u/GuyMontag95

While trying to think how I want my Heihachi rant will go, I was reminded of another fighting game series that recently resurrected one of its main antagonists. And with that game getting an update this week*, it couldn’t leave my head. Let’s get to it.

M. Bison/Vega/Dictator is one of the main villains of Street Fighter as well as the one that’s most frequently used. A superpowered martial artist, Bison leads the international terrorist organization known as Shadaloo. As its leader he engages in many crimes such as kidnapping, murder, drug dealing, and more to achieve his goal of ruling the world. As the bad guy, he’s has a big part in many of the characters’ backstories. Whether through them wanting to take revenge on him for killing one of their loved ones, him wanting to use them for some purpose, or employing other villains with the promises of riches or good ol’ mind control. In Street Fighter 3, we learn that Bison and Shadaloo does eventually fall with Street Fighter 5 (yes the fifth main series entry is a prequel to it’s third) actually showing how he dies. Now he’s back in the franchise’s latest game, Street Fighter 6. Let’s talk about why I hate this decision.

Firstly, they brought him back too soon. Now I’m not stupid, it was clear that he was always going to return. He’s a popular character, his moveset hasn’t been taken over by someone else, and the story’s written in a reason why he will always return. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s that he returned so fast. It was a pipe dream to expect him to never show up, but I coped that it would at least appear very late in the game. Like in the game’s last year or at least its third season. Imagine my face when it was shown he would drop into SF6 before the game was even a year old. We can’t even ruminate on him being “gone”. They just pushed the emergency button immediately. The rush to get him back also tells me something about Capcom.

They aren’t at all interested in exploring the universe post Street Fighter 3*. I brought up that Bison ends up dying in Street Fighter 5. What I didn’t mention is that the same game shows that there are three more antagonists present and active after his demise. Gill, leader of the Illuminati and main antagonist of SF3, makes his first canonical appearance at the end of SF5’s story where decides to make his first move after the fall of Shadaloo. We are also introduced to the mysterious G, a man with no defined origin who claims he is the president of Earth and that the world as we know it will come to an end. There’s also Seth returning from SF4. While he is not as concerning as the other two due to suffering from a mental breakdown at that point, he is shown to be still around so I’m counting him. These three villains are all still active threats that have yet to be dealt with in the SF universe and instead of following up with any of them, we are shown the return of the guy who died onscreen and whose organization collapsed. We get Bison and a story about dealing with his return before we hear a peep of Seth, G, and Gill (though I’m expecting we will get something for Gill once Alex drops.)* It just bothers me we are revisiting him sooner than all of the other bosses, all of the SF3 characters, and all of the Alpha characters.

This is how I feel about him being added to the game, but how do I feel about him now now that he’s in the game proper? Did Capcom do anything interesting with him for me to get over my hangups over his inclusion? The answer to that is a big no.

Despite my feelings on how fast he was added, I will admit that I was interested in how they would tie it into the story. I was hooked with what they had presented. This would be a Bison that had none of his resources he has had in previous game. Not only that, he now also has amnesia and has forgotten everything of his previous life. This is interesting! They could have Bison go down a completely different direction to what he was before. I was excited to see what Capcom would do with this. And then my hopes were dashed as soon as he was added to the game.

Lack of resources? Turns out there are Bison loyalists that has taken control and kept up with one of the many Shadaloo bases out there. Amnesia? He pretty much gets his memory back by absorbing a hologram that contained many of his actions from past games. And shortly after that your character is hit up by two characters that worked at and abandoned Shadaloo as it was sinking pretty much state that they would gladly work with Bison again given the right conditions. Capcom isn’t interested in doing anything new. Instead they are speedrunning Bison’s development so that he will be the main villain or at least a major one in the next Street Fighter. And it is just so lazy.

His interactions with the cast also doesn’t inspire any confidence. He has yet to interact with any of the new characters added to SF6 which includes its main villain who does have a prior relationship with Bison as well as being in possession of the same Psycho Power. Instead he canonically interacts with Juri, a victim of his, and Sagat, another person that has worked with him. And these encounters end as the same way they have always ended. Juri ends up being beaten down and humiliated by Bison while Sagat rebukes his offer of joining him once again.

It’s frustrating because the developers and writers of SF6 say that Bison is different. Bison says he’s different. Then you get to the actual game and Bison’s doing the same shit he has always done. It’s just retread upon retread with this character and it’s so boring.

TLDR: My biggest problem with Bison in SF6 is how quickly he was added over other characters and more importantly, how they have chosen to write him for this game. Despite having the opportunity to, Bison is pretty much unchanged with what Capcom is showing us. And with how he’s written, how his return is given so much emphasis over many of the other plot beats in SF6, it tells me that Capcom is still not willing to move on from Street Fighter 2 even though Street Fighter 6 is supposed to be the game that is meant to move the series forward. I do hope I’m wrong in the future.

*I started writing this rant before Alex was added to SF6. Now that he has, I’m now aware how much they don’t care about exploring the narrative after SF3. Jeez louise.

LES because this is a stupid fucking topic I can’t get out of my head. Let’s get right to it. Alessi is a minor villain in Stardust Crusaders. One of the many goons DIO sent to take out the gang, Alessi is a cowardly man who tries to avoid fighting people he believes he’s weaker to. Through his stand, Sethan, this weakness of his can be nullified. When within Sethan’s shadow, the person within it will age backwards into a child or even a fetus if they are in it long enough. Once they are de-aged, Alessi’s cowardice gives way to his sadism as he taunts, beats, and attempts to kill a child he thinks he’s strong against.

Enough about him. As you can see from the title, a large part of the JoJo fandom believes he’s a pedophile. Speak about him and you’re guaranteed to see people talking about it like it’s a fact. Given his stand’s abilities, how weird this group of chapters was, and how unsettling Alessi is as a character, I can see why it’s common to think that. The guy is already a piece of shit that will gleefully bully and kill children, being a pedo seems like a logical step to consider. My thing is if he was one, the story would have just said it.

Araki is not a man of subtlety. He has all the restraint of someone saying they will throw a brick at you and then actually doing so. This is how he writes characters around this time. If Alessi was a pedo, he would have had a neon sign with huge letters saying it to the audience. But as it is, he’s just a guy who beats on children which is bad enough as is.

I think what really gets me is that there are other characters that actually fit this descriptor in this specific part over Alessi. This is the same part that had a gorilla try to sexually assault a young girl taking a shower, a man rape and kill a main character’s school aged sister, and a then 25 year old man hit on his then 15 year old brother’s girlfriend. I doubt that with all of this as well as who the first villain is in Diamond is Unbreakable, Araki suddenly got cold feet with depicting Alessi as a pedophile.

I don’t even like this guy outside of the Capcom fighting game. I just hate it when others are wrong about slander that is easily disproven. Alessi’s a bad enough character as is, don’t need to make him into something he isn’t to sell how awful he is.