Street Fighter Dan
Dan Hibiki is a character from Capcom’s Street Fighter series of fighting games. Dan is consistently portrayed as an arrogant, overconfident, yet utterly feeble character in many of the games he is featured in. He is widely considered to be the comic relief of the series because of his over-the-top poses and battle cries. In his most recent appearance in the home versions of Street Fighter IV, however, his moves have been slightly upgraded in order to be balanced with other characters.
Not long after Street Fighter II was released, rival video game company SNK released a fighting game, called Art of Fighting, starring Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia. Ryo managed to bear a similarity in appearance, fighting style, and name to Ryu and had the same hair color as Ken.
In humorous retaliation, Capcom included Dan as a secret character in Street Fighter Alpha. Dan’s pink clothing is a spoof of Ryo’s orange attire, while his head is a spoof of Robert’s. His fireball is telling: instead of using both hands to unleash his Gadouken (as Ryu, Ken, and even Sakura do for the Hadouken), he propels it with one hand, like Ryo, Robert and Yuri do for the Ko-oh-ken (that Robert calls Ryuugeki-ken). Dan can also taunt infinitely like the Art of Fighting games, unlike his fellow Street Fighter characters. In addition, he also had four unique taunts- one when he stands up, one crouching down, a short one when jumping, and a taunt exclusive to one of his special moves, Roll Taunt. Each taunt slightly fills up his Super Gauge.
In Street Fighter Alpha 2, Dan is Ken’s secret challenger (reached by finishing several fights in a row with super combos) and they exchange dialog, one line of which is Ken asking Dan if he knows the “art of fighting.”
In Dan’s ending in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Dan’s sister appears to prevent him finishing off Cyber-Akuma saying “Don’t you know who he is? He’s our…”, parodying the ending of the original Art of Fighting where Ryo was about to kill Mr. Karate before being told he is their father by Yuri (Dan’s sister even looks like her).
One of Dan’s win quotes in Street Fighter Alpha 3 is “I hate the art of fighting, but I want to be the king of fighters!” This was a direct reference to Art of Fighting and The King of Fighters series by SNK.
Also Dan’s fighting style, the Saikyo-ryuu, is a parody of Kyokugen-ryuu, the fighting style used by Ryo and Robert. To further the parody, Saikyo-ryuu means “Strongest style” while Kyokugen-ryuu means “Extreme Style.”
In the SNK vs. Capcom series (more specifically in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom), there is a running gag where Dan is often mistaken for Ryo or Robert, even by himself in a mirror match (Kasumi Todoh is one example: even after Dan tells her he is not Robert, she still does not believe him). In these games, Dan parodies even more of Ryo’s attacks. He also mistook Mr. Karate for his father’s ghost (though, in his ending in Neo Geo Pocket’s SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium, he seems to acknowledge that Takuma and Go are different people). In Ryo’s ending for Capcom vs. SNK 2, it is hinted that Dan came to the Sakazakis’ Kyokugenryu Karate school to sign up. In Pocket Fighter, Dan can call on the ghost of his father, whose face resembles the same tengu mask as Mr. Karate. This is mirrored in Capcom’s official artwork for Street Fighter Alpha; earlier works featured Dan’s father as wearing a tengu mask while later ones show that the long nose was indeed a feature of Go Hibiki. All other instances of Go Hibiki’s face are obscured, such as the image of young Sagat clutching Go’s face.
