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Last week, video game publisher Capcom released "Capcom Arcade Stadium" for the Nintendo Switch. Among the titles available in the downloadable collection are multiple iterations of "Street Fighter II," including the original 1991 game, 1992’s "Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting" and 1994’s "Super Street Fighter II Turbo."
However, players getting ready to rumble in character E. Honda’s bathhouse stage in the game’s "Capcom Arcade Stadium" versions might feel like it looks a little different from how they remember it, and no, it’s not because technology has marched on and made pixel art games’ art less impressive than it was back in the day, but because the rising sun and its rays have disappeared from the stage’s background mural.
▼ E. Honda’s stage in "Capcom Arcade Stadium"
In the original versions of the games, the gray sun would also light up in alternating colors of red and yellow when the round was over.
This has now been changed to the entire left half of the mural changing color as a solid block, as shown in these screen captures.
The change shouldn’t have been a complete surprise, as official preview images available prior to the game’s release showed Honda’s sunless background. In addition, when Honda was added to the roster in "Street Fighter V" in 2019, Capcom also dropped in a modern, polygonal version of his "Street Fighter II" bathhouse, and a sun was present in the mural, but without the array of extending rays.
No official reason has been announced for the change, but the most likely explanation is that Capcom wants to avoid a negative reaction in other parts of Asia to the rising sun imagery. Particularly in China and Korea, vocal groups associate the symbol with the Imperial Japanese Army and World War II-era occupation. The issue is a complex one for many reasons, not the least of which is that although the Rising Sun flag was flown by the Imperial Japanese military, the symbol was neither created for nor exclusively used by the armed forces, and so it doesn’t have a necessarily militaristic or imperial feel to most Japanese citizens. Capcom, though, has apparently decided it’s not worth the risk of risking a backlash over Honda’s background, and so the sun has been scrubbed out of the mural entirely, even from the for-sale-in-Japan version of the games.
Sources: My Nintendo Store, Twitter/@pomegd via Hachima Kiko, YouTube/Street Fighter
Insert images: My Nintendo Store, SoraNews24, YouTube/Street Fighter
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2021/02/19/rising-sun-removed-from-street-fighter-ii-background-in-games-latest-re-release/
21 Comments
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Erik Morales
I have never heard of this game. looks boring.
snowymountainhell
Revisionists on all sides. Negating the past so it doesn’t have to be acknowledged. (Actually, we’re surprised there’s so much acknowledgment in the Last paragraph.) - Learn from the past and move forward.
Now, Everyone in entertainment is bowing to the pR c. 4 ca$h. For example, the bipoc character “Finn”, one of the three potential heroes advertised by Disney for the recent StarWars sequels was ‘reduced to a supporting character’. He was even reduced into a ‘tiny background image’ on the final installment movie poster.
qazwsx
@erik morales. Street fighter, along with Mortal Kombat, are probably the most important video games heralding player versus player gaming. You must be young or not into gaming.
Ascissor
Video games? Never heard of them.
shogun36
Then you better AX somebody. They've only been making the game and others in it's franchise for the last 30 years.
But, I can understand why they scrubbed the rising sun. But they could have at least just left the sun part. Looks really odd with just a plain wall.
Oh well, that's just the world we live in now is all.
kohakuebisu
I'd be more interested in whether Switch controllers have enough buttons in the right place to play this game.
Robert Cikki
Why it should be removed? It's just a game, that is not based on reality. Same like Wolfenstein 3d and their right facing swastika, guy with a moustache and the game being banned in some countries for that.
snowymountainhell
Why? @RobertCikki. Because Everyone in entertainment is bowing to the pR c. 4 financing & ca$h. Disney, for example, has had biliion $ losses in recent years and will kowtow to recoup.
Ricky Kaminski13
The definition of lame.
Ah_so
It would be far easier, and people would take you more seriously, if you wrote in plain English.
"ca$h" - that makes me cringe.
Alan Harrison
I wonder what the Admiral thinks about his Ensign being removed. Probably could'nt care less.
Samit Basu
This is a positive development, as Japanese businesses are finally being aware of the political incorrectness of the use of Rising Sun flag, which should have long been banned in Japan along with the Nazi Swastika.
@Robert Cikki
Wolfenstein 3d is banned in Germany.
Ramzel
The German swastika is banned in Germany.
the German luftwaffe symbol is not.
the rising sun flag is much more like the German luftwaffe symbol and hence is fine to keep.
Thua it’s just a bunch of overly “woke” people that complain about it.
Speed
It's been used by the Japanese military since Meiji. They shouldn't avoid using this cool looking symbol and flag. In fact, it's still being used by the J-military today.
More people feel threatened by the red PRC flag than any other. They should stop using that one before they stop using peaceful Japan's.
theFu
The German swastika is a symbol for at least three religions in India. It represents prosperity and good luck.
There is also a left facing swastika symbol. The sauwastika symbolizing night or tantric aspects of Kali.
I suppose if you kill millions under a flag, that flag can never be seen anywhere in the world, regardless of the local symbolism?
CoffeeCrusher
Geez.
OssanAmerica
Couldn't care less about this game. But this is ridiculous catering to South Korean historical revisionist nationalism. The Rising Sun flag is the naval ensign of the JMSDF and it flies alongside the Stars & Stripes of the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Indian Navy in joint exercises. It existed well before WWII and exists today.
There are plenty of wrongs in the world that should be corrected. This ain't one of 'em.
snowymountainhell
Revisionists and dictators *want to alter how other people should write, read, think and express themselves.**@4:25p (username not reprinted) *We thought you were ‘anti-Trump’ yet, believed in freedom of speech? - Relying on your 20 years here as a veteran, professional commenter.
snowymountainhell
Disney is a revisionist culture. Their ‘Black Indigenous Person of Color’ character “Finn” was reduced to a ‘tiny background image’ for StarWars’ final installment’s movie poster to appease Chinese distributors. According to producers, ‘Chinese audiences may not be really interested in seeing BIPOC characters’. ‘Money talks’, so, Disney capitulated and rewrote his intended ‘character arc’.
KittyGeorge
The German swastika is a symbol for at least three religions in India. It represents prosperity and good luck.
That's not correct. The circling direction is opposite. Buddhism mark is clock wise, proceeding with time but Nazis mark is anti-clock wise, back-warding against time.