Zangief

Zangief, also known as the Red Cyclone, is a character from the Street Fighter franchise.

Zangief is a national Russian hero who is always seen fighting for the glory of his country.

Appearance
Zangief is a massive fighter, weighing 400 lbs and standing slightly over 7 feet tall, placing him among as one the tallest characters in the entire Street Fighter roster. Since his debut in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991, Zangief has been portrayed with a beard and a mohawk, along with a uniquely-shaped formation of chest hair on his torso and on his shins. His massive frame is almost entirely covered in scars from his bouts with brown bears in the barren and remote area of Siberia.

Zangief's wardrobe consists of simple red wrestling trunks with a gold belt, along with red and gold wristbands and his red wrestling boots. In one of Zangief's concept artworks, he wore a tank top and had a sailor anchor tattoo on his left arm. He would retain the tank top in all his Street Fighter II portraits (except Turbo Revival and HD Remix), in order to indicate what color the player chose for him.

Starting with Street Fighter Alpha 2, Zangief was adorned with a red cloak that he would remove before starting his matches. The cloak became an accepted fixture of his image, and he was shown with it in the 1994 Street Fighter II animated movie. Although modern 3D interpretations of Zangief have so far not shown him with his cloak, he is still depicted as wearing it before matches in his ending movie on Super Street Fighter IV.

He has multiple alternate costumes in Street Fighter V. The first one is a red wrestling suit with a single long sleeve; another is a red tank top with a golden lightning emblem at the center along with the sign of "METAL", yellow tights in a rainbow camouflage motif with black kneepads and yellow boots with a red lightning motif. He also wears black studded armbands and a yellow bandana on his head with a matching rainbow camouflage motif.

Personality
Born and raised in the Soviet Union, Zangief is an incredibly patriotic character who has been motivated in some way to fight for his Motherland in every single game he has ever been in. While his personality has varied from one media source to another, Zangief is mostly been portrayed as a very fearless and tactical fighter who is prone to quick temperaments, and is always very competitive. He is immensely proud of his physique, and constantly belittles his opponent's smaller muscular build and blaming their losses on their smaller physique. His win quotes often consists of critiques towards his specific opponents about their lack of power, or him telling his opponents to build more muscle.

Despite his short temper, Zangief has shown himself to be rather gentle-natured with a good sense of humor at times, once entering a tournament partly to win the admiration of a group of school children. According to the instruction manual of Street Fighter II: Special Championship Edition for the Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive, Zangief is described as being "good natured, with a great sense of humor, and totally fearless". Zangief can be easily misled by his overwhelming sense of patriotism for his home country. In Street Fighter Alpha 2, it was revealed that the President wants Zangief to train and fight around the world primarily to boost his own prestige abroad, although Zangief fails to realize this and continues to fight for the glory and honor of Russia, no matter what the reason may be.

While not fighting, Zangief enjoys hopak (cossack dancing), and eat borscht. Some of the things which he does not like includes young women (because he views them as a distraction), bears that do not know how to wrestle properly, and (according to the manual for Super Street Fighter II Turbo for the 3DO) projectiles such as Hadokens, Yoga Fires, and Tiger Shots.

Abilities
Zangief's signature fighting style is close-range wrestling, with devastating throws and powerful base moves. This makes him tough up close, though he often has trouble with foes with projectiles.

Many of Zangief's moves are more complicated to pull off, due to the 360 motions input required to perform the moves, making him a character for advanced players. This, along with the fact that several of his moves incorporate spins, is likely the basis for his wrestling moniker "Red Cyclone".

In addition, Zangief naturally lacks range, and many of his moves have a fairly long startup; this renders him fairly vulnerable to projectiles and makes him an ideal target for many faster characters. Zangief is one of the slowest of all characters in the Street Fighter games, and presents a large target, yet he is widely considered high-tier. As of recent appearances, he has several means to bypass projectile attacks, such as Double Lariat and Banishing Flat, the ability to walk unphased into a hit during his EX Flying Power Bomb, and the ability to grab opponents out of most ground-based moves via Spinning Piledriver. In most incarnations, Zangief is extremely dangerous against floored opponents, as he is able to force them to block regular attacks so that he can pin them in place to deliver a powerful throw or hold.

