Ken Masters

Ken Masters is a video game character and deuteragonist of the Street Fighter series, first appearing in the original Street Fighter.

Similar to his friend Ryu, Ken's goal is to test his power against many different fighters and strives to become stronger, but holds more restraint due to not wanting to jeopardize his family life.

Appearance
Ken is most easily recognized by his brown sparring gloves (yellow in the Alpha series and red in the EX series) and bright red gi with the sleeves neatly removed, similar to Ryu's (Capcom has said that a red gi was chosen to stand out and to reflect his more flashy style of fighting[citation needed]) and it is usually seen in better shape than Ryu's (except for in the Street Fighter III series), since he can easily afford to keep up with and/or own spares. He has blonde hair and long black eyebrows. He wears a black belt at his waist and trains barefooted.

In the Street Fighter Alpha series, he had longer hair tied into a ponytail with a red ribbon. The official explanation for the loss of the ribbon is that he gave it to Ryu to wear during the events of Street Fighter Alpha 2 (as stated in Ken's own ending); Ryu was distracted during his fight with Ken because he had just fought Sagat, and ended up losing. Ken gave Ryu the headband to remind him of their fight.

In Street Fighter II V, Ken has red-hair similar to the live-action movie and the animated series along with fighting barehanded. Ken usually wears casual outfits throughout the episodes; for example, a yellow formal suit jacket with a red tank top, matching white pants with a black belt to his waist and black shoes.

By the time of Street Fighter V, Ken's appearance has undergone the first major design change in the character's history. Ken's gi top now hangs around his waist and he wears a black v-neck training shirt with several red linings in its place. He sports black sparring gloves and his hair is now tied in a topknot. Most likely due to events yet undisclosed instead of hanging loose which it was grown into medium length after the events of Street Fighter IV series and now wears black ankle wraps with red linings instead of barefoot.

His second alternate costume is one of his disguised forms in Pocket Fighter but updated; he wears a black leather jacket with maroon outlines and a white tank top underneath, red denim pants with a black belt, a neon yellow buckle on his waist and black leather shoes. His sunglasses are hanging loose on his tank top. His medium-length hair is shorter.

Personality
While Ryu is the more serious and stoic of the two, Ken is the complete opposite - stylish, unorthodox and unpredictable, as well as being much more violent and aggressive than Ryu. He is an alpha male with a giant ego and constantly reminds his opponents about his greatness. While he can be brash, egotistical, and arrogant at times, his heart is pure. He is generally kind, friendly, a good person, and very easygoing which led him into starting a family of his own. He never backs down from a fight no matter how difficult it looks.

Like Ryu, he believes in honor, hard work, endurance, and discipline. He always gives his opponents (who are friendly rivals) the utmost respect, whether it is his master Gouken, his best friend Ryu, or his Capcom vs. SNKrival, Terry Bogard. He is also a worrywart when it comes to his family, nearly missing the tournament in Street Fighter IV because he didn't want to leave Eliza so close to her due date, and only entered when she assured him she'd be fine. He still called her to check in and tell her to be careful using stairs.

Abilities
Ken Masters, like Ryu, is a student of the unnamed Ansatsuken art referred to as Shotokan, though this only applies to his normal attacks with slight traces of Hapkido (as stated in the in-depth Japanese sources for his normal attacks' names). In the original Street Fighter and the first iteration of Street Fighter II, Ken was a clone of Ryu, with only one attack (a throw) appearing to be aesthetically different.

In later Street Fighter II editions, Ken's character was modified to focus on style and attack speed, along with a notable focus on more brutal judo throws (such as his trademark knee striking grapple) and with some aspects of Kyokushin Karate. As a foil to Ryu, Ken's trademark technique is instead his Shoryuken.

Ken's entire moveset would continue to develop around the Shoryuken and multi-hit combos as the series progressed. His overall style of gameplay revolves around a rushdown strategy that executes powerful combos off of quick hit-confirms while maintaining mobility; Ken's moves generally come out fast, and can be used fluidly to create several such combos. However, this requires him to stay dangerously close to his opponents; in addition to having limited ranged tools, many of his moves can also leave him open for an easy counter if properly defended.

