Art of the Super Taunt: The Legend of Dan Hibiki

Of all of the characters that have been revealed after Street Fighter II, there hasn’t been one more memorable than Dan. That’s because of his unique appeal, and the fundamentals that gave birth to his origins.

Relating to that, Dan has something no other character has: parodical qualities. When Capcom gave birth to the 2D fighting game genre we know it as today with Street Fighter II in the mid-90s. Considering that, it’s not particularly surprising that other companies would like to help capitalize on that success with making similar-though-different-enough alikes. Some of them naturally turned out terrible, like Fighter’s History, but the best of them came from SNK. Art of Fighting was one of the most popular ones from SNK, and Capcom thought they’d strike back with a subtle sense of humor. This is what gave birth to Dan.

(Though honestly, SNK’s World Heroes was far more of a rip-off of Street Fighter than Art of Fighting ever was.)

Art of Fighting has two main characters named Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia (to the left and right of the above picture, and on the left side of each screen shot), who are definitely intended to be that franchises Ryu and Ken. That’s not where their similarities end either. Ryo, as you’ve probably noticed already, has a similar name to Ryu, but he also has moves similar to them as well. So does Robert, who also comes from an incredibly wealthy family, just like Ken. Yeah, you can see where this is going.

So the empire decided to strike back and create a character that made fun of theirs, with hilarious results. Something Art of Fighting established was incredible amounts of taunting, and Dan does it with as much style as they did. In fact, in the Alpha games, he was the only character that could taunt as much as he wanted to (every other character could only do it once per round), and he was the only one that had multiple taunts. Heck, he even has a super technique that’s a gigantic, elaborate, and long taunt. It’s definitely one of the best and hilarious moves in the franchise.

In terms of canon, Dan was once a student of Ansatsuken karate, but was banished when Gouken, the same man who trained Ryu and Ken, discovered that his motives were getting in the way of his learning. This was a fantastic move, it seems, as it begat the introduction of the legendary Saikyo-ryu, literally translated as “Strongest style”. By the way, Ryo and Robert use the Kyokugen-ryu, which is translated as “Extreme style.” Hmm.

He also, naturally, has some fighting techniques similar to them. Ryo doesn’t have a fireball that doesn’t go very far? Dan has that! And it looks comical compared to any other fireball the rest of the cast usually has. He has an uppercut that has horrible priority in nearly every game he’s been in. And he also has a hurricane kick-like move that, in most games, is kind of useless because its start-up is way too long. For supers, he has a super fireball that doesn’t go that much farther than his normal one, a super uppercut attack that has horrible range, and something that’s incredibly unique: the Hisshou Burai Ken. The literal translation for that is Certain-Victory-Relying-On-Nobody-But-Myself Fist. It does pretty good damage, and it’s hilarious to watch in motion, but good luck landing the full thing on an opponent. Though, chances are your opponent won’t be too happy if you land it on them. You know who to use if you want to witness the omnipotent bile of kids on Xbox Live in Street Fighter IV! So yeah, he definitely isn’t one of the best characters in the game.

But that doesn’t matter, you see! Judging him solely on those qualities is missing the point of using the character entirely. Dan can be used in two ways, expertly though a lot of training and practice with human match-ups, or if you want to be suicidal. Though you can also use him to psyche out your opponent if they think you’re picking him as a gesture to say they’re not very good. If you want to get some rage from your opponent, now you know who to pick.

In case people still didn’t realize that he was a parody, Capcom thought they’d go for a less subtle approach in some of their future games:

Subtle!

There’s also his ending in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, which is probably one of — if not the — most clever aspects of the game. I’m not talking about his unique taunt to this game, which is fantastic on its own (and even does a little damage to the opponent).

First is Art of Fighting’s ending (keep in mind that only Ryo and Robert were playable):

And here’s Dan’s ending in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter:

I don’t know about you, but they look pretty similar.

Yeah, so he’s a pretty terrible character to use in most games (but only in terms of fighting ability!), but there are a few where he’s pretty capable. He’s actually worthwhile in SNK vs. Capcom: Mark of the Millennium for Neo Geo Pocket Color, which was the first crossover game between those two companies. And this particular one was also developed by SNK, which probably says something. His Street Fighter IV iteration also isn’t too bad, though he still pales in comparison to most characters. I decided to use him when if first started playing the game to take on a bunch of people in Player Matches, and I did pretty well. But that was when everyone was new to the game; I wouldn’t dare do that now.

His iteration in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos is also pretty different. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a capable fighter here (he isn’t), but it was worth seeing how SNK would treat Dan in the game’s conversation exchanges. SVC Chaos has something unique about it: each character exchanges a healthy amount of dialogue before each battle begins. Their dialogue will either range from entertaining, to hilarious, to seriously awkward. Dan’s are hilarious, of course, but other characters react to seeing him pretty hilariously as well.

Dan made a pretty hilarious impact on not only Street Fighter, but the entire 2D fighting game genre. No, that’s not only because he’s been in quite a few crossover games, but because of how innovate and appealing he was to everyone who adored – or flamed people over the internet over – the rivalry between Capcom and SNK. There are more parodies and knock-off’s in fighting games, but no one will ever be as great as Dan can be. That isn
‘t an easy task, but Capcom sure did it well.