The Spinning Piledriver was the single most damaging special move in the original Street Fighter II series until the introduction of T. Hawk, and is capable of "sucking in" opponents from a surprising distance. Zangief's Flying Stomach attack was also the only standard move capable of dizzying a character in one hit in the Street Fighter II series.

In Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, a "Mecha Zangief" is introduced. This is an even slower version of Zangief who can't block; however, he takes reduced damage from everything, excluding beam-style attacks. He also can't be stopped, taking only a slight slowdown when hit by almost anything, and picks up a Yoga Blast-like attack, the Siberian Breath. Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes brought Zangief back and gave him the ability to transform into Mecha Zangief, making him more viable against speed characters; he retains this ability in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Zangief retains most of his moves as he gains a new special attack which he does cossack dancing to his opponent in two kicks. He has five disguises serve as his special attacks (Eg: a gorilla costume with a red mohawk, a long haired caveman wielding a club, a construction worker wielding various construction tools, a family man, a jungle man and a red vest with a gray ushanka hat within his main outfit). One of his Mighty Combos has him doing cossack dancing to his opponent in a multiple damage.

Zangief has a unique team Hyper Combo exclusive to the first two crossover games: the Double Final Atomic Buster. He runs towards his enemy similarly to his Flying Powerbomb. Should he reach, his partner shows up from the other side, and both leap up past the top of the arena, coming crashing down a few seconds later with an explosive non-spinning piledriver.

In Street Fighter IV series, he has a powerful ultra combo called Ultimate Atomic Buster which is a powerful version of Final Atomic Buster which serves as his super combo. His second Ultra was Siberian Blizzard.

In Street Fighter V, he has a Critical Art called Bolshoi Russian Suplex, which he grabs his opponent and makes a devastating suplex to crush his opponent down.

Trivia

 * Mike Haggar (whose fighting style was the basis for Zangief's as explained above) also wrestles deadly animals, in his case, Bull Sharks.


 * Street Fighter II: The World Warrior depicted that Zangief was from the U.S.S.R. when the game was released in February, 1991. The Soviet Union would cease to exist the following December, but due to the heavy use of Soviet iconography in and around Zangief's character, including his home stage (an iron plant complete with a giant hammer and sickle logo imprinted on the floor), Zangief was depicted as being from the U.S.S.R. as late as 1998, when Street Fighter Alpha 3 was released (though justifiably, the Alpha series takes place between the first and second games, meaning the U.S.S.R. still existed as of then). Street Fighter IV was the first time Zangief was depicted as being from the Russian Federation in 2008.


 * Zangief's Ultra Combo, Siberian Blizzard, ends with a move that is incredibly similar to the Kinniku Driverfrom the popular Japanese manga/anime series Kinnikuman.


 * According to his win quote against Dee Jay in SSFIV, Zangief listens to Tchaikovsky.


 * His name was mentioned in the wrestling game Saturday Night Slam Masters by Biff Slamkovich's losing quote "Comrade Zangief was right! You all play cheap!", implying that he is friends with Zangief.


 * Several images of Zangief exist that depict him with blood spewing out of a vein in his head, such as his portrait from Street Fighter Alpha 3. This is shown in the Japanese arcade releases, but censored in the American versions.


 * To date, Pocket Fighter and The Match of the Millennium are the only games in which Zangief uses a Cossack dance-based Super Combo.
 * In the Street Fighter EX series, he has a foot stomp Super Combo that functions similarly with the above attack.


 * In Makoto's 3rd Strike ending, Zangief can be seen among the fighters defeated by Makoto.


 * In Street Fighter IV, Zangief was a powerhouse with the largest stamina and stun rating in the game. Many considered him too powerful and he was toned down for Super Street Fighter IV. However, even with the changes, Zangief still has the highest damage output in the game, including his first Ultra Combo being the most damaging move in the game.


