama (山 mountain); these four kanji make up the furinkazan. The same four kanji can be seen on a sign on the left-hand side of Ryu's stage in Street Fighter II. The four words are based on chapter seven of Sun Tzu's Art of War, which dictates how one should conduct battle.

Personality
Ryu is usually a silent, serious individual whose severity is often juxtaposed against the light-hearted, fiery persona of his friend, Ken. Ryu travels the globe with a stern nature, often appearing to others as boring or detached. In rare occasions, Ryu shows a very bad sense of humor. Ryu's overarching goal in Street Fighter is to become a total master of his fighting style. To this end, Ryu plays the part of the wandering warrior, and takes both his travels and his training very seriously.

Pre-Street Fighter
As a very young child, Ryu was orphaned and left with no memories about his parents, and whether they were still alive. He was found and adopted by a man named Gouken who raised Ryu in his secluded dojo and trained Ryu in the ways of his martial art. Shortly afterwards, Gouken would later train his best friend’s spoiled son, Ken Masters. Ken served not only as a sparring partner, but also gave Ryu a friend in the form of a boy his own age. Ryu looked up to Gouken as a father figure, and regards Ken as his best friend and surrogate brother, a relationship which remains to this day. When Ryu was 23 years old, Gouken believed that Ryu was ready to travel the world in order to test and hone his martial skills against the best fighters from around the world. With this, Ryu left Gouken’s dojo, and headed to fight in the fight World Warrior tournament.

Street Fighter
In Street Fighter, Ryu is one of the participants of the World Warrior tournament. After defeating all challengers, his skills earn him the right to fight its host, Sagat. Despite nearly losing against the "Emperor of Muay Thai," Ryu secures a difficult victory, and is crowned champion.

Later games elaborate on the final battle between Ryu and Sagat. In this version of the battle, Sagat nearly beats Ryu into unconsciousness. Ryu, however, having such a strong desire to win, allows himself to be engulfed by the Satsui no Hadou and he strikes Sagat with a nearly-fatal Metsu Shoryuken that not only knocks Sagat unconscious but also marks his chest with a great scar. After regaining consciousness and discovering what had happened, Sagat swears vengeance on Ryu.

Street Fighter Alpha
In the Street Fighter Alpha series, Ryu leaves Sagat behind and returns to his home only to find that Gouken, his master and adoptive father, has been murdered. Learning that Akuma had fought and killed his adopted father, Ryu began to travel the world to find this man.

He encounters and fights Akuma on a secluded island known as Gokuentou, but Akuma was only testing him. He senses that Ryu has the same powers as he does, and tells Ryu about the Satsui no Hadou - a power that consumes the practitioners of their shared fighting style, driving them to win even when it means killing the opponent. Ryu refuses to unleash this power within, and Akuma uses his fist to smash the island, leaving Ryu stranded.

Sometime after escaping the island, Ryu battles Ken and loses. Ken realizes Ryu is not himself and has been deeply troubled since his last victory over Sagat. He gives him his red hairband as a reminder to stay focused, which Ryu was sincerely grateful for. Soon thereafter, a fan of his, named Sakura, comes up and expresses her desire to train under him. Ryu replies that he himself still has much to learn, but allows Sakura to take a picture of him. She swears to make him accept her eventually.

Two years later, Ryu continues to be troubled by what Akuma had told him, compounded by his encounter with Rose, who has intricate ties to M. Bison. She tells him that he cannot defeat Bison unless he fights him at the cost of his soul. True to form, when Ryu confronts Bison, he is defeated despite putting up a valiant fight. Bison takes the semi-conscious Ryu and begins brainwashing him, using the revelation that the Satsui no Hadou - the dark power Ryu struggles to avoid using - is akin to Bison's own Psycho Power.

This scene is interrupted by the entrance of Sagat, Ken, and Sakura, each of them having followed Ryu for their own reasons. While Ken and Sakura distract Bison, Sagat challenges the brainwashed Ryu (different versions of this story coexist; in one version, Sagat is offered this battle as an enticement to stay with Shadoloo.) Sagat quickly notices the effects Bison's brainwashing have had on Ryu, and, at Sagat's urging, Ryu comes to his senses and helps Ken and Sakura force Bison to retreat.

Street Fighter II to III
During the World Warrior tournament, Ryu enters to test his skills, and defeats many of the new warriors. It is unknown how far Ryu progressed through the tournament (although, many signs point to Ryu losing to Ken in the Second World Warrior tournament, missing his chance to go up against Bison as well as a rematch with Sagat).

Years later, Ryu enters the third World Warrior tournament to further advance his fighting abilities. He was then defeated by Oro. During the events of "Third Strike", Ryu and Ken have another match in which Ryu emerges the victor. Later, he faces Alex and emerges victorious. Sometime during these games, he defeats Hugo.

Street Fighter (film)
In the live action movie adaptation of the games, Ryu, (with the last name of Hoshi) along with Ken, are two con artists who love to take money from rich crime lords through their schemes. This time, however, they unwittingly become entangled in the war to free the country of Shadaloo.

Street Fighter
His story in this TV series is basically a loose combination of the two stories in the games and in the live-action film. Ryu, once again given the last name of Hoshi, is still a con man, as well as Ken, but despite this, he is still dedicated to his training.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
In this, Ryu is still a wandering fighter, journeying to various parts of the world to find new challenges. He gets intangled in many battles against various fighters and villain Bison as well.

Street Fighter II V
Here, Ryu appears as a 17 year old and is not travelling alone. He is accompanied by Ken for the early part of the series, and has not learned the Hadoken as part of his original fighting style. He and Ken, after being trounced in a bar fight with Guile, decide to travel the world and, teaming up with Chun Li, make appearances in some of the countries seen in the game.

Fighting style
Both Ryu and Ken are practitioners of a nameless martial art, which incorporates the most violent techniques from a blend of four styles of martial arts, alongside a mysterious sure-killing technique called Shun Goku Satsu. Both Ryu and Ken learned their art from Gouken, who developed a refined version of the original murderous art taught by his master Goutetsu which does not include the discipline's life-threatening techniques such as the Shun Goku Satsu. The original violent style, which is used by Akuma is referred as an ansatsuken (暗殺拳), which means "murderous fist" or "assassin's fist". This is not the actual name of the fighting style, but simply a Japanese colloquialism used to describe any martial art style or technique that has been developed to kill an opponent.

While Ryu and Ken follow the same martial arts discipline, as the Street Fighter series evolved, the differences between the two characters was portrayed by their attacks: Ryu focused on technique while Ken opted for stylish unpredictability.

Ryu's normal attacks are slightly slower than Ken's, albeit straightforward. His special moves are more focused; Ryu inflicts damage with individual strikes rather than combinations. His Shoryuken does only one hit, so Ryu can effectively use this move at full power against airborne opponents. Ryu can dodge projectiles at the start of his Shoryuken maneuver and knocks an opponent down with one hit.

Ryu focuses more on the Hadou principle of the fighting style, which translates to him being very skilled with his usage of ki - Ryu has the most concentrated Hadouken between him and Ken, and only Akuma can match and/or surpass Ryu's Hadouken in both gauge and concentrate in certain instances. Ryu is the only student of this martial art capable of using the Shakunetsu Hadouken with the greatest of care&mdash;ensuring that the surge still burns bright with flames, but won't result in immolation.

Ryu and Ken's have a comparable duality with Akuma. There are two real-life philosophical approaches to karate, and Japanese martial arts in general. Do and Jutsu, or The path/way, and method/technique. One is more for personal development (see judo) and the other is more for practical application (see jujutsu).

Capcom USA originally referred to Ryu's fighting style as "Shotokan" despite bearing little resemblance to the discipline. Because of this, Ryu and other characters who use similar styles (such as Ken and Akuma) are still called "Shoto clones" or "shotos" by fans. Although as the Ryu character is based on the real life events of Yoshiji Soeno, who was a practitioner of kyokushinkai karate under Mas Oyama, the traditional kyokushinkai techniques can be clearly seen in the character's fighting style, as with Makoto, who's fighting style and techniques are based off shotokan karate.

