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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Heroine Worship


I want to take a moment to digress here in my blog, something which I seem to do quite often, it seems! But, back in the 1980's, when arcade games and personal home gaming systems started to become hugely popular, my brother had a particular game called Street Fighter II. It was a two-player game and he roped me into playing doubles with him. For some reason, one of the characters immediately made an impression upon me, and to this day, whenever I play Street Fighter II, I always assume the role of that character. By now, you probably know who I'm speaking of. Yes, it's Chun Li, the only female character to be in Street Fighter II. The name Chun-Li is Mandarin; chun for "spring", and li, meaning "beautiful", which means she is a single young girl filled with the beauty of spring. Her story is this:
In the Street Fighter series Chun-Li was an Interpol investigator who had been searching for clues to the recent death of her father. Getting into a friendly spar with an old teacher of hers and friend of her father, Gen, he gives her a lead into who may have killed her father — the mysterious crime syndicate Shadaloo. Finding its leader, M. Bison, she demands he tell her what happened to her father. To her surprise, Bison attacks and basically makes quick work of her, then flies away, laughing at her and telling her if she attacks him again he will kill her just like he did her father. With tears in her eyes, Chun-Li swore vengeance.
So, there you have her motivation of why she fights. The reason I use her to fight with is a lot less inspiring of a motive. Just look at her - she's a total babe! I became so enamored of her that I took pictures of her off the television screen and recorded her theme music from the video game. I even sequenced a version of it in Midi, back in the 1990's! Suffice it to say that Chun Li will probably continue to be a special interest of mine for years to come. While you're admiring the pictures of her, please download her theme and listen to it. Here is Chun Li's Theme, as composed in Midi by me.


March 22nd, 2017 - Edited to add:
And here's how she looked at the ending of the Street Fighter II game: