Just had to mark the day it happened.

A piece of Ryu/Chun-Li art landed in our inbox today for the book that pays homage to a piece of Street Fighter cinematic history and is so…

…we can hardly stand. And those of us who can stand are tripping over our jaws that have dropped to the floor. Awesome isn’t adjective enough…

 

Valentine’s Day… 76 agonizing days until launch, but the wait will be worth it.

If you call yourself a Ryu/Chun-Li fan and haven’t yet donated art, a mini-comic, or cash to get your name in our book, and ultimately decide not to, when you see the art we have received today, you will forever hold your head down in shame thinking…

“I’m such a fool. I could have been a part of something great.”

The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

Our upcoming graphic novel is the product of thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours, and, on top of releasing it digitally for free for you, we are going to put hard copies of it in CAPCOM’s, UDON Entertainment’s, and the producers of Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist’s hands. Bottom line, this book is the strongest attempt in your current lifetime to prove to CAPCOM that the idea of Ryu/Chun-Li is marketable.

If you want CAPCOM to even begin considering the production of something Ryu/Chun-Li, you need to prove to them you will put money down to buy it.

By donating money or art to help Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle to become even greater than it already is, you not only make the book a better reading experience for yourself, but you show CAPCOM, beyond the shadow of a doubt, you would put money down for a Ryu/Chun-Li product if they were to produce one.

To those of you who have donated, you are the true Ryu/Chun-Li fans, and we thank you for standing with us.

 

The rest of you have less than three months to decide to seize this opportunity you have been given. We hope you’ll decide to stand with us too.

Donate using the button on our Facebook Page

Or contact us at:

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

 

Michael Huey

As we continue on the path to our Valentine’s Day 2015 launch (85 days and counting), we hope more people will come to us and share their own personal Ryu/Chun-Li stories. Today we are honoured with a blog entry from…

Michael, the blog is yours.

There are two kinds of Street Fighter fans: the artistic and the competitive. I actually fall into the former category.  Street Fighter II World Warrior was actually one of the first games I played when I got introduced to video games as a little boy. I played it with my brothers at home and at the nickel arcades. Time passed and with that came more fighting games, including Tekken and Mortal Kombat.  I played those games too. But as I grew older, and now as a young adult, Street Fighter continues to be my favorite fighting franchise. And my two favorite characters are Ryu and Chun-Li.

Ryu is the classic lone world warrior. He travels the world and fights to become stronger than he already is. He’s a skilled fighter, a near master at his craft. But this doesn’t satisfy him. That fascinates me because Ryu doesn’t want to be better than others as much as he wants to be better than himself.  And beyond his desire to improve, he is humble. He doesn’t walk with his chest all buffed out. He doesn’t walk around brash and bragging. He just walks. After a fight, he walks to find the next one. Ryu’s life is an unending journey of self-fulfillment tempered with modesty, and that is why I always admire Ryu as a character.

The only character that just edges above him as my favorite Street Fighter character is Chun-Li. On the surface, she brings much to the table: her signature legs, her lighting quickness, and her superb fighting skill! (Seriously, who doesn’t find a woman kicking ass sexy?) But what appeals to me even more is what lies beneath her physical attributes. She’s intelligent, sweet, caring, compassionate, and feminine. She has a strong sense of honor, justice, and devotion to her family. Taking all these things together, she definitely lives up to her title as “The Strongest Woman in The World” A title only reinforced by the fact she was the first female character to emerge in a fighting game, a violent world full of maleness where she proved she could not only hold her own, but come out on top against world renowned fighters.

Using either Ryu or Chun-Li, I can pick up a controller and play Street Fighter as well and sometimes better than the next guy, as many of us can, but the competitive scene hasn’t really interested me. I was never fascinated with “who was the best of the best” as much as I was intrigued by Street Fighter’s wide range of colorful characters and their stories.

I play and watch Street Fighter to follow and enjoy the game’s ever progressing story. Every Street Fighter artwork I see, every Street Fighter comic I read, every Street Fighter cinematic I watch,  I wonder: “Has Ryu found out what it takes to become a true warrior?” “Does Chun-Li finally get to destroy Shadaloo and avenge her father’s death?” These characters are on a journey with many twists, turns, and obstacles in the way of their final destination, and I enjoy every moment of it. But now, sadly, the moments of this journey have become few and far between. I know all there is to know now about the Street Fighter story to the end of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, the current end of the Street Fighter story (As most of us know, Street Fighter IV is actually a prequel). And I’ve read every comic UDON Entertainment has to offer. I had no choice. I had to hit the internet to find more!

