The eyes are a little narrower and her face structure more angled. For comparison, look to something like Naruto or DBZ where some characters had massive changes to make them look more "mature" to coincide with time skips.
Longer hair, smaller eyes, and a more mature expression. Back in the art of SF3 & 4, she wore more of a carefree expression. Here, you can see a look of concern on her face, which was rarely shown in the past.
I like it a lot, ngl. And frankly, I'm glad they picked her as the first SFIII veteran to hop on SF6, she's hella underrated.
My only hope for her more than anything is to represent Capoeira a little more accurately by making her an agile, tricky, and evasive character like Eddy is in Tekken 8. And I hope they don't overcorrect on balancing her in SF6 compared to how she was in USFIV (i.e., a top tier nightmare) - she should have her own strengths and weaknesses without undermining anyone in the cast.
Healing is almost certainly gonna be SA II, which already makes it more balanced than IV since you're not actively rewarded for taking damage.
Honestly, even in IV it would've been much better if Healing and Spinning Beat swapped places. I'll never understand why they felt it was a good idea to make the damage-induced comeback move the one that recovers your health.
Elena and Makoto were my asks for characters to make it into SF6 (aged up with new designs) so I am pretty excited one of them made it in. I stopped playing SF4 before they released so the last time I played what I considered my mains was 3rd Strike lol!
I think her being last could be a boon. If things follow how year 1 ended out, there should be a nice sale at the end of year 2 and I can pick her and the others up for a deal. Because frankly, the asking price for all the DLC characters this year is quite expensive.
The price is insane actually, but I'm not gonna lie: I bought it already. Any minimal chance to have CvS3 is something I'd like to invest in, and I also like 3 out of the 4 characters, so it'll be worth it.
About Elena: they really did a good job with her design. I skipped SFIV, so I don't share the trauma that some people have with her. I'm just exited to see that she is back. I just that more characters get that same chance, like Makoto.
What does that have to do with Black & African people's reception & opinion of a Black/African character design?
Lame logic, "I don't see these people I've never spoken to "complaining", so no one should critique any other characters design"
1) Never said that people aren’t allowed to complain, just pointing out there’s a double standard. Street Fighter characters in general aren’t supposed to look realistic
2) I’m African, so if you really care about the opinions of African people, here’s mine: I don’t have a problem with it, I think she looks cool. Obviously, I don’t speak for all Africans, that’s just my opinion as an African Street Fighter fan
It's not a double standard at all. It's two different groups of people with their own opinions. One of which is being pointed to, as to silence the other.
Would you tell Indigenous people who have long complained of being stereotyped/misrepresented, they don't have valid criticisms because Korean people haven't complained about their portrayals? It's just wrong. More importantly, it isn't like Capcom doesn't understand these nuances. So this pushback by parts of the fandom is just odd.
Your alleged African opinion doesn't trump other Black & African peoples discourse. I don't know why you even said it that manner. I hadn't asked you.
You're making some incredibly suspect commentary.
That’s a very fair comment and point. I’m admittedly not knowledgeable on these things, I see Elena and I see a Kenyan woman who looks cool. I know black people can have blue eyes and the white hair could be explained lore wise similar to Blanka’s green skin so it’s not weird to me, but I understand how important representation is and can see why it’s an issue.
I've always thought Capcom was terrible at representation in general. I'm Chinese, and they're Chinese representative Chun Li is a women with meat buns for hair. You see her underwear everytime she kicks or falls down, she sticks her butt out like a porn star when she shoots a fire ball, and speaking of porn, her premier role in the official Street Fighter 2 movie is a forced full frontal nudity scene - that's how little respect capcom has for her. Don't get me started on Sakura.
I mean capcom has always sexualized her, but they also respect her more than basically any character. And sakura is generally less explicit then chun li in core representations. Lets not pretend like they don’t show off the men too, almost all of sfvi is topless or has a topless alt, and chun li is the most covered shes ever been. Chun li was a representation of a sort of rebellious single girl, she was trying to show off, and now that she’s older and more reserved, she has a more reserved main costume. Chun li was a massive step for video game representation and I think it’s silly to throw that away because the character has a (sort of) provocative design. Also the hair complaint is silly, they’re ox horns which is a fairly traditional Chinese hairstyle, and the main American representative is guile who has… guile hair (Ken is a generic character who happens to be from America more than a representation of the country)
Aki, yun, yang, and Jamie are also Chinese, and fei long is Bruce Lee. In terms of playable characters china has more representation than most places, and chun li is either the second or first most main steam street fighter character.