 * Although Zangief was originally conceived as a rival for Guile, given that they are from the USSR and the USA, respectively, his behavior toward Guile likewise refers to his appreciation for their shared patriotism and hairstyles. It is rather through the late 1980's and early 1990's American fandom by the tensions of the real life Cold War that still promoted this rather uncanon depiction; not only did the 1994 live-action filmportray him as a Shadaloo villain, but background notes and creator interviews of Wreck It Ralph showed that audience influence held sway on Zangief being a villain through national tensions.
 * Rather, some adaptations have depicted Zangief as somewhat of a rival towards Ryu, demonstrated in Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation (in which Ryu defends Shun from Zangief by fighting him brutally), Street Fighter II V (where Zangief, working for Shadaloo, is ordered to capture Ryu, leading to a skirmish between the two), and the 1994 live-action film (where Zangief, again working for Bison, presents Ryu with his familiar white gi and later aids him and Ken in helping Bison's hostages escape the collapsing base). His win quote towards Ryu in Street Fighter IV implies that the two fought in Street Fighter II and Ryu won.


 * Zangief has Vega's picture on his mirror in his SSFIIT ending. It is common for fighters (especially boxers) to have a picture of their rival placed in the frame of their mirror (on the picture it is written something like "idiot" in Japanese, maybe because they have different views on beauty).


 * Since grizzly bears are not indigenous to Siberia and Russia, Zangief possibly wrestles Ussuri Brown Bears, which are similar to grizzlies, but are indigenous to the North East of Russia, and twice as large.
 * Other sources usually state he wrestles Kodiak Bears, but Kodiaks are mainly natives to Alaska, with the Kamchatka region (in eastern Russia, near the Bering Strait) as a secondary habitat. He also sometimes wrestles Polar Bears, which can be found in northern Russia.


 * In the UDON comics, Zangief's text is always written in yellow over red speech bubbles, much like the red flag of the USSR with its yellow hammer-and-sickle emblem, to show off his devotion to his homeland. In addition, the writing is in bold italics most of the time, indicative of how loudly he usually speaks (an exception is his flabbergasted, quiet "This is wrestling...?" after Rainbow Mika defeats him in the backup story of #13).


 * Being 7'.025" (214 cm) tall, Zangief is the sixth-tallest character in the whole Street Fighter franchise, behind (in this precise order) Birdie, Sagat, T. Hawk, Hugo, and Abigail.


 * In his win quote against Kuma in Street Fighter X Tekken, Zangief criticizes Kuma, telling him that "Bears in Siberia are much fiercer! You are like kitten!".


 * In Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival, in the 'Fight Akuma' Time Attack mode, if the player keeps pressing the light punch button while playing as Zangief in close proximity, it will force Shin Akuma to immediately go into a crouch, and will keep being forced to a crouch as long the player keeps pressing the light punch button while playing as Zangief. This does not work for the other characters.


 * Zangief's second alternate costume in Street Fighter V bears a slight resemblance to the real life WWE superstars, The Undertaker in his appearance in Wrestlemania XX and Hulk Hogan when he competed in a wrestling ring in the late 2000's.


 * Though Zangief is covered in scars on the front of his body none appear on his back. This is because he never turns his back on an enemy and prides himself on the ability to stop attacks head-on.


 * Zangief is the second character to have a throw that targets on crouching opponents. The first is R. Mika. The most recent character to have a throw that targets crouching opponents is G.


 * Despite Zangief being the original Grappler of the series and having the most number of regular throws in The World Warrior, Zangief has never had a regular Air Throw. He has had Aerial Russian Slam that is more akin to an anti air throw such as Soul Throw, and while Borscht Dynamite acts very similarly to an air throw, it is a special attack.


 * There is a continuity error with that occurs with Zangief's fight with his opponent in front of the Shadaloo base in A Shadow Falls, Zangief defeats his opponent after withstanding her sword with his "muscle power", yet in the next scene when Birdie blocks gunshots from his own opponent, Zangief is shown still fighting the opponent he managed to defeat earlier.
 * Zangief's body change Pandora does to him in his ending in Street Fighter X Tekken makes him look visually similar to the artwork SNK did for him.