I have gone on to YouTube and fanfiction.net to find any kind of creative content that would satisfy my need for more Street Fighter story. There is one author that I remember distinctly.  His handle is benlie-gwevin-fan1. The reason I remember this story is because it not only featured, Ryu and Chun-Li, my two favorite characters, but it had those two characters… together… as a couple… fighting for a shared common goal. And there wasn’t just one story. There was an Akuma saga, a Shadaloo saga, and a SFII saga. I was hooked! And with every page I read, the idea of Ryu and Chun-Li together instead of apart was burned into my mind. But as much as I loved these stories, a comic book fan like me can only live on pure text for so long. My cravings for something visual began to rise.

I eventually got so desperate that I tried to find any kind of fan made Street Fighter comics online, particularly starring Chun-Li since she is my favorite. One image search led to another and then finally I came across a Ryu/Chun-Li image that I had never seen before. It was a picture of Chun-Li and Ryu standing in a spring with their swimsuits on, with the big bold yellow word PERFECT sharing space with them. I thought to myself, “Oh, this is new, I wonder if there is… yep, there’s more… more… and more!”  and that’s when I was found the Ryu x Chun-Li Project. And there was not just art, but a blog!

I checked the blog every day, rereading past entries, seeing new artwork I hadn’t seen before. It was amazing. And it was all part of a much bolder, grander plan: a fan-produced graphic novel: Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle. A SF Fan named Sean Anderson had worked for over two years to create something that my heart has been yearning for a long time: a new Street Fighter comic with Ryu and Chun-Li as the centerpiece! I had found my heaven. I now have a new Street Fighter story to anticipate. It is like counting down to the release of the next Street Fighter game. My excitement was overwhelming. And a big part of that was Sean. He is a Ryu/Chun-Li fan like no other before him. Most fans just watch and hope other people will make things happen for them. But Sean, I could see from his blog, was a true man of action, and he was going to take Ryu/Chun-Li beyond the realm of text only fanfiction and the confines of a few pieces of fan art. He was going to take Ryu/Chun-li to the place I’d always hoped they would go: to the next level.

Like most people watching Sean’s project, I started by “liking” his Facebook page, read more entries on his blog, saw his calls for help, and then decided to…wait.  So I waited. And waited. And…waited. But as I waited, something was eating at me. Here was Sean working so hard on something I knew when he was finished was going to make me happy, and he was more than willing to let people help, and yet, as a Ryu/Chun-Li fan myself, I was just waiting and watching him work. It was like watching a fellow human being trying to climb up out of a deep well and me not reaching my hand down to help him out.

Finally, I could stand it no longer. And I am pleased to say I have not just donated to the Ryu X Chun-Li Project, but I have written and commissioned an awesome multi-page mini-comic for it! I have always wanted to write my own Street Fighter comic, and now I have. And now with the help of an amazing artist, Sergio Briseno, it is coming to life.

A soon to be colored panel from my upcoming mini-comic

Now perhaps your thinking, Michael, you could have produced your own Street Fighter mini-comic any time. Yeah, that’s true. But I would have had to do it alone. What your not thinking about is the bigger picture. Sean’s project isn’t just a book anymore. At nearly 250 pages and growing, It has become a community, a place where people wanting an official Ryu/Chun-Li story have placed their hopes. Sean is not just giving us a book. He is also going to take a shot at convincing CAPCOM to produce something Ryu/Chun-Li as well. And with all of us behind him, it may just work. But I know, as many do, CAPCOM, like any company, responds to money, and by putting my money into a comic for Sean’s project along with him and everyone else involved in the Ryu/Chun-Li Project, I am showing CAPCOM that if they did produce something official for Ryu/Chun-Li, I would seriously put money down for it too. “Hope, sacrifice, pain: they all collide in a dangerous fight for love.” That’s what my upcoming mini-comic is about. And very much what the Ryu X Chun-Li Project as a whole, in its attempt to make Ryu/Chun-Li something CAPCOM gives some serious thought, is about too.

