Sumo Media 2

E. Honda and Ganryu: How Sumo wrestling is treated in fighting games

Fighting games are an interesting genre of video game when looked at from a story and lore perspective. They are by their nature ensemble casts, variety of fighters with an equally variety of fighting styles from all walks of life. A fighting game lives or dies on how good their characters are design wise, move wise, and personality wise.

Some use boxing, others pro wrestling, others fictionalized version of real life martial arts, some just throw out whatever the hell the staff thought would look cool. And some fighters are sumo wrestlers.

Street Fighter’s Edmond Honda and Tekken’s own Ganryu are an interesting series of contrast and comparisons.

Their Personalities and roles in their respective franchises

‘E.’ Honda is generally portrayed as being larger than life, a strong willed, bombastic sort of personality.

His personality from the Street Fighter Wiki is summed up thus (emphasize mine):

“E. Honda is an honorable and friendly man who warmly welcomes people he sees as good; he is also ambitious in regards to displaying the strength of sumo to the world, and to that end he always gives his all during his training and fighting regimens. He also enjoys hot steaming baths between training sessions, his favorite spot being Kapukon Yu.

Despite his apparent lack of agility and portrayals in other media as clumsy or silly, Honda is a very powerful sumo grand master. He takes both his sumo art and his "Rikishi" title very seriously, considering it a sacred martial art just like any other.”

Ganryu, by comparison, is E. Honda’s mirror counterpart in a sense. Though starting off with noble desires in the first Tekken name to become Yokozuna and own his own sumo stable, by the second game Ganryu’s taken a bit of a leap off of the old slippery slope of morality. Though achieving the title of Ozeki as the youngest age in the sport, in the words of the Tekken wiki:

“his immoral style (such as starting bouts with fire breathing and a fanfare whilst taunting his opponents, coupled with his bad gambling habit) lead to a dishonorable discharge and gave Ganryu the chance to join the crime world.

“This path of life led Ganryu into pursuing one overriding purpose: to become the world's strongest man in a move that he feels is just and honorable. This, of course, led to his arrival into the first King of Iron Fist Tournament, where he was defeated by a one-time fan, Yoshimitsu.

“Noticing his skill, Kazuya Misihima hired Ganryu once the former retook the Mishima Zaibatsu, paying the sumo wrestler more than enough to feed his gambling addiction. Ganryu is participating in the second tournament mainly as Kazuya's bodyguard, but he also has another motive: he hopes to build and own a sumo ring to impress his secret crush, Michelle Chang (whom he fell in love with after seeing her movements and physique), while gaining the Yokozuna title.” Despite both rekishi taking wildly different paths morally, the two aren’t too dissimilar in how their respective franchises have threated them as side characters.

While E. Honda’s role in Street Fighter has general always been a minor one (he along with many staple favorites didn’t return to three, his role in four while playable is minor, and will be DLC if he ever does appear in V) Ganryu has had a more up and down relationship in terms of personal success. On the one hand he eventually obtain a Dojo in Hawaii by Tekken 5, on the other his attempts at love have fallen flat on their face. It speaks volumes about Ganryu’s lot in life that even a non-canon ending after being injected with the Devil Gene in 6 (Ganryu entered the tournament to garner interest for his struggling restaurant) his transformation is still played for laughs.

Comparatively, E. Honda is treated a tad better in his own franchise. Sort of. Though still played for larger than life laughs in a sense E. Honda’s character still holds a fair bit of dignity game media wise (adaptions have not been his most dignified outings as a character). However, whereas Ganryu’s eventually made reappearances in later games and at least made comparative progress in life (anyone who sets up a sumo stable in Hawaii and tries to start up their own restaurant is at least doing pretty decent in my book), E. Honda’s story has just sorta… stopped.

Did E. Honda ever succeed in getting sumo on the Olympics (ignoring that you need both male and female in the pro level to be accepted into the Olympics)? Will he even appear in V as DCL? Only Capcom knows and probably not even they have any real big plans for E. Honda’s character considering his overall minor importance to Street Fighter’s broad story.

Though one could argue naturally, that being side characters such is their lot in life. Neither Honda nor Ganryu have the ‘main character’ status of Ryu or the plot importance of Chun Li so naturally as side characters their storylines, such as they are, aren’t put on as much of a spotlight by comparison. That is of course a fair point to make.

My… point of interest is less that they are side characters, ensemble casts by their very nature have a spotlight that is somewhat dimmer on one person of the cast compared to the others importance wise. In a cast of five with only so much runtime to share between them in say, two and a half hour movie, at least two of the main cast is going to get comparatively less screen time not including deleted scenes or extended runtimes. Such is the same with fighting video games in that sense. But minor or not, it is the comedic take on their roles that I find interesting compared to the West’s general observations of the sport.

