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yrevalIn March 1993, Data East released the fighting game Fighter's History. It's best known as the game which got Data East sued by Capcom over its similarities to Street Fighter II. The game's design documents referenced SF2 frequently, but the court decided that the similarities weren't enough to warrant the damages that Capcom were seeking. In 2024, a VHS tape was unearthed, which had been sent by Data East to a number of games media outlets, summarising the case for their defence.
One character who's not mentioned - although I'm somewhat surprised that Capcom didn't try to claim that she ripped off Ryu in some form or another - is Ryoko Kano, a teenage girl who practices judo.
Her goals are to surpass her grandfather, Gengoro (this - as well as her surname - are not-particularly-subtle nods to Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo), find her long-lost father, and eventually win the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 (these are not-particularly-subtle nods to the manga series Yawara, breakout series of Monster and 20th Century Boys creator Naoki Urasawa, in which the title character is a girl whose father goes missing at an early age, and who is raised by her grandfather, who is determined that she will become an Olympic champion in judo).
The bad news is that the original Fighter's History isn't a particularly good or interesting game. The good news is that a much-improved sequel - known as Fighter's History Dynamite in Japan and Karnov's Revenge in the rest of the world - would be released the following year, where one similarity to Street Fighter - the six-button control scheme - made way for a four-button setup necessitated by the switch to Neo-Geo hardware. The other bad news is that Ryoko is super-glued to the bottom of the Karnov's Revenge tier list - she has a highly-damaging command grab, but good luck ever getting close enough to use it, as the range is microscopic.
In April 1993, ADK released the fighting game World Heroes 2. The original World Heroes had been released the previous summer, offering players a mostly "we have SF2 at home" experience, but with the likes of Ryu and Chun-Li replaced with legally-distinct versions of celebrities and historical figures such as Hulk Hogan, Bruce Lee, and Joan of Arc. Although it did add a deathmatch mode with environmental hazards, it's summed up by this quote from a 2014 Shoryuken.com article on World Heroes Perfect:
"The original World Heroes was a rather bad and blatant SF clone, yes. I always felt like that game should’ve been Capcom’s legal target instead of Fighter’s History!" - Funkdoc
Among the characters introduced in WH2 is Ryoko Izumo, a teenage girl who practices judo, whose father has gone missing, and who trained under her grandfather.
Hmm, where have I heard that one before...
World Heroes 2 wasn't much better than the original, although by the time World Heroes Perfect came along in 1995, the gameplay had been radically overhauled, with quite a few mechanics that were ahead of their time. According to the SRK article, there was quite a bit of competitive interest in WHP in the mid-late '00s, enough for tier lists to be made up, and Ryoko comes out well in this regard, with the SuperCombo wiki putting her in upper-mid tier while Funkdoc in the SRK article rates her in the top four.
The Gals Island 3 special edition of Gamest magazine, published in March 1994, shortly before the releases of Karnov's Revenge and World Heroes 2 Jet, contained a list of the thirty most popular female characters in arcade games, according to Gamest readers. FH Ryoko was ranked 20th while WH Ryoko was rated as high as fifth. I can definitely see why - you can tell just from the character artwork that WH Ryoko has much more of a personality.
So, we know that both these characters borrow heavily from Yawara. But it can't be a coincidence that they're both called Ryoko, right? Particularly given World Heroes' penchant for basing characters on real people, you would think that there was a real-life judoka called Ryoko who had a first-ballot Hall of Fame career and was popular enough - at least in early '90s Japan - to have two different fighting game characters based on her, and you would be right - the judoka in question being Ryoko Tani (née Tamura), who was awarded the title of best female judoka ever by the International Judo Federation in 2011.
However, here's a twist that I found really interesting - at the time Fighter's History and World Heroes 2 were released, Tani's list of international honours was as follows:
In closing, I think it's pretty cool that - although their decision to put a female judoka in their games was clearly influenced by Yawara as well - these two companies looked to someone who was still just a hot prospect for inspiration, who went on to become one of the all-time greats in her sport. It almost as if they predicted the career she would go on to have (even if it really doesn't feel like it if you're playing the Karnov's Revenge version of her) - one that would outlive both companies, as both ADK and Data East went out of business in 2003, neither company having released a new game in years.