I still check the internet for any news of new upcoming Street Fighter games or creative work. I’m still waiting for the next UDON Street Fighter comic to show up. But, above all, I’m waiting for the graphic novel “Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle” to be released. Valentine’s Day 2015 may seem so far away, but that is fine, because I now know that a Ryu/Chun-Li story will finally be told in a visual medium, a message will be sent to CAPCOM in the form of one amazing graphic novel, which like a great cathedral, is the work of many hands.  And the best part is… I, and my story, will be a part of it.

What about you?

 

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Hey RXCLP fans, we hope you’ve been enjoying the reviews we’ve been posting, and we hope they are building your confidence regarding our work so that you’ll help us out.

This blog entry will be home to any frequently asked questions we receive between now and the book’s launch. We will update this entry and repost the link to it on our Facebook page from time to time. Enjoy!

A physical release?

Some people who have been watching the project have asked us if we plan to produce a printed version of our book. Yes we do, but only around four copies: one for CAPCOM USA, CAPCOM JAPAN, UDON Entertainment, and the producers of Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist. How we are going to produce these copies at a reasonable cost? We’re still figuring that out, but we will find a way. For the public, it’s best to keep the work digital as this makes it much easier for our book to be shared all over the planet than a bunch of heavy printed books sitting collecting dust on people’s shelves would.

Don’t you want to make any money?

If this project somehow leads to me being paid for my efforts, fine. But that’s not why I started this project. I started this project because I wanted this book to exist. My life felt incomplete without it. What I currently hope for is a positive reaction to this book which down the road results in CAPCOM green-lighting a two hour Street Fighter animated movie based on the Ryu/Chun-Li concept that is as much canon as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is. And/Or, I hope that the Ryu/Chun-Li concept becomes the final season of the Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist series. A fan boy can dream, can’t he? Also, I now have two years experience producing a comic I can put on my resume. Not too shabby. I wonder where that will take me.

When our book launches, it will include the above page with links (another advantage of a digital release). If the world’s response is positive and the positive comments are plentiful, I will gather them up and try to get CAPCOM to take an interest in Ryu/Chun-Li. If not, the book still exists, and I can read it anytime I want, and so can the world. That’s still a lot of win.

Why do artists who donate artwork need to keep the artwork confidential until the book launches?

Well, besides the obvious benefit of keeping the book fresh for the public upon release, the plan is that all the artists will be free to post their work on February 14th, 2015, Valentine’s Day! That means a flood of Ryu/Chun-Li art being released in different places on the internet all at once (or around the same time at least) in the month of love for people to react to. This is an excellent way to promote the book and to get the idea of Ryu/Chun-Li into the public consciousness. “Gosh there is a lot of Ryu/Chun-Li art all of a sudden!” ;-) I am extremely grateful for the patience of our donating artists. They bring the awesome that allows this plan to work.

Why donate to this book?

If you buy a book, you get a book, end of story. You can do nothing to make it better. However, if you donate to our book, you still get the book, AND your donation (money, a piece of art or a mini-comic you made yourself, or a piece of art or a mini-comic you commissioned exclusively for our book) creates a better reading experience for you and everyone else who reads the book. Plus, there is a part of you in the book as well which will help convince CAPCOM there is money in them thar Ryu/Chun-Li hills!

 Will there be a sequel to our book?

If the fans love and support this book we’ve created, and CAPCOM decides to pass on Ryu/Chun-Li, we’ll head to Kickstarter for a sequel and let the fans decide if they want more.

How many artists have actually donated artwork and/or mini-comics to this project?

Oh, that’s easy! Just go here.

That’s all for now!  Do you have any questions for us? Ask them below in the comments, on our Facebook page, or send an e-mail to ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

More next time!

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

Our Fourth Review!

Remember that article about the brain and grammar study we posted on our Facebook page a little while ago? If not, you can check it out here.  But for those of you who do not wish to delve into the cool science…

“Even when you don’t pick up on a syntactic error your brain is still picking up on it. There is a brain mechanism recognizing it and reacting to it, processing it unconsciously so you understand it properly.” –Laura Batterink. Journal of Neuroscience. 8 May 2013.