This also ties into a weakness he shares with Ryu, which tends to be his mediocre physical range that causes him to rely more on zoning with his Hadoken as opposed to playing footsies in the neutral game; though unlike Ryu, most of Ken's moves are geared towards multi-hits as aforementioned, which on top of his mixups make him much more geared towards safe pressure and being able to get in.

Ken's playstyle makes him quite easy to pick up and learn, to the point that he is one of the most used characters in the Street Fighter III and IV series. At one point, this resulted in the emergence of "Flowchart Ken" - a strategy for beginner and intermediate Ken players that was literally outlined in a flowchart style. Said strategy would go on to dominate a large portion of high-level play in Street Fighter IV. One of Ken's winning quotes even makes a jabbing reference to this in Super Street Fighter IV.

In Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix Ken retains most of his moves, his Tatsumaki Sempukyaku are embedded with fire and enables him to shoot a Shakunetsu Hadoken. His Shoryureppa enables him to hit three times and his Shinryuken is much like his appearance in the Alpha games but Ken can be seen being burned up during the execution and his Shippu Jinraikyaku as well as all of his Super Combos serves as his Mighty Combos.

He carries a large broken mallet consist of 100 tons to flatten his opponent to deal damage and has three disguises serving as his special attacks (Eg. a soccer player, a cowboy outfit while using a horse to knock his opponents and his casual outfit). During his Shippu Jinraikyaku Mighty Combo, Ken can sometimes be seen wearing his casual outfit during the execution of his kicks.

Street Fighter V promised to put a new spin on Ken's playstyle, featuring a more "in-your-face" approach, much more akin to a rushdown character. Of particular note are the changes made to his Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (all three versions will now cause a knockdown and his hard kick variation now travels in an arc as opposed to horizontally across the arena). His EX Tatsumaki attacks are also revamped (his ground version traveling upwards diagonally and his airborne variation shooting down diagonally). His V-Skill, Quick Step, enables faster advancing movement against a foe and his V-Trigger, Heat Rush, imbues all of his special moves with fire and giving them enhanced properties (such as guaranteed knockdown when a Hadoken connects). His Shinryuken Super Combo returns as his second V-Trigger.

Compared to Ryu, Ken is often seen as a more flashier foil, often coming up with several new deviating moves on the spot as opposed to sticking to the fundamentals as often as Ryu does. His creative mind allows his fighting style to always stay fresh for new arts on the fly at any given time.

As mentioned before, Ken uses the same moves as Ryu: he possesses a slightly weaker Hadoken, a more horizontal Shoryuken that can hit up to three times and set opponents ablaze, and a Tatsumaki Senpukyaku that can land up to five hits without knockdown. He also gained a series of command normal kicks; in the Street Fighter Alpha series only, these would be incorporated into his standard movelist with his other special attacks.

Ken's Super Combo in Super Street Fighter II Turbo is the Shoryureppa, a string of consecutive Shoryukens. In the Street Fighter Alpha series, he would gain another Shoryuken-based Super Combo in the Shinryuken, a vertical spinning Shoryuken with a 'vortex' effect that can be used (sometimes exclusively) in midair. The Street Fighter III series would reuse those moves as Super Arts; Ken also gains the Shippu Jinraikyaku, a powerful series of kicks followed by a rising Tatsumaki. The move would later appear as a Level 3 Super Combo in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

In the Street Fighter EX series, Ken gains a Meteor Combo known as the Kuzuryu Reppa, which effectively combines the three aforementioned Super Combos; it leads with Shippu Jinraikyaku's kicks and instead of a Tatsumaki, Ken follows with three Shoryukens (the same as his Level 3 Shoryureppa in the Alpha series) and finishes with a Shinryuken. Kuzuryu Reppa would be seen again in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, also appearing as one of Violent Ken's Super Combos.

