The History of BLANKA - A Street Fighter Character Documentary (1988 - 2021)

hello ladies and gentlemen big daddy tophat here and today on the channel we are going to be taking a deep dive look at the life and times of one of the most striking looking fighters in the entirety of the capcom universe every single fighter in street fighter 2 is memorable in appearance and stands out in their own ways but out of all of these colourful cast members perhaps none are quite as strange and unique as that of blanca the brazilian incredible hulk looking fellow who has the ability to emit electricity to use against his foes has captivated gamers with his absurdity for many years but the big question for the majority of gamers is what the bloody hell is he and why is he fighting in street fighter 2 a and many other games let's look back at blanca's entire fighting career and how he fits into the world of street fighter this ladies and gentlemen is the mad story of blanca yeah but first quick word from me i have opened the brand new channel called top hat wrestling man where we look at bizarre stories from wrestling history after you've seen today's content here why not check out my latest upload on kurt angle's weird brother eric angle but do not worry i'll remind you all about the wrestling again later in this content so for now back to blanca as most people would be aware blanca first popped up in 1991 within the legendary title known as street fighter 2 but what may not be immediately apparent is that that staff at capcom had already been developing the character for a few years prior to this as discussed before on this channel there was a point in time when final fight was test marketed as street fighter 89 and akira yasuda who would go on to work on street fighter 2 worked as a planner on this beat him up it was during the development of this game that yasuda would come out of his first early design for blanca who at that point was an african man named anabe who was raised by lyon moving on to the development of street fighter 2 yesuda would continue to work on this conceptual character until he eventually morphed it into a large man with thick hair and sideburns being given the name hammer blanca the decision to adapt this design further by giving him the strange green appearance and the fill-like characteristics was simply down to the fact that yusuda felt that the street fighter 2 roster needed more diversity to put it simply they were concerned that the roster would be a tad dull with only human-looking fighters fablanca who would emerge as street fighter 2 featured very prominent physical characteristics such as his vivid green color the initial idea behind why it looked this way was because he grew up in a jungle environment in brazil having a completely plant-based diet the chlorophyll in his food would affect his skin colour eventually becoming green permanently kind of like those people we used to hear about as children who apparently had turned yellow due to drinking too much sunny delight did that ever actually happen this incredibly ridiculous reason for blanca looking so strange was adapted and instead was attributed to him being on a plane as a small boy they got struck by lightning during an electrical storm in which would cause the aircraft to crash the young boy would wake up in a jungle but would emerge with strange new powers including the ability to emit electricity basically they gave him an origin story that was the same as many marvel superheroes he gained special abilities due to an accident and learned to fight due to growing up in the jungle in japan this tower would be told slightly differently as rather than the plane coming down in freak weather the crash was instead caused by shadolu so that they could kill a brazilian minister on board while green skin has always remained a trademark of the character additional palette swaps would allow gamers to play as blanker in a range of different colors too in terms of his fighting capabilities blanca is said to fight of a self-talk animalistic style however when street fighter 2 first showed up in the west capcom usa's division decided to refer to this style as caporera the afro-brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance acrobatics and music his most well-known signature attack is probably his ability to emit electricity when crouching blanca can throw off an electric current shocking anyone stupid enough to come into contact with him away from this trademark maneuver blanket fights mainly relying on his speed and unpredictability unfortunate foe who have to fight this man are often caught off guard by his appearance allowing blanca to surprise opponents even further with his dynamic arsenal of moves and sudden ferocious attacks these maneuvers include many of his infamous rolling attacks which can make him a tough cookie to crack when paired with his awesome evasiveness which is aided by his ability to jump very fast all in all this makes blanca a master of jumping over oncoming projectiles and countering attacks in unusual ways in street fighter 2 blanca is entered into the second world warrior tournament due to acquiring a taste for fighting which he would gain following the events of the plane crash and living in the wild for so long eventually blanca would find a local village where he would make connections leading to him fighting in the tournament in a lucky twist of fate though for the feral fighter his birth mother would recognize him on a televised broadcast of his matches by the anklets he wears in blanca's ending in street fighter 2 she addresses him by his birth name jimmy and reveals that she gave him the anklets before he was in a plane crash as a little boy bringing his street fighter 2 tower to a close as we know the success of street fighter 2 would lead to a live-action hollywood motion picture which is where blank would obviously show up next to understand his appearance fully here we have to go back to street fighter 2 the video game where in guile's ending he accuses m bison of killing his friend charlie in cambodia the same charlie aka nash who would go on to be a playable fighter in various street fighter