Gameplay
Ryu is the quintessential "basic" character in fighting games with an intuitive array of punches and kicks, and very basic special moves. This simplicity makes Ryu a favorite for beginner and intermediate players. Ryu is available in every single Street Fighter game, allowing players familiar with previous Street Fighter games to begin playing immediately, without having to worry about learning how to use a new character, however, there are a few tweaks in his moveset which vary depending on the game.

Special Moves
Ryu's techniques are the "Hadouken" which has become a staple projectile among fighting referred to as the "Fireball", the "Shoryuken" which is a favorite among many players to use, referred to as a "Dragon Punch" and is an uppercut maneuver that hits once, and the "Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku" or "Hurricane Kick" as most refer it to. In early versions of Street Fighter 2, Ryu could only use all attacks on the ground, however in later versions, he is able to perform the Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku in the air. Also he has the ability to use a more powerful version of the hadouken known as the "Shakunetsu Hadouken" where the hadouken is a variation of fire and deals more damage. In the alpha series, he has a tactic known as the "Hadou no Kamae" which is a tactic of trickery, fooling the opponent into a potential counter. More variations of Ryu's attacks came in the form of his medium punch, kick, and heavy punch moves where holding foward and pressing any of the 2 punch buttons enables different attacks which deals two hits but has a delayed start. In Alpha, The Medium Kick action performs a weaker version of the Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku, which deals less damage but is quicker to perform. In the 'Street Fighter 3 series, Ryu gains one new special move called the "Joudan Sokutou Geri" which is a powerful side kick that shoves opponents away with great force while its EX version is powerful to bounce the opponent off the arena wall. In the Street Fighter EX Series, his Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku is replaced with a flying kick attack which can be done in succession by inputting the same command twice or three times.

Super Combos/Super Arts
Many of Ryu's Super Combos (Super Arts in Street Fighter III) are more powerful versions of his normal moves. The "Shinkuu Hadouken" delivers up to five hits on one fireball, The "Shin Shoryuken" is a close range move that acts like a normal Shoryuken unless it connects and delivers two more punches, and the "Shinkuu Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku" is a multi-hitting "Hurricane Kick" that stays in one spot in the air. This was replaced in SF3 with the "Denjin Hadouken" which is an alternative of the Shinkuu Hadouken, where the player must "charge" the fireball. The longer the move is charged, the more damage, hits and "stun" it deals. Exclusive to Super Gem Fighter, he has a move called the "Reppuu Jinrai Shoryu" which is a multihitting punch attack that ends in the same fashion as a Shin Shoryuken.

Ryu has a unique ability in Marvel vs. Capcom, where he is able to change his fighting style (and outfit), to those of Ken and Akuma (to compensate for the lack of the two characters in the game). When giving his quote at the end of the fight, however, they are the same no matter which "mode" he's in.

Legacy
Given with the name of Ryu's fighting style, any character that contains any two or three of Ryu's basic special attacks are considered "shotos" by fans, signifying that they are easy to use characters. In the Street Fighter series, usually most "shotos" in the games sport a gi of a different color (with the exception being Sakura) and are referred to as "shoto clones". Ryu's attacks have been passed on to Ken Masters and Akuma with some alterations to the mechanics, while Dan Hibiki and Sean Matsuda have different styles yet very similar to the originals.

In other games, such as Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, characters such as Ryo Sakazaki and Terry Bogard have similar attributes to the "shoto" style with a projectile (in Terry's case, a ground wave) and Dragon Punch and special kicks which are quite different from Ryu's but have similar properties and in some cases, have the same inputs as Ryu's attacks. Many fighting games in the future have certain characters that operate in this function but always have varying differences to make them stand out from Ryu as well. To this day, shoto characters can be found in a huge majority of 2D fighting games.

Actors
Ryu is voiced by Katashi Ishizuka or Toshiyuki Morikawa in many of the games he appears in. In some of the Alpha games and in the first two Street Fighter III games, he is voiced by Wataru Takagi. In Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, his voice is done by Toru Ohkawa. His voice in the Street Fighter Alpha anime was Kane Kosugi, and Kojiro Shimizu in the Street Fighter II anime movie. In Street Fighter II V, he is voiced by Kōji Tsujitani. He was portrayed by Byron Mann in the 1994 movie adaptation of the game.