In my last Sumo Media post I talked a great deal about the 2001 cartoon Super Duper Sumos (12k words worth, this entry will be nowhere near that ballpark length wise) and the cheap-ish humor they used when dealing with the premise of the show (words like fat, butts, and guts are used in every episode in some form or another).

E. Honda and Ganryu are not the Super Duper Sumos. I don’t mean in obvious stuff like their made by actually Japanese companies who have at least a more accurate understanding of sumo then SDS’s liberal take on the subject. I mean more in how their comedic aspects are played up.

E. Honda is on some level, a fairly serious (if not larger than life) character. He is, to borrow a quote Robert E. Howard when describing his most famous literary creation of Conan the Barbarian, a man of ‘great melancholies and great mirth’ (melancholies might not fit Honda’s personality per say but even someone like him has to have his down in the dumps days). In short, Edmond Honda is a larger than life figure in the same sense that Hercules, Kartos, Conan, and Doc Savage are. He, much like them, doesn’t need a truly complex or even deep reasoning for going out traveling the world and kicking ass. He simply does it to prove sumo’s strength as a martial art in its own right. In that sense, the man’s not unlike Ryu minus the fireball attacks.

And yet, there’s an ironic, almost clueless aspect to Edmond Honda’s character. Street Fighter, being the middle of the pack of fighting games in terms of realism (not as realistic fighting style wise as Tekken, not as gory or lore heavy as Mortal Kombat but still has a sort of over the top cartoony charm all its own), has what can be summed up as a very liberal take on the martial arts genre (think of it less of real world martial arts and more like Wuixu genre with ki attacks thrown in for good measure).

Naturally, this applies to E. Honda’s fighting style/gameplay. In order to prove that sumo is the strongest fighting style in the world, Edmond Honda developed his own sumo style through countless years of sweat, effort, and discipline. Ironically, a majority of his moves wouldn’t even be legal in a professional sumo match. The kicker, though, is that even when the likes of Dan Habiki and Rufus point this fact out to him, E. Honda ignores their points (possibly because it’s Dan and Rufus who are the ones pointing it out. When freaking Dan is poking holes in your fighting style, brother have you got problems).

Either E. Honda honestly never thought about the implications of his fighting style and doesn’t like the fact that the style he’s developed can’t even be used in the spot he’s dedicated his life towards or he’s known it for years deep down and never wanted to admit it to himself afterwards. This could, as a friend of mine once theorized, ultimately amount to him not bother to admit sumo’s weakness as a fighting style/martial art to himself, perhaps slightly deluding his mind to think that his moves are in fact perfectly legal and that people just underestimate sumo out of hand (which, in fairness IRL, a lot of them do).

Or I’m reading far too much into E. Honda’s fairly straightforward character. That’s also a possibility.

And then we have Ganryu. Ganryu is in a sense a step closer to the SDS in terms of his comedic-ish role in the franchise.

In all honesty, I actually think Ganryu a more interesting character compared to E. Honda. Whereas Honda is a more straight-laced, semi-serious fellow with a zeal for sumo and life on a whole Ganryu has had more ups and downs both in terms of life successes and his moral roadway.

Despite having fallen in love at least two times and failing to achieve anything with those loves (sorry Ganryu but I don’t think that either Michelle or the other lady are into BHM) Ganryu has actually opened his own sumo school in the Sates and even tries to get publicity for it at age 55. 55! Considering the amount of stress sumo puts on a person’s body and the fact that Ganryu can still muster up the drive and desire to fight at that age alone is worthy of at least some proper props to the guy.

Hell, his entire heel arc in Tekken 2 is (on paper anyways, never played the game myself) far more interesting than anything E. Honda’s done by comparison. Which isn’t to knock E. Honda any, but when I look at the two as characters Honda comes off as an ideal of what a professional sumo wrestler should be more than an actual person in his own right (He’s sort of like a sumo Ryu in that matter.). Whereas Ganryu is more the Ken Masters of fighting game sumo wrestlers, he’s got more flaws and a potentially much more interesting story (And actually achieved the rank of Yokozuna though with E. Honda’s strength being what it is, I’d say an actual sumo match between the two would be a razor edge close call).

A friend (the same one from earlier) and I were recently talking about the two and he summed up Ganryu’s arc (and Tekken overall) thusly:

“Ganryu's reason for entering the tournament always felt the least relevant story wise.

You've got characters with environmental desires, revenge, uncovering a mystery, seeking power, wanting to show the world they can still do it, ect.

Ganryu's basically trying to get publicity for his school.

Not a bad motivation.

But it makes him feel like the most easily removable character in a story sense.”