games in the future this is important as in the movie the writers chose to make both charlie and blanca just one single character to put it simply near the beginning of the movie gail's close friend carlos blanca nicknamed charlie gets taken captive by bison being held prisoner by the evil dictator bison subjects blanket's genetic testing in his quest to create the perfect soldier this is what gives blankie strange appearance and unique abilities within the movie's own cannon this same version of blanca would obviously show up as a playable fighter within the street fighter movie games but around this time frame blank would also appear in the japanese street fighter animated movie where he makes a more brief appearance in this animation he is being held captive in a luxury hotel but is lowered from a cage to fight zangie for the guests evening of entertainment in the world of video games though blanco would not turn up quite as frequently as many of the other fighters from street fighter 2. his next appearance would not be until early in 1998 in the polygonal fighting game published by eureka known as street fighter ex2 according to the story of the x2 it is said that blanca was in disbelief that he missed out on the first ex tournament and was shocked that the world warriors chose to compete without him he entered the tournament caring little for winning or losing but simply wanting to go wild and have a good time during the tournament blanca becomes captivated by dao sim's ability to contort his body in strange ways during these events dao sim took pity on blanca seeing the mind of a harmonious creature trapped inside a body that others found frightening in fact when ex-3 was released in later years blanca would return and since the game is a tag team affair he would sort dow simm as his partner an offer that thou sim would graciously accept in terms of capcom develop street fighter games blanca would finally return to their fault in mid-98 with the release of street fighter alpha 3. as discussed on here many times before the alpha games serve as the story precursor to street fighter 2 occurring shortly after the events of the 1987 original street fighter game in alpha 3 the title gives us a glimpse of blanca's life prior to entering the second world warrior tournament in this game blanca eats a melon on a poacher's truck and unwittingly travelled to civilization for the first time through the events of this story he faces off against dan hibiki and later zangief who he unknowingly sabotages for chances of from destroying the criminal organization known as shadolu eventually he faces off against and defeats balrog before finally fighting in bison in blanca's alpha 3 story blanca works together with dan and sakura to destroy bison psycho drive although it is worth noting that characters endings throughout the game are contradictory to one another so who really knows what and what isn't supposed to be canon at this point it would once again be a while before blanca would appear in more fighting games but in the early 2000s would show up in capcom vs snk and capcom vs snk 2 with both games due to lies in blanca's alpha 3 sprite work marking blanca's first ever appearances in capcom crossover games as a playable fighter while blanco would miss out on being included in street fighter 3 completely who would be included in street fighter 4 the game that acts as the chronological sequel to street fighter 2 but a prequel to street fighter 3. the events of street fighter 2 closed if we can recall with blanca being found by his mother but sadly the pair did not truly live happily ever after due to people staring at blanket everywhere he went frustrated he heads to hong kong to visit his old friend who he made in alpha 3. dan upon meeting up with him dan who obviously was not in street fighter 2 was keen to learn all about what it was like for blanca competing in the second world warrior tournament this leads to him dan and another old friend sakura all entering the sin tournament with blancar choosing to do so to earn the world's respect so that people stop giving him funny looks all the time while doing fairly well in the tournament blanca loses in the final stages historian street fighter 4 wraps in sins headquarters where he runs into dan as the police is going up in flames thankfully for both of them the flames are put out by sakura who is now joined by ryu meaning they all survived that day it is soon revealed that during the sin tournament his mother went looking for him and again the game ends with them reunited with blanca resolving not to be concerned by staring faces as all that really matters is his relationship with his mother returning home with this new positive outlook blanca discovers local visitors have arrived at his home to meet him and as a result makes many new friends in his hometown digging around on the information super highway i managed to find an old interview from 2008 where street fighter 4 producer yoshinori ono was interviewed around the time this game was released and even gives additional comments on blanca in this interview he acknowledges that he is aware of how popular street fighter 2 and fighting games in general would become in brazil over the years but states he would like to give a special message to all brazilians stating i would like to apologize because i know that blanca seems to be a strange character and i don't want any brazilian to feel uncomfortable with that when blanca was conceived we knew there was a force in brazil so we thought it might look like this i was even a little nervous when i heard that i would meet brazilian journalists today well but about the message this is the first street fighter in 10 years so we would like all fans to play including the brazilians at this point ono is cut off by the interviewer who responds that brazilians love blanca with ono simply replying oh good i was even afraid of being beaten when i went to sao paulo if you browse online it becomes clear pretty quickly as to why ono felt an element of trepidation when speaking about blanca and the stage backdrop in which he originally fought in over the years online gaming journalists from the