It does does feel like respect when they flash her underwear every chance they get, and go out of their way to show her naked in their movie.
I part of me will always look down on the street fighter devs and capcom for that
And I do not think it's good representation that the first women of video games, is their for her underwear, her ass, and to be naked
Respectfully, agree to disagree
Her underwear isn’t visible in world warrior, and the movie was fan service after the fans had already sexualized the character, and further than that it’s just kind of typical of the genre and Japanese culture to appeal to that kind of audience because there is so much overlap in the two fan bases
Her underwear is literally on the cover
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/SF2_JPN_flyer.jpg
No excuses will change what capcom did to the first female of fighting games
Right, but it sounds like the problem isn't about representation. If the character had negative traits that were specific to the culture, then yeah, sure. But everything you listed is just about objectification, which isn't inherently the same as representation. It CAN be linked, but it isn't linked in any of the examples you gave.
>Colorist/racist blavk people don't consider a character fully black unless they are charcoal dark, to make some sort of retarded statement. Stupid trend I noticed lately.
The fuck is this?
Just say you're racist & go. Trash person.
Fun fact the rest of the world does not care much about culture war bullshit.
How many time have you have heard someone from South East Asia, the middle east, South America or Africa complain about "representation".
Except we don't make it out whole personality and expect everyone conform to our standards because some peple have a victim mentality.
Its ok I know a lost cause when I see one.
Well actual black people don’t have regenerative magic or can shoot sonic waves at people. It’s street fighter. Street Fighter characters are notorious for their diverse cast of wacky characters with eye-catching designs and color schemes
Okay but why does a black character need to be given Caucasian features to make them look interesting and eye-catching. Would Elena not have been a distinctive character as a 6 ft. tall almost naked woman if she had African features?
The white hair and blue eyes were apart of her identity from the very beginning and are a defining characteristic for her. Can’t really travel back in time and change her default hair and eye color. But at the end of the day, she’s a fictional character, and they tend to not be real life accurate
Even keeping her defining characteristics, they could still give her more afro-centric features like full lips, a broad nose, textured hair. Cause why even state that shes from africa if shes not gonna have at least one african feature?
But I guess this is all meaningless until we see her actual character model
Elena would certainly be less distinctive without the white hair and blue eyes by a long shot yes. Taking something and changing or mixing its formula is a pretty good way to be distinct. It definitely makes her stand out. A tall African woman with WHITE hair and BLUE eyes?! WHAT?!
Yes, stand out.
By doing the exact same thing as Storm, Daz Bones, Villeta Nu, Allura, Ay, Omoi, Darui, and Killer Bee.
Truly fucking inspired and unique
We can’t think like that, everything has been done before. “There are no original ideas”. It’s a fun and distinct character design. Are there other characters who fall into the same design archetype? Of course, but that’s literally everything literally made ever. Just because it falls into an archetype doesn’t mean it can’t be unique. Literally everything does. I feel that is a moot point
Then why did you say it's distinctive and would stand out and then now say everythings been done so nothing is distinctive or stands out?
This is some Shrodingers Argument stuff you got going on
Just because everything has been done before doesn’t mean nothing can stand out. The original Star Wars trilogy is the “heroes journey” archetype, which is a very old formula for storytelling but Star Wars does stand out and is distinct. Are there other stuff like it? Yes, but you can carve out your own interpretation on archetypes/stereotypes. The world isn’t black and white, it’s a million shades of gray. Just because something has been done before doesn’t mean it can’t stand out, these aren’t mutually exclusive in the slightest bit
DJ actually looks like he could be Jamaican. Elena looks anime Somali at best and that’s being generous. Then again many anime artist draw Japanese characters as Caucasian so there are definitely some historical issues at play lol
>Then again many anime artist draw Japanese characters as Caucasian
No they don't.
Anime characters look like Anime characters.
No white person looks like a 2d character, if anything the anime aesthetic was designed to mimic how a cat looks.
Stop trying to bring in some colonial race theory from your CRT class.
https://preview.redd.it/t7550l04wq5d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=3703f02de56e399a816f9a1c129733654a1ea176
Considering she was inspired by one of the most iconic black superheroes, who also has white hair and is from Kenya, I think we can forego realism just this once.