That last line I think is what ultimately binds both E. Honda and Ganryu together. More than being sumo wrestlers, more than being fighting game characters, they are ultimately side characters and ones played for more of a comedic bent at that. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t done to the mediocre take as say the Super Duper Sumos were.

E. Honda for all his less well roundedness and minor importance as a character, at least treats the sport of sumo with the seriousness that it deserves (almost to a comic extent, one could argue) and at least has the prior mentioned larger than life charm to his personality that one can’t help but find at least somewhat charming from time to time (plus at least he’s not Bruce Lee Wannabe number 56, Honda’s at least his own original character).

Ganryu by comparison, is somewhat more played for laughs (can’t find success in love, his restaurant is struggling, his past as an enforcer for the criminal underworld and a heel sumo) but also has potentially a very human story at his core when you strip away the comedic elements.

Whereas other characters have their revenge quests, self-improvement journeys, ect, Ganryu is just a man who wants to find love and have a successful low key-ish life. Not being an expect in Tekken (and I expect many a Tekken fan to correct on this in the future) I feel that in some ways, Ganryu is one of the more human fighters of the casts in terms of base motivations.

And yet their roles as side characters is what I think dooms them in a sense. They are the fighting game versions of Shakespeare’s own Rosencranz and Guildenstern and, in a sense, they are Dead*. Or at least so minor that their stories have stopped (Honda, as mentioned before, hasn’t even shown up in V and Ganryu didn’t even appeared in Tekken 7).

Now, as I said earlier, even in an ensemble cast a few characters are bound to get less stage time then the others. That’s just the nature of the beast. I just find it a shame that for both Tekken and Street Fighter those characters in part have to be the sumo wrestlers of the group.

*Don’t get the reference? Google it. This is Sumo Media not Shakespeare Media.

Moves and Fighting Styles Talking about the moves and fighting style of what are two characters with the same style for their base fighting form is interesting. In theory, both Honda and Ganryu are mirrors of one another in the same way that Ken and Ryu were mirrors one another in Street Fighter but the difference as with everything is in the details. Let’s start with E. Honda.

When Street Fighter II first appeared back in the early 90s, Honda (like everyone else in the game) was limited to just two moves: His famous Hundred Hand Slap and the "Super Zutsuki” aka the Flying Headbutt. Later installments would also give him the Sumo Smash and the Smashing Oak Tree Throw.

The Hundred Hand Slap is basically E Honda’s version of Chun Li’s famous multi leg combo kick but with palm strikes moving so fast that they are a blur of motion. Out of all of E. Honda’s moves, this is the one that could last the best in an actual sumo match legally.

The Flying Headbutt, while a cool move from a fighting gameplay perspective, is just impractical as hell given the small size of the ring and the lack of control Honda has when shooting straight forward at his foe. One quick side step and Honda loses by ring out.

The Sumo Smash aka the “Butt Buash” involves Honda lunging at his opponent chest first or falling down towards them like a meteor butt first. Both moves would naturally not fly in a standard sumo match for obvious reasons.

Lastly, we have the Smashing Oak Three Throw aka the Oicho Throw where Honda will grab his opponent and throw them to the ground with a straight armed smash face first.

And then, we have Ganryu.

Ganryu by comparison has no Shonen Jump style attacks to his name as far as I can tell. However, there is a difference between not having moves, and not having a ‘style’.

Going by a youtube video from Tekken 6, while Ganryu naturally lacks the more ‘anime’ style attacks that his Street Fighter counterpart has, he is not without skill and strength of his own. His main ‘punches’ are naturally devastating palm strikes, he as a powerful over the shoulder throw, he will clap his hands in front of his opponent to catch them off guard (a legal move in sumo that’s name I can’t find or remember correctly for the life of me. Think that it’s called the Cat’s Eye but don’t quote me on that), and actually kicks his opponents, a move naturally forbidden in sumo.

“But Honda has kicks too!” You say. Well, Honda has sweeping low to ground style kicks that stay below the knees, not unlike something you’d see in an actual sumo match. Ganryu’s kicks (going by the Tekken 6 video) are much more like actually kicks, high and aiming for the face/chin of an opponent.

It’s a minor gameplay mechanic like this that summarizes the main difference between Ganryu and E. Honda as characters: Whereas E. Honda has unknowingly adopted a style of sumo that is completely impractical and illegal to the spot itself, Ganryu has stuck with sumo as a martial art as a more solid base keeping with Tekken roughly more realistic style compared to Street Fighter’s more overtly cartoony style (while he lacks a Hundred Hand Slap of his own Ganryu’s palm strikes are nothing to sneeze at, hell, the man’s cracking the ground when he throws his opponents to it, lacking in strength Ganryu is not). In other words Ganryu knows damn well he isn’t fighting other sumo wrestlers and is willing to adapt the style (such as the high kicks) as a matter of pragmatism to survive (and given how crazy some of the fighters in the Tekken verse are this isn’t an unreasonable thing to do in my book). So between the two sumotori, who would win?