Until next time...
One character who's not mentioned - although I'm somewhat surprised that Capcom didn't try to claim that she ripped off Ryu in some form or another - is Ryoko Kano, a teenage girl who practices judo.
Her goals are to surpass her grandfather, Gengoro (this - as well as her surname - are not-particularly-subtle nods to Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo), find her long-lost father, and eventually win the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 (these are not-particularly-subtle nods to the manga series Yawara, breakout series of Monster and 20th Century Boys creator Naoki Urasawa, in which the title character is a girl whose father goes missing at an early age, and who is raised by her grandfather, who is determined that she will become an Olympic champion in judo).
The bad news is that the original Fighter's History isn't a particularly good or interesting game. The good news is that a much-improved sequel - known as Fighter's History Dynamite in Japan and Karnov's Revenge in the rest of the world - would be released the following year, where one similarity to Street Fighter - the six-button control scheme - made way for a four-button setup necessitated by the switch to Neo-Geo hardware. The other bad news is that Ryoko is super-glued to the bottom of the Karnov's Revenge tier list - she has a highly-damaging command grab, but good luck ever getting close enough to use it, as the range is microscopic.
In April 1993, ADK released the fighting game World Heroes 2. The original World Heroes had been released the previous summer, offering players a mostly "we have SF2 at home" experience, but with the likes of Ryu and Chun-Li replaced with legally-distinct versions of celebrities and historical figures such as Hulk Hogan, Bruce Lee, and Joan of Arc. Although it did add a deathmatch mode with environmental hazards, it's summed up by this quote from a 2014 Shoryuken.com article on World Heroes Perfect:
"The original World Heroes was a rather bad and blatant SF clone, yes. I always felt like that game should’ve been Capcom’s legal target instead of Fighter’s History!" - Funkdoc
Among the characters introduced in WH2 is Ryoko Izumo, a teenage girl who practices judo, whose father has gone missing, and who trained under her grandfather.
Hmm, where have I heard that one before...
World Heroes 2 wasn't much better than the original, although by the time World Heroes Perfect came along in 1995, the gameplay had been radically overhauled, with quite a few mechanics that were ahead of their time. According to the SRK article, there was quite a bit of competitive interest in WHP in the mid-late '00s, enough for tier lists to be made up, and Ryoko comes out well in this regard, with the SuperCombo wiki putting her in upper-mid tier while Funkdoc in the SRK article rates her in the top four.
The Gals Island 3 special edition of Gamest magazine, published in March 1994, shortly before the releases of Karnov's Revenge and World Heroes 2 Jet, contained a list of the thirty most popular female characters in arcade games, according to Gamest readers. FH Ryoko was ranked 20th while WH Ryoko was rated as high as fifth. I can definitely see why - you can tell just from the character artwork that WH Ryoko has much more of a personality.
So, we know that both these characters borrow heavily from Yawara. But it can't be a coincidence that they're both called Ryoko, right? Particularly given World Heroes' penchant for basing characters on real people, you would think that there was a real-life judoka called Ryoko who had a first-ballot Hall of Fame career and was popular enough - at least in early '90s Japan - to have two different fighting game characters based on her, and you would be right - the judoka in question being Ryoko Tani (née Tamura), who was awarded the title of best female judoka ever by the International Judo Federation in 2011.
However, here's a twist that I found really interesting - at the time Fighter's History and World Heroes 2 were released, Tani's list of international honours was as follows:
- Bronze medal in the women's 48kg division at the 1991 World Championships
- Silver medal in the women's 48kg division at the 1992 Olympics
In closing, I think it's pretty cool that - although their decision to put a female judoka in their games was clearly influenced by Yawara as well - these two companies looked to someone who was still just a hot prospect for inspiration, who went on to become one of the all-time greats in her sport. It almost as if they predicted the career she would go on to have (even if it really doesn't feel like it if you're playing the Karnov's Revenge version of her) - one that would outlive both companies, as both ADK and Data East went out of business in 2003, neither company having released a new game in years.
Until next time...
