Origins Before the creation of Ryu as the main protagonist of the first
Street Fighter game,
Capcom designer
Takashi Nishiyama had initially envisioned a different character for the role. The original concept was for a Caucasian man donning a leather jacket, who even makes an appearance during the opening sequence of the game. However, this idea was eventually set aside in favor of creating a character who practiced karate and wore a traditional dougi, leading to the creation of Ryu. Still wanting to utilize the concept, after subsequently transitioning to
SNK, Nishiyama later implemented the character as
Terry Bogard, who debuted as the protagonist of 1991's
Fatal Fury: King of Fighters. Nishiyama's inspiration for Ryu was
Mas Oyama, who was depicted as the protagonist in the
kung fu manga and anime series
Karate Master by
Ikki Kajiwara. Nishiyama grew up watching the animated series, which was influenced by Oyama's life. Nishiyama was impressed by Oyama's martial arts skills and philosophies, and this inspired him to create the first
Street Fighter game. Nishiyama wanted the game to have a story similar to a film, anime, or novel. Whereas Ryu was based on Oyama, his rival
Sagat was also influenced by the protagonist's rivalry with a bald Muay Thai martial artist from the series. Ryu's name was based on Nishiyama's name because the ''
on'yomi (Sino-Japanese pronunciation) of the character "Takashi" is "Ryū" (Mandarin: Lóng'', 隆). Ryu's
Shoryuken was noted to be highly difficult to execute, something which the team wanted to fix. Although Ryu and Ken had the same moves, Yoshiki Okamoto said Ryu was the weaker of the two. This was because Capcom wanted to add a weak point to their Shoryukens. They later decided not to do so, but a mistake resulted in Ryu becoming the weaker character. Ryu and Ken were mainly handled by Shoei, who had clear memories of designing the Hadoken and Shoryuken. Shoei Okano recalled they were originally going to be Y.S.-san's characters in the early stages of development. He noted Ryu and Ken are the "so-called standard characters in the
SFII world, and since they were coming from
SFI, we could have the other characters be weirdos." As a result, the duo was redesigned to have a stoic feel. The first decision when making the prequel
Street Fighter Alpha was keeping Ken, Ryu and Chun-Li. Capcom did not want to end up with just Japanese and Asian characters. As much as they could, they wanted to think in terms of creating a good balance, with all sorts of different skin colors. The secret of
Street Fighter Alpha is the Ryu and Ken vs. Bison team-up mode, where if word did not get out, we figured we would just stay silent. However, the staff spoiled it. While they found such an idea fun, it eventually became a troublesome mode. This eventually inspired more team-up fights involving characters who wear opposing colors like Ryu and Ken. While
Street Fighter keeps giving Ryu's quest for self-improvement,
Alpha 2 introduced the concept of a darker alter-ego influenced by Akuma, Evil Ryu.
