Elena

Elena is a character from the Street Fighter series. She appeared in Street Fighter III to be exact. Has anyone noticed that her character design seems to have some similarities to Storm from X Men? Have a look at this picture of Elena and this picture of Storm. Both of them have dark skin, white hair, and blue eyes. Coincidence?

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

Most likely not. A lot of people have picked up on this before. It's even mentioned on this wiki that Elena very much resembles Storm.

I don't see how or why she'd be related to a character from a completely different series.

As for white hair...it's a very popular hair color for fictional characters because it looks exotic. Blue eyes indicates foreigner. So the only thing the two really have in common is them being black.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

^Actually they're both from Kenya. So they have the same nationality too.

Also, relevant. Some I think are stretches(personally I think gill is based off a mix of Kikaider and Santana from JJBA) but the resemblances are easy to see.

Rose is based off Lisa-Lisa from JJBA.

edited 7th Aug '11 12:38:05 AM by Vertigo_High

Those are really huge stretches...I mean, Guile I can understand. But the rest? Seriously?

Especially Honda, he's supposed to be a generic sumo wrestler guy to begin with.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Considering Capcom is big fans of jojo and even made a game off it, any JJBA similarity I'd say was probably intentional. Juri = Jolyn was one of the first things people were saying when she first came. Q looks a HELL of a lot like the dude from Metropolis, just a different face, and Bison isn't exactly a creative design visually but that guy looks a lot like him. He even gives off a psycho impression. Yun and Yang could be coincidence, but Gundam Wing was big back when Sf3 was made.

Sagat and Dudley are off though for sure. Agreed about Honda, who's little more than generic sumo himself.

edited 7th Aug '11 12:50:31 AM by Vertigo_High

Bison? I don't pay too much attention to Street Fighter anymore, but...isn't he Vega? Bison was that stupid looking boxer guy right?

Anyways, he's far too generic looking to be a rip-off, just like Honda.

edited 7th Aug '11 12:52:41 AM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

Only in Japan. To westerners he's Bison and Vega is the masked narcisstic psychotic pretty boy.

This handsome guy is Vega for us.◊

edited 7th Aug '11 12:56:15 AM by Vertigo_High

....oh wtf. I played the game for how long and I didn't even notice that?!

But I clearly remembered playing the game and the characters were...

• generic Big Bad=Vega
• jumpy masked claw guy=???
• stupid looking boxer=Bison

And I can't read japanese so I couldn't have been playing the japanese version...I think......of course, in those games, Akuma was named Gouki. But I assumed they changed Gouki to Akuma because Gouki sounded like "gook-y" to westerners.

So...what, "Blind Idiot" Translation? (although in this case, maybe it's my fault for not noticing until now, but...STILL!)

---

...maybe it's because I only paid attention to Ryu, Ken, Dan, and Sakura...until I got EX, in which all my attention went to Garuda, Blair, Skullomania, and Blair. So maybe it's because I never paid attention to those other characters.

edited 7th Aug '11 1:04:02 AM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

In response to the topic itself: Lolno. Dark Skinned Blonde isn't that rare of a trope

For the rest: A few of them are pretty obvious steals, but most of it is people convinced that Capcom can't come up with anything original

Those names are correct for the JP version, and Vega was named Balrog. They switched the names between those 3 because the North American Capcom branch didn't think Vega was a threatening enough name for the final boss so changed it to Master Bison instead(which does sound somewhat more fitting). Balrog was changed to Vega(kind of fits his elegance) and Might Bison was stuck with Balrog(thus losing his pun since he was a parody of Might Tyson). YMMV on whether or not the changes were for the better. Personally I think Balrog got the short end of the stick and his original name fits him a lot better, but the other two I'm fine with. The reason itself is definitely silly though.

As for Gouki, I don't know why they changed his name. Like you said it might because Akuma is easier to pronounce and has a similar meaning.

Also SF wiki does say M.Bison was inspired by the movie the article linked to earlier, as well as a character from Riki-oh. I won't say Capcom isn't original but they don't exactly bother much to hide their influences either.

edited 7th Aug '11 1:34:12 AM by Vertigo_High

Funny, I thought the reason for the ridiculous name-switching was because Capcom was trying to avoid getting sued by Mike Tyson for making a character that looks like him and having a name similar to his - Mike Bison. Really, they could have just put the name Vega on that character, because he is fighting in Viva Las Vegas! (ha, ha!).

At least they made sure that Elena has a different personality from Storm's. That, and they made sure that Elena does not have any weather-based powers.

edited 7th Aug '11 7:53:31 AM by TiggersAreGreat

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

I agree. They definately did not make Elena talk like she's a fantasy Wizard while doing absolutely nothing with her abilities.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:50:02 AM by Signed

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I kinda think Balrog fits. In Lord of the Rings the Balrog was a huge ferocious monster, which fits well with Balrog's brutish personality.

You never read the X-men comics have you?

Tried, gave up after realizing chapter 1's of western comics are nigh impossible to find(plus really really old and corny), so I gave up and just relied on the cartoon and the movie.

"Every opinion that isn't mine is subjected to Your Mileage May Vary."

I suggest checking out the X-men essential volumes. They start around the time Storm was introduced, include most of the defining stories, and come in huge sizes. Downside is, they're in black and white, which can get kinda problematic as the art evolves.

If all else fails, you can just read some of the modern issues. Getting up to speed on the status quo is no harder than a trip to wikipedia, or you can do what I did I grab one of those guide books.

In essence, the library is awesome.

Actually, just ignore this post. I misread the above few posts.

edited 7th Aug '11 9:18:34 PM by X2X

^^^ It's very rare that starting at #1 is the best intro into a comic. Only for self-contained things and relatively recent comics should you be doing that - if you want to get into X-Men, I definitely wouldn't suggest starting at X-Men #1.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.