Enter Jason Wan. Jason has been a dear friend of mine here in Japan since 2000. We are united by many things, two of which are our love of comics and our love of Street Fighter. He is arguably the best Street Fighter player amongst all my friends.  He is also particularly awesome at Street Fighter EX where his Blanka/Chun-Li team is nigh unbeatable.

But besides his Street Fighter skill, Jason has an extremely keen eye for written errors. Why he hasn’t made his fortune in editing, I’ll never know.

I’ve read our project graphic novel, Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle several times now. Each time I look for errors. And recently I thought the book was clean. But it turned out, like Batterink said, my brain was just correcting some errors for me and not letting me see them.

Can you see the grammar error in this panel, or did “they” “plan” it this way?

Unlike Chun-Li’s subtle pronoun/noun agreement error above, there were errors in the project book that were so ugly that, if Jason hadn’t found them, I would have felt like an absolute idiot. Not to mention I would have had to hear about the errors forever from the readers to come.

So, just before I hand the blog over to him for his review of the book, I want to give a HUGE thanks to my good friend Jason Wan for helping this book be the best reading experience it can possibly be, not just for me, but for the world. Thanks, Jason. Whew, that was a close one.

And now, Jason’s Review:

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. When it comes to Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle, truer words were never spoken. This labor of love comes from not only the mind of Sean Anderson but also his heart and soul. Instead of waiting around for the story he wanted told about two iconic Street Fighter characters, he took it upon himself to create a work that should please fans of a Ryu and Chun-Li pairing as well as hardcore fans that have followed the Street Fighter franchise since its first video game more than 25 years ago.

Set in the slightly distant future of the Street Fighter universe, The Heart of Battle is a “what if” examination of the lives of several Street Fighter characters, most notably Ryu and Chun-Li. Although the story starts off in Hong Kong, it does not stay there as the action shifts from China to Japan. Along the way, there are glimpses of other places around the world and into the lives of the other Street Fighter characters.

However, make no mistake that this graphic novel revolves around the relationship between Ryu and Chun-Li. It is clear from the opening pages that the writers have done their homework on these two characters. When the story starts, Ryu is the consummate wandering warrior, drifting from tournament to tournament in his never-ending quest. Chun-Li, on the other hand, has retired from her quest for vengeance following the demise of her father’s murderer, M. Bison. Even though she has retired from her life as a street fighter, this does not mean action does not come looking for her – fans will be glad to know that the novel stays true to its “fighting” roots.

There is something in this graphic novel for all Street Fighter fans. Characters from Street Fighter to Street Fighter III and IV make an appearance; it is quite clear that the writers have devoted a lot of their time becoming familiar with the entirety of the Street Fighter universe. This devotion shows in how the characters are written – all of the characters act and behave as you would expect them to. Someone who is not as dedicated to the Street Fighter franchise would not be able to portray each character’s personality so accurately.

From beginning to end, it is easy to see the love and reverence with which the Street Fighter characters are treated. Interspersed throughout the graphic novel are short comic interludes – brief episodes that provide some humor and back story to the events unfolding in the main storyline. For a franchise that is not necessarily known for its humor or romance, Street Fighter: The Heart of Battle delivers both in spades.

If you want to be a part of this amazing graphic novel before it launches on February 14th, 2015, here’s how:

 

More next time!

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

Ken Masters

 

Ken Masters should divorce his wife Eliza, leave her and their son Mel, leave the Master’s family billions, and dedicate himself to wandering the world and becoming a better fighter.

So… how did that statement hit you?

It’s just something we’ve been thinking about lately. There are people in fan forums who shun the idea of Ryu hooking up with a woman and want Ryu to continue wandering alone, continue to better himself as a fighter, without any thoughts of marriage and a family.  But it’s interesting fans don’t put the same pressure on Ken. Isn’t Ken supposed to be the one to take down Ryu if Ryu ever surrenders to the Satsui No Hadou? And yet, Ken has a wife and family while Ryu is out there getting better and better with each fight. If anyone should be training their ass off, it should be Ken, right? Why have we not seen the above statement or something like it more often in fan forums? Doesn’t Ken have a bigger responsibility to be the better fighter of the two?

You are the big brother now!

 

Ken sure is lucky CAPCOM decided to have Gouken return from the dead and seal the Satsui No Hadou from Ryu in Street Fighter IV.

He is luckier still that CAPCOM makes no mention of Satsui No Hadou or Evil Ryu in Street Fighter III.

Now Ken can enjoy his family without having to worry about having to fight his best friend to the death.

And maybe now Ryu can have a wife too…

More next time!

 

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com

 

 

Tired of Limbo…

I’ve written at length about my reasons for producing this book, but I realise there is one more: Batman. A few years ago, I purchased and read the graphic novels Batman: Hush and later Batman: Heart of Hush. I won’t spoil their stories here, but in both books, Batman and Catwoman come as close as they ever will  to becoming an official couple in the DC Universe.  Oh sure, somewhere out there there is this…

But I don’t know where it comes from, and I just know in my gut by the words in the panel it’s some kind of Scarecrow induced hallucination. This is not how a proper Batman/Catwoman wedding would go down. This is how most people have a wedding and Batman and Catwoman are not, nor will they ever be, most people.

But I digress. What really ticked me off was this page from Batman: Hush.

In the final scene Batman and Catwoman meet. He continues to mistrust her and cannot be sure that she is not more aware of the plot than she admits. While trying to console him, Catwoman inadvertently tells him to “hush” seconds before trying to kiss him, provoking a fierce reaction from Batman that compels her to end the relationship. Before leaving, she says that she does not care if their relationship started out as a “spell”. It works because of who they are, and someday he will learn to trust that. Batman thinks that it may “someday” be possible.

No it’s not, and it never will be.

After I read this final exchange in Batman:Hush, a wave of tiredness washed over me. I looked back on all the Batman books I’ve read over two decades and realised that no matter how much I hoped, Batman and Catwoman would never be together. I wasn’t really able to articulate why until Tony Blackmore wrote:

In all genres of fandom, there is a constant tension between desires of the fans and the interests of the producers. The fans yearn for what they see as the natural ending of the story. The producers, on the other hand, never want it to end as that would kill off the goose that lays the golden egg. The tension must always be maintained—and when you run out of stream, just reboot, but never complete.

And the people at Extra Credits said:

But secretly, often in a way not countenanced by our society, we’d rather not let these fictional characters go, we’d rather not put away the joys of our youth. Secretly, or hopefully not so secretly, we still hold a fondness for these characters we loved when life was simpler, smaller. And so we wish they could come with us, grow with us, be something relevant to us even as we change.

And I finally discovered the truth about shipping:

As our generation that continues to love its fictional characters from its childhood ages and matures, the shippers among us want to update these characters, make them more relevant to who we are now, and examine love, sex, and marriage through them. Shippers want to keep imagining in their favourite characters’ universes, but not as they did when they were younger. Shippers want to imagine in these universes as the young or full adults the shippers have become. We start to deal with love, sex, and marriage and we want our favourite characters to deal with these things too.

But wait, Peter Parker was married to Mary Jane from 1987-2007, and Spidey had some great stories during that time… Nuts. They undid that too.

Sorry, digressing again.

What it comes down to is Batman: Hush made me realise that I was getting older while the lives of my favourite comic book characters, for all their years of stories, were standing still. And that they are always going to stand still, that’s part of why we love them and what keeps them marketable (in some companies’ minds at least). But I was so invested in the Batman:Hush story and Batman and Catwoman’s interaction in that story, that my hope for the two characters getting together officially finally broke under the strain.

So, this begs the question why I didn’t do a Batman/Catwoman graphic novel project.  Well, because there are stories out there where they do get together, and they are done well enough. I don’t think I could do any better. Besides, there are a ton of Batman fan projects out there.

But for Ryu and Chun-Li, I decided to produce the story myself,  because the “get together” story has never been done right for them for the English speaking world, and I want to witness the world’s reaction to it! And… because my life isn’t standing still. The clock is ticking for me…for all of us. So, if there is something I want, I’d better go get it, or make it myself.

And speaking of clocks…as I write this, there are only 103 days until Valentine’s Day 2015 and the launch of our book. If you want to have your name and/or art inside it and be part of it, you had better get to it. Every name gives us a better chance of CAPCOM taking us seriously. Here’s how:

More next time!

ryuxchunliproject@gmail.com