Designs Ryu wears a white
gi, as a symbol of his Japanese heritage, with the Japanese symbols for the
Fūrinkazan (風林火山 (Hepburn: "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain")) on his belt as well as a stylised version on his gloves. While many
Street Fighter characters have been redesigned, Ryu's design has stayed largely the same. In
Street Fighter II, the character was included because of presence in the first game, symbolizing the concept of a Japanese martial artist. As the series progressed, his design was made more muscular to coincide with the concept, while his white gi, considered his most defining characteristic by the development team, let viewers know he was "a karate master at first sight". For the
Street Fighter Alpha games, Ryu was redesigned as a younger character. Artist Naoto "Bengus" Kuroshima noted that the expectations that come with drawing him or
Chun-Li were greater compared to newcomers like
Sakura Kasugano. When picking the cast of
Street Fighter V, producer Yoshinori Ono said he wanted Ryu and the cast to differ from their previous characters although Ryu retained his original look in contrast to Ken. In the three
Street Fighter III games, the designers described the older Ryu as a more hardcore fighter. Despite being Japanese, Capcom described him as an American martial artist which led to the creation of Makoto whose design was based on an Eastern point of view. The staff still considered Ryu as a simple protagonist but they did not mind as they wanted him to contrast other flashy characters like the dynamic employed in
Saint Seiyas cast. The original white bandana became red in
Street Fighter II due to an oversight. Despite the bandana aiming to cover long hair, Akiman claimed that Capcom decided to keep his hair shorter to make him cooler. In
Street Fighter X Tekken he was given a swap costume of him looking like a devil reflecting powers he has to control while an unused design gave him a futuristic style. In previews of
Street Fighter V, Ryu was noted to have a more realistic look to the point of being compared to the
Tekken characters. Capcom said this approach to
Street Fighter Vs artistic design, focused on two main points: making the art "easy to follow and understand" and creating a "personality with artistic accents". Ryu had multiple costumes in
V including his
Alpha, one with a notable sex appeal. In 2020, Ryu received a Kairi costume. For the
Championship Edition of the game, new moves were added to make Ryu a more defensive fighter. To update Ryu's image while staying true to his character, Capcom created his alternative alter ego Evil Ryu. However, it was not until
Street Fighter IV that the staff decided to give him a more unique design though the designer was worried if he exaggerated too much with his look. In retrospect, Capcom felt that Evil Ryu was a success among players. While Bison was introduced as the series' main nemesis, the inclusion of Akuma added more conflict to Ryu's story, allowing him to develop Evil Ryu. For
Street Fighter IV,
Kyle Hebert was chosen to play the role of Ryu in anticipation of the revival of his "Evil Ryu" alter ego. The director of localization, Taliesin Jaffe, informed Hebert that he gave him the role because of Evil Ryu. In further elaborating on this idea, Jaffe mentioned that Ryu was originally meant to be a character similar to Lancelot, and he was expecting the character to undergo corruption right from the start. During Kyle's initial audition, he was requested to read a few lines in a darker tone. The team aimed to prevent Ryu from being portrayed as a typical Japanese hero and create a differentiation between his and Ken's personalities. As
downloadable content, Capcom created another alter ego of Ryu in
Street Fighter V named Kage who represents the
Satsui no Hado Ryu rejected. In the early stages of development, Kage had a noticeably different design. His entire body showed no skin as it was covered in purple. Designing the character did not take too much time according to Takayuki Nakayama. His "design was nailed down pretty quick, so there aren't many prototype images that can be shown." He was loosely based on Ryu's dark persona from
Street Fighter Alpha game's Evil Ryu. According to developers, Ryu rejecting Kage ends the chapter of the Satsui no Hado as Ryu became able to control such inner darkness. In
Street Fighter 6, Ryu is bearded and wears a
kasaya, a Buddhist robe, which is similar to his master, Gouken, as well as inspired by his alternate design from
Street Fighter V that helped to expand his sex appeal. While game is set after the events of
3rd Strike which ends with Ryu becoming wiser, director Takayuki Nakayama said "not there yet" - though he seems to have gained some dignity. He is also no longer barefoot and wears sandals instead.
