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For the other characters, go here.
Initially, Akira was a biker shrouded in mystery. Eventually it was discovered that she disguised herself as a boy and snuck into an all-boys school to find her missing brother, Daigo. Once she found her brother, she to transfer to a girls’ school and graduate to the second grade. Friendly, shy, and with a feminine personality, Akira is a practitioner of Taikyoku-ken (Tai-chi-chuan) and genuinely likes motorcycles.
- Badass Biker: Motorcycles are listed as among her interests, and her disguise in United by Fate is essentially a bike helmet and suit.
- Gender-Blender Name: Akira is both a boy and girl's name in Japanese which made it easy for her to hide her identity while wearing her biker helmet.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: While still feminine Akira ended up adopting some attributes and clothing from her biker persona into her life.
- Wrench Wench: She not only knows how to ride motorcycles, she's good a fixing them too, having learned the craft from a friend of her family.
A foul-mouthed, impulsive and belligerent juvenile, Batsu has a kind heart and cares deeply for his sick mother. The hot-blooded student has a strong sense of justice and is angered by the world’s unfairness when he sees that good people are made to look like idiots by the bad guys.
- Diving Kick: His Ryuusei Kick (Meteor/Shooting Star Kick).
- Hot-Blooded: His main identifying trait. His description in his Rival Schools bio even calls him "The Hot-Blooded Transfer Student!"
- Jack of All Stats: Befitting his role as the main character of a fighting game.
- Meaningful Name: "Batsu" literally means to attack or fell (an opponent). It's also the word for an X-mark, as in the opposite of an "O" in Tic-Tac-Toe.
- New Transfer Student: Started as this in United by Fate. By Project Justice, he's now a full-fledged Taiyo High student.
- Playing with Fire: As Burning Batsu, his ki takes on fire-like qualities.
- Shonen Hair: Look at all those spikes in his hair!
- Shotoclone: A lesser example - he's got fireballs, but his uppercut doesn't take him off the ground like other adherents to the trope.
- "X" Marks the Hero: Has an X-shaped scar on his forehead.
Searching for answers regarding her father death, Chun-Li's path lead her to become a special investigator of the ICPO (International Police Organization). Making her own interpretation of her father's Chinese martial arts, she incorporated a variety of Kenpo styles and developing her own special kicking techniques.
- Action Girl: She's the example in fighting games, being the first playable female character of note, and is also an Interpol agent who enters fighting tournaments to stamp out evil forces.
- Amazonian Beauty: Her legs are massive pillars of muscle and most of her attacks and poses emphasize them.
- Anime Chinese Girl: Her iconic appearance and use of Kung Fu set the standard for all the others.
- Badass Adorable: Would you expect a woman like her to jump for joy or strike a V Sign and proclaim "Yatta!"?
- Double Jump: Triple Jump, actually.
- Energy Ball: Her Kikoken and Kikosho.
- Fair Cop: She's an agent of Interpol's Chinese branch, and is considered the most beautiful woman in the series.
- Hurricane Kick: Her Spinning Bird Kick.
- Ki Manipulation: Her Kikoken.
- Kick Chick: The Trope Codifier as one of the first female fighting game characters ever, and certainly the most iconic.
- Rapid Fire Kicks: Her Lightning Kick.
- She-Fu: In general, her arsenal of moves is extremely acrobatic if nothing else.
- Spam Attack: Chun-Li's usual Hyakuretsukyaku. The more powerful variant Senretsukyaku is also used for her super combo.
- Sphere of Destruction: The Kikosho.
- Super Cop: An Interpol Special Agent.
- Wolverine Publicity: She and Ryu are the only two Street Fighter characters who have shown up in every Capcom vs. title out there. This game is no exception as both are the first two Street Fighters represented.
- You Killed My Father: She holds a personal grudge against Bison, because he killed her father.
A member of the US Air Force, Guile continues to pursue Shadaloo to avenge his best friend, Charlie Nash. Combining various martial arts and pro wrestling techniques, he formed his own personal fighting style with sharp attacks has powerful to suppress opponents instantaneously.
- All-American Face: He's an unambiguously heroic character who fights to repel the evil forces who would threaten his country, sports prominent, patriotic tattoos of the Stars & Stripes on both shoulders, and when revealed for 6, a graphic booming "America's Hero is back!" kicked off his trailer.
- Anime Hair: Sports a vertiginous blond flat-top based on an exaggerated military 'high and tight'. It's probably the trait he's best known for, and an in-universe Hand Wave explains his vertiginous flat-top is achieved via "military issue hair product".
- Blow You Away: His special ki attacks, Sonic Boom and Flash Kick, are wind-based.
- Eagleland: Type 1 — a manly, heroic military man.
- Family Man: Guile is famously a Happily Married man with a teenage daughter, both of who he cares deeply for.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: Has an absolute brick of a jawline and is one of the heroes of the series.
- Manly Man: A muscular, well-built man who serves in the military and is gruff and no-nonsense in personality.
- Revenge: Guile is motivated both out of a sense of justice and a desire to avenge Charlie by ensuring Bison's downfall.
Ken is Ryu’s eternal rival and fellow students under Gouken since childhood. He has a history of winning many fighting competitions including the Pan-American Fighting Championship and World Fighting Championship tours. His basic fighting style is similar to Ryu, but due to the difference of his personality and the training environment, Ryu’s techniques are of a slightly different nature and type. Even with the techniques that he developed independently, Ken will always be at the height of his fighting sense.
- Bash Brothers: With Ryu
- Energy Ball: His projectile, the Hadouken.
