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Kinu Nishimura also remembers what Akiman said when it came to Ryu's daily life, that Ryu usually does high paying but dangerous things such as acting as a bouncer or muscleman for gangsters

Oh God, Now I'm imagining Ryu as a loan shark.  The car mini game suddenly makes sense!

@BootyWarrior And @CESTUS IIIThanks a lot for the answers, it cleared a lot of stuff up. I'm glad this board has so many knowledgeable fans on the lore. 🙂 I particularly appreciated learning that Capcom's confirmed  Ken's family is actually a source of strength for him as  a fighter and Ryu does more than train 24/7.

The Goutetsu stuff is interesting because that completely changes my perception of Ryu and Akuma's relationship if he vaguely knew of him as  a fellow more advanced student before he "fell." Interesting that he refers to Goutetsu and Gouken as masters but Akuma as only Akuma. Could it mean he was only a student or is it being used to show Ryu's disgust for him? I'm guessing the latter, given he'd have been Gouki back then. Sorry, just spitballing.

12 hours ago, CESTUS III said:

Yeah, the difference in terms of training time may not be big, Ken started under Gouken at 12

If anything is pretty likely that Ken had more fighting experience with other same age kids, as he was sent to Gouken's dojo because he was a scrappy boy (is when he dyed his hair blond, wich in japanese kids/teen culture was like declare you're some kind of hooligan/punk), while we don't even know if Ryu even knew other kids of his own age before Ken as the area where he was found/Gouken's dojo looked pretty rural/woods

 

Plus you have that Ken natural offensive style is something more immediate to learn compared to Ryu's defensive/counter approach

This makes sense, thanks. I was under the impression Ken was sent to Gouken because he was a stereotypical rich kid and his family thought he was a leech, but him already having some fighting experience would not be surprising. I also seem to recall Ken being described as having more natural talent than Ryu(which explains how he can still keep up with him despite having a family and job as opposed to Ryu who just trains and travels the world)  so this would explain how he'd catch up to him quickly.

6 hours ago, CESTUS III said:

Cool, this make his training begin around 4 years before Ken

I looked in the wiki to see if there was something but while for Ken they have 12yo, for Ryu is only said Gouken rescued him when was a young child and that Ken arrived to the dojo a generic "sometime afterwards" (i guess they found no source for Ryu precise age when was rescued)

 

But search gave me an info did'nt knew/remember from SF4TttB, seems like whatever incident made Ryu faint and left the house burning also gave him amnesia, as he can't remember anything of his life before his first days at the dojo

"My earliest memories are of Master Goutetsu and Master Gouken. I remember Akuma training with them." Ryu's dialogue from Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind

Interesting, so does this mean Ryu knew Goutetsu and trained with him? I always thought Goutetsu died before Gouken took Ryu in, with Akuma coming back some years later to challenge Gouken and Gouken defeating him but sparing his life. Then he comes back and kills Gouken and defeats Ken in like one blow when the latter fighter happens upon their confrontation as he returns from winning his own tournament. The lore seems convoluted around these parts, or maybe fanon has elevated misinformation.

I do agree that Goutetsu is cool but I can't see how adding him to the game would add anything to the story-- we basically know what his role in it was, and anything else could probably be given to one of the other Ansatsuken users with little difficulty.

Huh, for some reason I always thought Ryu was a baby when Gouken found him. Not sure if that was canon or fanon though. Him being found by Gouken later in life might make sense though, and explains a bit about how Ken caught up to him so fast, given they probably started serious training around the same time as opposed to Ryu having a decade head start.

While they're not canon I am looking forward to the one shots Udon is apparently going to feature for every SFII character. I don't imagine they'll go to in depth or contain any shocking information but it will be interesting to see what they do with them.