Well, that is a threefolded question. Are we talking an artistic license sumo match, an actual sumo match, or a Battle to the Death style match with a grating as hell American Redneck stereotype and his ‘let’s apply real world math and physics to fictional characters that should in no way actually be applied to’ Mad Scientist buddy.

If we were going for a more liberal style sumo match (so basically the stuff I write, for example) and say, E. Honda was allowed his moves and they had a ring large enough to actually make the Flying head-butt practical, I’d say that E. Honda would broadly have the edge if mostly for his unorthodox fighting style as a sumo wrestler that would probably catch someone like Ganryu off guard. I say broadly as Ganryu is no weakling by any means and could possibly adapt to Honda’s moveset given enough time as the match goes on.

As for a traditional match, Ganryu would, I think, have the advantage here. The man’s stuck more closely to sumo as a style without adding in flying head butts or the like and he’s actually become Yokozuna compared to Honda’s rank of Ozeki. E. Honda, while stronger in the sense that Street Fighter is more cartoonishly over-the-top setting compared to the relatively more grounded Tekken verse (sort of how the heroes of the DC universe are broadly at a higher ‘level’ compared to Marvel’s heroes), would be greatly handicapped. I’m not say that E. Honda couldn’t win a traditional sumo match against Ganryu (after all his Hundred Hand Slap could give him the edge compared to Ganryu’s slow palm strike combos), but when most of your fighting moves are barred/impractical as hell, it doesn’t do much for your odds.

And then we have the Death Battle. Ignoring that neither Street Fighter nor Tekken are Mortal Kombat and that it wouldn’t fit either characters’ personalities to end what’s ultimately an over the top sumo battle with a gory death finisher, this is where things get… tricky.

What Ganryu lacks in Hundred Hand Slaps, Flying Headbutts, ect he makes up for in my book is grappling skill and slightly strong if slower palm strikes and perhaps a slight advantage in agility.

E. Honda, were this set around the era of Tekken 2 and Ganryu is in full on Pro Wrestling Heel mode, would no doubt be furious with Ganryu’s actions in the sumo world. And considering this guy doesn’t normally get angry save for Shadowlaw* plots effecting sumo I can only imagine that a truly righteously furious Edmond Honda would be something not unlike a sumo version of Kratos from the God of War series, minus the over the top killing, death, and destruction.

Ganryu, however, strikes me as a pragmatic person by nature (at least if his high kicks and actions in Tekken 2 are anything to go by) so I could see him pulling a few not so legal/honorable moves if it meant saving his life against an enraged E. Honda. Perhaps that could give him an edge over the narrower minded, nobler Honda?

At this point, reader, I leave the speculation and answers to you. I have never been particularly good at fighting games and my knowledge of both characters comes from Wikis and the like so people far more knowledgeable about both Tekken and Street Fighter, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.

Reception

While neither Ganryu or E. Honda are mainstream compared to Hadatchi, Ryu, Chun Li, Akuma, M. Bison, ect I thought it would be worth mentioning how the two have been received by the public over the years (information curtesy of Fighting Game Wikis).

Ganryu, has, much like his in universe lot in life, been a mixed bag in reception. Computer and Video Games placed him on their “Tekken 's worst ever characters" list in 2011. Saying that, "If losing some weight and not wearing a massive nappy all the time isn't the first thing you do to attract someone who's mother you've already failed to hit on, then you're doing something terribly, horribly wrong."

GameSpy, however, had a more positive outlook on the character. "Ganryu is more of a tragic character as his unrequited love for fellow fighter Julie fuels his brutality."

However, when Namco went and did an official poll for possible playable characters in TekkenXStreet Fighter, Ganryu had the ‘honor’ of being ranked the least wanted playable Tekken fighter with only a mere 1.12% of votes.

Honda by comparison, has had a more positive reception for unknowable reasons (perhaps it’s his more positive personality?).

Regardless of their general reception however, either are what one could hardly say are core characters of their respective franchises. Part of this could be their lose connection to their larger series plots, part it could be their more played for laughs nature as characters. And part of it could just be good old fashioned shallowed minded ‘Hurdur, fatty in nappy hurdur failed romance’ discrimination against sumo wrestlers in general without taking them on their own merits.

Such traits are sadly common even in fighting games made by the Japanese and with a higher level of respect for the sport then say, the likes of the Super Duper Sumos. But perhaps someday in the future we will see a sumo character treated with the gravitas both they and the sport deserve.