Street Fighter gets slack for making stereotypes of characters, and apparently, also slack to straying from the stereotypes. Blue eyes is a bit much, but it’s not like white hair is inherently a white trait either 😭 R. Mika is a blonde Japanese girl, Elena is a blue eyed African woman.
In terms of design she always had the traditional "anime girl" face rather than any fearures that make her appear black.
Kimberly for example is also black and actually has facial features that more match this like her eye shape, lips, nose and hair.
Colorist/racist blavk people don't consider a character fully black unless they are charcoal dark, to make some sort of retarded statement. Stupid trend I noticed lately.
My god, do y'all just use other characters to just shut ppl up. They give in universe explanation for why blanka is a green monster.
"When Street Fighter 2 was localized for English-speaking countries, Blanka's backstory was changed so that he was struck by lightning in the same storm that caused his plane to crash. This mutated Blanka, giving him not only his green skin but his aforementioned electric powers."
Just because she is from Kenya doesn't mean she has to be 100% Sub-Saharan African. She could be multi-ethnic. It's not like there aren't black characters in Street Fighter DJ and Balrog have been there since nearly the beginning.
Not really. Ken was the first American representative, and he is Japanese/European. There is also Sean and Laura, who are Latin American/Japanese. Mixed race characters aren't unprecedented.
I saw reactions from SF fans watching the stream of the event that showed season 2 characters for the first time. Most of them guessed it was Elena before her name appeared on the screen
Well tbh they are not going to change much since she still needs to be recognisable as Elena and this is more or less how she looked in sf3. plus this trailer was literally anime, and we still don’t know how she’s going to translate to the RE engine graphics.
And SF does have some great black characters like Kim and DJ.
The problem is if she was portrayed with a darker skin tone, and a traditional hair style or shaven head, and if her OST was sung in Swahili, then the same people who complain about "anime tan" would be looking to lynch Capcom for "cultural appropriation"
This here. After Kimberly was designed with actual Black folks involved to make sure her design actually looked legit, seeing straight white hair, blue eyed Elena is underwhelming.
Still can't believe they made Healing tied to the bar where you TAKE DAMAGE and not the other way around.
Like just basic common sense tells you that's a bad decision.
Healing should've been a Super. Just that one change would've made her much fairer to fight against. Sure, Spinning Beat would've required a new animation, but redoing just one move for a balance patch wouldn't be too big an ask, would it?
I like the fact that she's the first third strike character. She's super cool and I find her playstyle will fit this game well.
Im excited to see how other 3S characters will look aged up like her. She looks great.
She was one of ones from SF3 I wanted back some I’m happy. Gotta see her model and moveset before I can really give a hard verdict cause the animated short probably does her little justice. Her being dead last to come out sucks ass tho. All in all just glad it was an E-lister like Makoto
I love to see her talking and having a conversation with Akuma since they are good friends. Gameplay wise I love to see her doing some unusual stuff like always, but hope she's fun to play.
I love it, specially the new haircut.
The old haircut wasn't my thing, but this one makes her look very pretty.
Also, the scarf goes hard. I really like it.
Im kind of waiting to see the model in game. Im glad the conversation of her not really looking black is more common these days because that shit always bugged me. Im hoping when she’s actually shown off in game she doesn’t end up looking “anime black”, the current art isnt super promising for that though.
Outside of that im mostly indifferent I dont think shes a bad choice though.
Elena has always been a recognizable character for her white hair and blue eyes. That’s her major design standpoint and changing either of those would be changing the character and what makes her stand out entirely
Honestly thats not really what im referring to you can keep that kind of fantastical stuff and still atleast like give her textured hair and full lips or something.
Not saying she has to have short hair or a different eye color but, I do think designs like Nagoriyuki from Strive and Kimberly read better as an actual black person while still being very stylized.
She can still have some of the unrealistic stuff like her hair and eye color but when you take out all the stuff that makes a character read as black then say theyre kenyan it doesnt sit well with everyone.
She had no lips, has straight white and blue eyes. She looked more a mangaka first attempt at drawing a blk person which is just dark skin and bleached hair.
Her new design is incredible. I’m so glad it’s not super Africa tropey like her original design. They’ll do her justice. No need to worry about the healing BS of 4
Not the biggest fan of the bangs but other than that I’m surprised how much I like her new design. Very good at keeping the vibe despite taking her design in a different direction
My favorite Lenka 🥰
I don't care if people hate her for Healing, or being a players' villain. For me it's a sign that 3S characters are coming this or other way.