- Family Man: Ken is Happily Married with his then-steady girlfriend Eliza and a father to one son.
- Hurricane Kick: The Tatsumaki Senpukyaku and Shippu Jinraikyaku.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: "Shippu Jinraikyaku", which is a brutally long string of attacks using Hurricane Kicks.
- Red Oni: To Ryu's Blue Oni.
- Shoryuken: He and Ryu's Shoryuken is the Trope Namer. Ken's tend to stand out more due to his ability to light his Shoryuken on fire, and his Shoryureppa and Shinryuken Super Comboes.
- Shotoclone: The originator (with Ryu), and the reason why Shotos all share similar special moves, having a projectile, uppercut and advancing attack that defines his ability to adapt in combat.
Ryu is on an unyielding search for the knowledge to become the "True Fighter". Pursuing his own personal truth, and inspired by fighters across the globe, he’s still looking for a fighters that are stronger than himself.
- Bash Brothers: With Ken
- Blood Knight: Fighting is everything for Ryu, he always wants to test the power of his fist.
- Blue Oni: To Ken's Red Oni.
- Energy Ball: His Hadouken, and Shinku Hadoken.
- Fireballs: His normal Hadoken is often mistakenly called a fireball (it's more correctly a "chi" ball), but he can turn them into the Shakunetsu Hadoken, which is imbued with fiery energy.
- Home Stage: Ryu's traditional stage, Suzaku Castle, makes an appearance in SFO.
- Hurricane Kick: His Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, Denjin Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, and Shinku Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.
- Iconic Item: His red Martial Arts Headband, it was given to him by Ken.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Ryu feels more comfortable going barefoot and has gone barefoot for most of the franchise.
- Shock and Awe: In a move exclusive to SFO, Ryu's Denjin Tatsumaki Senpukyaku electrifies his normal Hurricane Kick, but it's only available with an alternate costume purchase.
- Shoryuken: He and Ken's Shoryuken is the Trope Namer.
- Shotoclone: The originator (with Ken), and the reason why Shotos all share similar special moves, having a projectile, uppercut and advancing attack that defines his ability to adapt in combat.
- Spirited Competitor: A heroic versionn; he's always on the lookout for meeting strong opponents and treats every battle with sportsman-like conduct.
- The Stoic: Usually his default emotion.
- Walking the Earth: Is always traveling in search of new opponents and challenges.
- Wolverine Publicity: He and Chun-Li are the only two Street Fighter characters who have shown up in every Capcom vs. title out there. This game is no exception as both are the first two Street Fighters represented.
Shin is the son of a Japanese karateka father and a Korean taekwondoist mother. Easy going but materialistic and a bit of a narcissist, Shin loves to be cool, flashy and stylish. He likes to draw and loves music, but hated martial arts until he saw Vale Tudo while studying abroad in the United States. Being inspired by the tournament, Shin returned hime and trained in taekwondo because it it was cool.
- But Not Too Foreign: As mentioned in his bio, he's half Japanese and half Korean, he also has blonde hair.
- Canon Immigrant: Included in Street Fighter V's Character Reference after a near decade of uncertainty if he even was a Street Fighter character.
- Extremity Extremist: Uses kicks as most of his attacks.
- The Fighting Narcissist: Shin is a mild case, while he's relatively easy going, he has great confidence in himself, likes flashy things, and hates things that are plain, simple or what he perceives to be uncool. He takes his appearance very seriously and the only reason he chose to study Taekwondo over Karate is that he thought TKD looked cool.
- I Know Karate: Subverted, he could have been a karateka, but choose to do the taekwondo thang instead.
- Original Generation: The only truly new character created for a game that was more like a crossover, than a true Street Fighter game.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Initially, Shin did not want to follow in his family's footsteps and become a fighter, as he did not like combat sports and had other interests. He changed his mind because the thought TKD was cool, but it's stated in his story that he was destined to be a fighter due to his lineage and his own personality. All it took was semifinal fight in America to change his tune.
Zangief is the Russian hero nicknamed the "Red Cyclone". Teaching himself a number of techniques, Zangief met the great leader and continues to fight for his beloved homeland using his powerful body as a weapon.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Zangief is a very proud man (with a loud voice to prove it), but all the same, he's a sportsman at heart and always extends respect towards opponents. That is, unless you're a bad guy, in which case he'll DEFINITELY rub it in.
- Briefs Boasting: He's a proud, boastful man in general, and wears probably the smallest underwear of the entire cast.
- The Grappler: The prototypical Grappler character, being one of the first of his kind in the fighting game genre. Zangief codifies a lot of the traits common to the archetype such as huge size, slowness, and overwhelming attack power. He is the Trope Namer of the Spinning Piledriver.
- Grapple Move: Besides the obvious Spinning Piledriver, he also has the Flying Power Bomb, Atomic Suplex, Aerial Russian Slam, and Final Atomic Buster.
- Husky Russkie: Zangief is one of the largest characters in the Street Fighter series and he's proud of it.
- Ki Manipulation: "Banishing Flat" has Zangief perform a quick spin with an aura-imbued fist that's able to neutralize the opponent's fireballs, as well as quickly shorten distances with the enemy.
- Mighty Glacier: His attacks are some of the most damaging in the series, but he also walks and approaches slower than just about any other character.
- Spin Attack: The Lariat, one of his staple moves ever since II, has him spin around with his fists outstretched.
- Wearing a Flag on Your Head: His outfit has a red and yellow color scheme, the same as the flag of the now-dissolved USSR. However since 1991, that's no longer the flag of his country, so his outfit's color scheme is just a relic at this point.
