# Street Fighter Street Fighter is Capcom's long-running Japanese fighting game series that started in arcades in 1987 and later grew into one of the defining franchises of the genre[1]. The series has spawned dozens of sequels, movies, comics and fan projects, and each new entry tends to kick off fresh waves of character memes, from Akuma reveals to the wider-looking Ryu redesign that spread after Street Fighter 6 was announced[3]. ## Origin The original Street Fighter was designed by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto and released by Capcom as an arcade title in 1987, with the player controlling Japanese martial artist Ryu through a ten-opponent world tournament[4]. It later got ported to home computers and to the TurboGrafx-CD under the name Fighting Street[4]. The March 1991 sequel Street Fighter II is credited as the first one-on-one fighting game to let players pick from a range of characters, which set the template the whole genre still uses[5]. Capcom kept iterating aggressively. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (April 1992) opened up the four boss characters, The New Challengers (September 10, 1993) added new fighters, and Street Fighter II Turbo (February 23, 1994) introduced Akuma as a hidden character[3]. Street Fighter Alpha followed in June 1995 with a Darkstalkers-style look, and the Street Fighter III sub-series ran from 1997's New Generation through 1999's 3rd Strike[3]. - **Platform:** Arcade (Capcom) / 4chan and Reddit (meme spread) - **Creator:** Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto (game designers); meme creators vary by format - **Date:** 1987 ## Overview Street Fighter is built around one-on-one martial arts matches, split into three 30-second rounds, where players drain an opponent's energy bar using normal attacks and special moves executed with directional and button combos[2]. Starting with Street Fighter II in 1991, players got to pick from a global roster with distinct styles, which was a big deal for the genre and gave the series its recognizable cast of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Zangief and later additions like Akuma[2]. The franchise is a steady meme engine as much as a game series. Hidden fighters like Akuma in Street Fighter II Turbo, crossovers with Marvel in X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and each new console entry tend to trigger fresh remixes on the /v/ board of 4chan and on Reddit's r/StreetFighter[3]. Fan projects have gone semi-official too, like Seow Zong Hui's Street Fighter X Mega Man, which Capcom ended up backing in 2012[1]. More recent Street Fighter memes lean on character redesigns and marketing choices. When Street Fighter 6 was announced in February 2022, jokes about Ryu suddenly looking wider and more grizzled, plus roasts of the game's plain new logo, spread on Twitter within days of the teaser[3]. ## How It Spread Beyond the arcades, the series built a big community footprint. The /v/ board on 4chan and r/StreetFighter on Reddit are the main hubs for character memes, tier-list jokes and match clips[1]. Capcom's own promo channels, including the @StreetFighter Twitter account (which had gained over 14,200 followers by April 2013) and the Street Fighter Facebook page (over 1.4 million likes by the same date), fed a steady stream of art and trailers to remix[1]. Fan projects pushed the meme side further. On May 28, 2010, YouTuber Seow Zong Hui uploaded early footage of Street Fighter X Mega Man, a fan game mashing Capcom's own Mega Man against Ryu[7]. Capcom went from ignoring it to officially backing it, and the finished game landed as a free download on Capcom Unity on December 17, 2012[1]. The Street Fighter II: Champion Edition browser port on Kongregate is still one of the easier ways to try the arcade era in-browser[8]. The Street Fighter 6 announcement on February 21, 2022 kicked off the most recent meme wave, with jokes about a wider, grizzled Ryu and the game's stripped-back logo circulating on Twitter and Reddit right after the teaser dropped[1]. Capcom leaned into the redesigns rather than walking them back, and the character-model gags kept going into the game's 2023 release cycle. ## How to Use Street Fighter memes typically pull from very specific in-game moments or promo art: the Ryu vs. Ken fireball motion (which Urban Dictionary joke entries have riffed on as a fart gag[6]), Akuma's hidden-character reveal, Zangief's grappling animations, or E. Honda's slap frames. Newer template posts pair the plain block-letter Street Fighter 6 logo with other franchises to mock its generic look, or compare Ryu's old sprite to his bulkier SF6 model side by side[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Street Fighter? It's Capcom's Japanese fighting game series that started in 1987, best known for Street Fighter II and characters like Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li[1]. ### Where did Street Fighter come from? The first game was designed by Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto and released by Capcom as an arcade title in 1987[4]. ### What does Street Fighter mean? In gaming terms it refers to Capcom's fighting franchise; online, Urban Dictionary also lists a joke definition riffing on Ryu and Ken's fireball motion[6]. ### How do you use Street Fighter? You pick a character, then win best-of-three 30-second rounds by depleting your opponent's energy bar with normals and special moves done via directional and button combos[1]. ### Is Street Fighter still popular? Yes, the series is still active. Street Fighter 6 was announced by Capcom on February 21, 2022 and immediately drove a new round of character and logo memes[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.destructoid.com/street-fighter-x-mega-man-fan-game-gets-backed-by-capcom-240151.phtml]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFkZ9x66pgE]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/street-fighter]() 4. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Street]() 5. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II]() 6. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Street%20Fighter]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_RRFomczB8]() 8. [https://www.kongregate.com/games/gametap/street-fighter-2-ce]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/street-fighter Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library