By now, hopefully, people see what I'm trying to do with this video series. By breaking the episodes in half, I can see where a character comes from and what their inspirations are, and then expound upon how they're played. In a few cases so far, that had to do with how the competitive community looks at a character. Chun's episode, then, was all about getting to the heart of why many high-level players roll their eyes whenever she's picked. In my estimation, it's because she's just built to be good.
That, of course, doesn't really come through in the footage from the first half where it's a few guys bumbling around with her other supers to capture them. In reality, though, Chun vs. Chun matches are typically boring to watch even if both players are at a high skill level and using SA2. Chun-Li seriously doesn't have a lot going on without it, no matter how well she's animated.
Still, this episode gave me a chance to look a little deeper into one of the three oldest characters in the franchise and shine a light on how she evolves both in terms of play and (sigh) lore. Another aspect of this franchise that this video series tries to tackle is just where all of this vast internet knowledge about some characters comes from, like her connection with franchise antihero Gen. Lucky for me, Arc Hound found something concrete about it; something we can definitively reference as opposed to what might be found on a citation-free wiki. I call that a big win.
And before you grab your pitchforks, the "thirsty cougar/voice of reason" examples of Misato and Ritsuko were suggested to me by a friend over Twitter. I thought it interesting because the ghost of Evangelion floats heavily over this game (and most of Japanese pop culture of the period), and that by the end of the series, the opposite is true as to who that thirsty cougar wound up being. See? Another example of irony. You already got that, though. You're so smart.
Something I intentionally didn't include in this video: Some time ago on Twitter, Ultra David and a few of the old 3S players came out and said that they knew that Chun's SA2 was busted in location tests, but they kept their mouths shut because one particular player (whom I can't remember) was a Chun-Li main. This is likely apocryphal, and even if it wasn't, one location test for a game in the US doesn't dictate how good one particular move can be, but it's a funny story if anything. I couldn't for the life of me find this conversation again, though. So, without actually going back to Ultra David to ask him about it (something I probably should have done anyway), this might all be lost in the ether of the internet. If you find it, though, I am begging you to put a link to it in the comments of the episode.
Something shameless I did in this video: Reference a story for USGamer.net that I wrote. That's mine. I typed all the words and everything. You should read it.
So, as far as further viewing and extra homework is concerned, you're off the hook. There are some very, very good Chun players out there (3-time 3S EVO champion Nuki is a good example), but none of it is as zany or really that instructive outside of actual play time. Of course, I'm sure I'm wrong about that, but it's just my opinion. So, if you're curious, there are several Nuki videos on YouTube that you can search for. Just don't expect nutty acts of showmanship like what you would see in a Sugiyama Necro video or a Shinobu Urien compilation.
With that, we're on to Makoto. That's going to be a good one. I mean, there all good, but you know. You get it.