united states and western europe had slowly began to obsess over identity politics and continuously writing critical pieces about street fighter 2 being a game full of racist stereotypes this was a narrative that websites were continuing to spin in order to get maximum clicks for their poorly written clickbait journalism in the mid-2010s street fighter 5 would finally be announced in the early promotional stages yoshinori ono would show off a brazilian stage during which he was even seen wearing a blanket costume obviously leading to many people instantly believing blanca was being revealed for the game interestingly though blanco was nowhere to be seen and instead a street fighter newcomer was introduced named laura a brand spanking new brazilian fighter who unlike blanca before her was produced with the actual input of people who were from brazil bearing in mind that brazil now had a more realistic representative in the game you could assume that the story of blanca was over by this point but thankfully to the light of street fighter fans everywhere yoshinori did not give in to council culture and blanco would later be added to the game as a dlc fighter in blanca's redesign for street fighter 5 his hair has grown longer and wild on his head limbs and chest he even now has additional orange hair lying in his limbs although if you want blanca to look more traditional his appearance in street fighter 2 became his nostalgic costume in this modding game in the street fighter 5 story which occurs after the events of street fighter 4 blanca is back in brazil but is now selling dolls known as blanca chan while doing this job he meets laura for the first time who accidentally steps on one of his dolls this leads to a fight between the pair of them but after managing to defeat her laura apologises and calls shawn to help blanket out sean advises him to sell the dolls in japan instead as he believes there will be a bigger market for them over there this leads to blanca later being in a japanese arcade where a somewhat comical scene occurs where he accidentally breaks one of the arcade machines but regrets it claiming the machine would not last a day in the jungle his tail ended with sakura arriving and reuniting with him with her deciding to tell the arcade manager about the blanca chan dolls and that they should be put inside the machine this leads to huge dolls becoming popular with almost everyone in japan however blanca is not made aware of this bringing his strange tale to a close for now in regards to blanca's story in street fighter 5 the inclusion of dolls may seem pretty random at first but according to yoshinori ono there is a reason for all of this it is no secret that blanket is his favorite character and those of akinai will notice he carries around a small blanket doll himself it was revealed by ono on the nintendo channel that he obtained this aforementioned toy along with a few extras from the hamburger restaurant known as jollibees he got a jollibee's kids meal set in the philippines which functions similar to the happy meals from mcdonald's the blanca chan dolls in the game directly reference ono's own doll that he carries in addition to all of this blanca would make many other appearances over the years with a more notable one being in street fight across tekken where he would once again show up as dlc in the game he teams with sakura in search of pandora's box which they eventually find rescuing dan from within it blanca would also show up as a stage boss of his street fight across mega man and appear as an available fighter within puzzle fighter in a more obtuse appearance there is armor in monster hunter 4 ultimate that can make your character look like blanca all in all though this covers many of the key elements of this unique character's tower and highlights that there is far more to this character than meets the eye than to those who just so have happened to have bumped into him in a round of street fighter if you enjoyed this look back at this street fighter character i'm actually doing something similar on my brand new channel top back wrestling man where we look at the careers of some of wrestling's less appreciated performers i have just uploaded the video on kurt angle's forgotten brother eric angle so why not check it out if you fancy a bit of sports entertainment from me from here though be sure to let me know in the comments which street fighter you would like to see me highlight next as fast far we've only got through blanca cami and akuma so who should i do now huge thank yous go out to those who back the channel on patreon your support goes a long way in helping me do what i do special shout outs for doing so go out too sebastian villas a murder of crows carl johnson heyo paulo lopez van gaaridine corey imar senior capcom vs snk bxl gotham rowan lynch evan border phillip memph azure rakai keith ferguson drop queen varela michael callix aegon jordan durant angela 25 ian boyle nick daniels princess zarna daniel daley computer man house of the ted ecu professor kid anime justin wang hermes gonzalez instant gratification monkey man shovel james bishop jb michael hall wesley sang hee wenger langston miller new brian barry sarah powell flaming renee marvin araliga chris paul tog driver adrian hannington bernard ng richard's jew stewart dan van dammit luis fiance john bates david bell chris fisk mike bruno rick 67 angonio rodriguez craig jenkins retroverse.com casey wright since spaces as i andrew bazanski gunther hendrix and everybody else who backs me on the patreon platform thanks for everybody else who watched today too love you all yeah [Music] you

Channel: Top Hat Gaming Man

Views: 125,768

Rating: 4.835721 out of 5

Keywords: blanka, blanka street fighter, akuma street fighter V, blanka street fighter history, blanka history, blanka story, blanka documentary, street fighter character documentary, street fighter biopic, street fighter alpha history, street fighter 3, super street fighter 2 turbo, street fighter iv, blanka vs akuma, ryu vs blanka, street fighter alpha 2, fighting game history, street fighter ex

Id: SPDljMZkFnY

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021