The real life of... Ryu
Our sensational monthly look at a PlayStation icon

WE ALL KNOW and love Ryu. Some of us even used to spend time creating fan art then sending it into magazines when we were younger. We pretended like we hadn’t traced them, when in actuality we had, and they weren’t even that good. We still sent them off, even though we knew that fan art was, and is, for the most part, utter crap that would only have been laughed at and pinned up on some wall of shame with the words ‘bell end’ written on it. Some people are cruel.

Anyway, Ryu mostly just wanders. Kind of like that shambling tramp in your home town, only with the capacity to kill at will with his bear hands. What really separates ‘Billy the tramp’ from Ryu is the warrior code though. Billy will most likely shank you in the kidneys and loot your writhing corpse for loose change, or as he likes to call it, methadone tokens, while Ryu only ever kills when he goes into evil mode. We kind of wish we had an evil mode sometimes. Sigh.

Ryu’s life, as with many fighters, revolves around the spirit of battle. There’s something honourable about the way Ryu beats the crap out of people, then wanders on looking for a worthy rival. He’s been beaten up surprisingly often, but always seems to bounce back with a new sense of purpose, kind of like Alan Partridge. He’s been trounced by Sagat, Ken and Akuma, but has made friends with all of them at one point or another. Ryu’s love of fi ghting began at an early age, as he was orphaned and adopted by his master, Gouken, brother, sparring partner and eventually a victim of Akuma’s murderous Satsui No Hadou (which means, ‘surge of murderous intent’) fighting style.

Being a mere 5’ 10” we reckon his love of hitting things stems from a sizeable chip on his shoulder. We know a guy like that at work, and it’s obvious to everybody that he just needs the love of a good woman. To the best of our knowledge, he’s never had a girlfriend. This may explain his taciturn nature, or it may be that he’s just a very quiet homosexual. Either way, the fact is that Ryu’s a fi ghter, not a lover, and one of the most iconic on any system. He’s been called cheap by so many people over the years, but he’s just not. He may have a particularly defensive style, but then that’s all part of the art of fighting, isn’t it? He’s featured in every single Street Fighter title, including a number of Capcom Vs efforts, and as such has to be one of the most played characters in videogame history. He’s also appeared in more fan art than Pickachu, which makes us feel a little less pathetic about our dreadful submissions to the videogame mags of yesteryear.

“Sometimes the most important battle is the battle within” – Ryu