Gameplay Capcom regularly calls Ryu's fighting style "
Ansatsuken Karate", despite also mentioning others such as
Kyokushin,
Shotokan,
Kempo,
Taekwondo and
Judo. Ryu has three special techniques. The first is the energy attack was based on the wave motion gun from the titular spacecraft in the sci-fi
anime series
Space Battleship Yamato, which Nishiyama watched during the seventies. His other two techniques from the first
Street Fighter game, and were inspired by actual martial arts moves, which were exaggerated for the character. Because Ryu was the only playable character in the original
Street Fighter game, his designer Manabu Takemura wanted him to be easy for players to relate to. These three moves were reused in
Street Fighter IV by Ryu's master Gouken but stronger based on Kamei's desire to make the master more skilled in comparison. In general, Ryu became a challenging character to master as he relies on projectiles and leg sweeps. Ryu develops stronger versions of the Hadoken due to a desire of Akira Nishitani and Akira Yasuda in regards to the size of the move in
Street Fighter II. Shoei Okano animated the new Hadoken. While Ryu and Ken have the same moves in every game, Ken was given flashier combos. The first enhanced Hadoken is the in
Super Street Fighter II Turbo which
Street Fighter Alpha 2 describes as Gouken's creation but Ryu learned it on his own after defeating Sagat. In
Undisputed Street Fighter: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective, it was noted that while Ken nearly the same as Ryu, his redesign in
Street Fighter V helped to improve his popularity thanks to its more original take. This also was helped by the fact that Ken's special moves have flames in contrast to Ryu's electric moves like the originally introduced in
Street Fighter III. The color of the electricity generated from inside the body is yellow, while artificial or electricity generated from the outside is blue. Ryu and Gouken utilize both Hadou and electric current when using Denjin Hadoken. The Denjin Hadoken is said to be learned once Ryu becomes able to master the "Satsui no Hado." Meanwhile, Kage uses the which is far more enhanced than previous Hadokens. Director
Hideaki Itsuno remembers he was not allowed to work on Ryu because of his inexperience in making games. As a result, Itsuno worked on creating new characters for the series which could rival Ryu and Ken. While Ryu has retained his original white gi outfit in most games, Capcom tried using an alternate high school uniform for
Street Fighter V where he was presented as a rebel. The concept for Ryu was "leader"—leader of a student group or a bunch of delinquents. Super deformed versions of this image were used by the company as April Fool's jokes. While originally conceived as a character for fighting game newcomers, Ryu has been balanced across the series with
3rd Strike focusing on his defense. This balancing affected the character negatively to the point multiple expert players said that in
Street Fighter V he was unsuitable for competitive fights. In 2019, Capcom patched the character, which garnered a positive response from fans. In the manga based on
Street Fighter Alpha, Ryu also develops a stronger version of the Shoryuken against M. Bison he calls . The same technique was incorporated into the games as
Yuichiro Hiraki enjoyed and for
V he wanted the execution to be simplified. The
Street Fighter 6 persona of Ryu was noted to be more complex by
Red Bull for his new as well as the electric which opens strategies for new combos and can be followed up with a Tatsumaki for a major combat.
Spin-offs and other media Comic book writer
Len Strazewski wanted to tell a more dramatic storyline for Ryu based in a comic book narrative. Like storylines involving chaos, Strazewski wrote a comic in which Ryu was the center of attention as he sought revenge. As a result, to find a motivation for Ryu's character, he planned to kill his best friend Ken Masters. However, since the comic book was cancelled after its third issue, this plot was never fully explored. Mangaka Masahiko Nakahira, the creator of Evil Ryu, wrote his own take on Ryu during his career, aiming for a more serious take on Ryu's personality in his works. Ken Masters' actor,
Damian Chapa, said the name is pronounced "Rye-you" as opposed to "Ree-you". Despite issues with this, DeSouza decided to use "Rye-you" believing it would be easier to pronounce for Western audiences. Ryu's inclusion in
Street Fighter EX was deemed natural by the studio,
Arika, with producer Ichiro Mihara describing him as one of the three essential
Street Fighter characters along with
Chun-Li and Ken. Ansah talked about Ryu and Ken's story in ''Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist'' and said "a good analogy with Ryu is that he's not actually ever competing with anyone else; he's competing with himself. Whereas Ken is driven fiercely by competition." For the game,
Tekken X Street Fighter, producer
Katsuhiro Harada commented that while Ryu might be able to perform his classic moves like the
Hadouken reassuring his fans, most of his normal moves would be changed to play more like a
Tekken character and fit the cast. Game designer
Masahiro Sakurai said that for
Super Smash Bros., Ryu was recreated to showcase his
Street Fighter II persona while having new moves because the controller had more buttons. Nevertheless, he was given a technique from
Street Fighter III and new techniques exclusive to
Smash. The Shoryuken was implemented as his strongest technique. == Appearances ==