In the Street Fighter IV series, Ken uses the Shoryureppa as his Super Combo; his first Ultra Combo is the Shinryuken, and his 2nd Ultra is a new move known as the Guren Senpukyaku, a flaming horizontal Tatsumaki that adds a final finisher kick at the end "for good measure".

In Street Fighter V, Ken uses a powerful version of Guren Senpukyaku known as Guren Enjinkyaku as his Critical Art (where he launches himself at his opponent with a fierce kick that sends them airborne then follows them up with a flaming Tatsumaki to the face before kicking them away). The Shoryureppa returns as well, acting as his EX Shoryuken.

Trivia

 * As a result of potential lawsuits, Ken was given the last name "Masters" so he would not be confused with Ken Carson from Barbie, a Mattel owned franchise.


 * Ken has been playable in every installment of Street Fighter, much like Ryu (a distinction that is unique to them), both main series and spinoff. However, Ken is not playable in a few crossover titles, such as Capcom Fighting Evolution, both versions of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and the updated "Ultimate" version. He is also not playable in Super Smash Bros. 4, as Ryu is the only playable Street Fighter character (Ken's theme is able to be selected to play on Ryu's stage). This is likely due to a desire not to take up many spaces in their rosters with overly similar characters. He does, however, appear as an "Echo Fighter" in the sequel.


 * Ryu can use Ken's moveset in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes via Mode Change.


 * When fought as a CPU opponent in some games, particularly Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter EX, Ken will occasionally do a light Shoryuken, followed by a medium one as soon as he lands, and then a strong one. This AI behavior has remained consistent in most of his appearances.


 * Ken is one of the eleven playable Street Fighter characters who are married or in a romantic relationship.


 * In Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, if Ken defeats Sean, he would say to him "You must defeat Ryu to stand a chance!" This is based on Ryu's infamously mistranslated win quote ("You must defeat my Shoryuken/Sheng Long in order to stand a chance!").


 * In the Street Fighter III games, Ken seems to break the fourth wall in one of his quotes against Hugo or Gillin Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact ("It's losers like you that make this game boring!").


 * Ken's birthday is on St. Valentine's Day.
 * Ken shares his birthday with Kolin and Natsu Ayuhara.


 * Though born in the United States, Ken is actually only one-quarter American and three-quarters Japanese.


 * Ken's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 has cameos by several other Capcom characters, including those from the Darkstalkers series and Captain Commando from the arcade game of the same name.


 * In SNK vs. Capcom: SvC Chaos, as Violent Ken, his battle stance in his intro is similar to Akuma 's and Evil Ryu's; however, he turns clockwise instead of counterclockwise.


 * Ken's win quote against Lei Wulong in Street Fighter × Tekken is based on Lei resembling Jackie Chan.


 * In the original Street Fighter, there's unused audio in the game files for a "Fire Kick", along with unused graphics that suggest Ryu and Ken were planned to have a fourth special move.


 * In Street Fighter: Resurrection, Ken's birthyear is mistakenly listed as 1966 while his offical (former) birthyear is 1965.


 * Street Fighter II suggests that Ken is from or around Detroit, Michigan as that location shows up on the map when he is selected as an opponent.


 * Some fans have pointed out that Ken's theme sounds similar to the Cheap Trick song "Mighty Wings"from Top Gun. Street Fighter II composer Yoko Shimomura stated in a interview: "I have heard people say that, and I watched the movie before I composed the song, so I can't deny I may have been inspired subconsciously. But I didn't go into it thinking, 'OK I'm gonna make this song sound like Mighty Wings.'".
 * It was also stated the Ken's theme was originally going to be Guile's.
 * Ken's first alternate costume in Street Fighter IV is the costume for King Cobra, a character that was scrapped in favor of Rufus.
 * In Street Fighter V, Ken has a downloadable costume in the form of Dante's clothes from Devil May Cry 4.
 * Coincidentally, both Ken and Dante are voiced by Reuben Langdon.