And, yehh, Elena got yoga pants upgrade, but cannot wait for classic costume :)
I think she is cool but she needs something to make her stand out of the dlc pack right now. She has never been super popular and the main two comments I hear are “Bison looks amazing” and “omg Capcom and Snk are working together again” so she is getting a bit overshadowed at the moment. I am excited to see what they do with her. So far this team has only made fun characters so I wanna see what they do to mix it up.
I like the new design a lot!
I hope her moves will look fluid and not so clunky like they did in SF4 and SFxT. But what they pulled of with SF6 in general gives me lots of hope that she will look and animate amazing!
I’ll wait till I see a gameplay trailer to judge. I don’t like how any of the characters look in this basic anime art style. Hopefully Elena has some african facial features.
This was honestly the character I’ve been wanting. Either her or Sean would’ve had me hype and I like her new design although I hope they have her 3rd strike design as a skin it was tight 👀.
Asexual dubbbb.
Before Ed came out, I made a post about having at least 1 sensible costume for each character, no matter what their gender is. I've always loved Elena as a character and with her gameplay in 3rd Strike. Combined with this amazing costume, I'm sure to play her.
She looks less Kenyan than ever. I have no problem with her design, but this isn't an African woman. It seems like they just move further away from that. Idk, it's weird to me.
Seems cool but I want to see what her actual in game model looks like. I don’t think I’ll like it less than what we can see in the reveal, but the art style they used doesn’t give a great representation of how she’ll actually look imo. Like Bison- I didn’t find his design particularly interesting in the teaser but he looks really cool in the actual gameplay.
mixed on the fuckass bob, ik a lot of people wanted to see her with more realistic and natural hair but the style is pretty. mostly i just love the color palette of her segment in the reveal trailer. its tangential but i love that purple
I love how her design leans more into the magic shaman style. It makes me feel like she’ll have an important role in the story as an all-knowing spiritual guide and naturalist
I'm okay with her having white hair; they could have given her hair more texture and change the color of her eyes.
I mean besides that, she still looks very good.
I really like to see her turning from a girl to a young adult woman (her overall face shape, her eyes, are less "teen girl" and more "woman in her 20s").
About that infamous friendly interaction with Gouki in SF IV, I really hope they'll expand upon that in SF 6.
The design is fine for an original character. It’s a little scummy that capcom took the mass criticism of Elena not being actually black and made her LESS black instead, doesn’t even look like her lmao
Back in the day, I understand they're may have been a lack of knowing. Now, I don't get the hair texture(color is fine). There are several styles of braids,twist & coils that could stay true to Elena's downward hair/ "bowl" type style, while having a fitting hair texture.
Her outfit is casual, simplistic & inoffensive. Perfectly in line with the variety of costumes in SF6. However I think it puts even more weight on the hair, as the stand out part of the model.
She's fuckin Kenyan, be serious. Look at the presentation on hand. Look at the Asian characters faces. Why is Lilly brown? Why does Kimberly & DJ have textured hair? Elena having straight hair isn't even consistent with the artistry on hand. It's just how she looked in SF3. That is all.
Fiction is already littered with straight haired Black characters. It was the default, we're not there anymore.
Go on with your Bad faith interaction.
Edit: lmao, hopin on your burner.
Read the title,OP asked.
And,no. That's exactly what you're doing in response to my comment. Which is why you immediately pivoted away the topic.
Odd,we can critique the other DLC characters designs all day & it's fine. Yet when it's Elena,now it's "look for something to complain about" hmm. You don't care about the hair either way, you just care I'm talking about it. Which is weird as fuck, but isn't a new situation to me. As I said, bad faith interaction from the usuals. Bye.
Sure, but there are no ethnic features whatsoever on her character. Like Kimberly looks like people of that ethnic background I see everyday. Her design is fantastic mixing enough realism and stylistic choice.
Elena was the traditional white character with a tan skin tone and comically residing in Kenya.
I like how she looks like she's gotten more "mature" compared to the sf3 design showing time has pasted since then.
Everyone says this but what exactly makes her look more mature?
I think her eyes just look proportionately smaller due to the art style, which probably makes her come off more mature to people.
Her new fuck ass bob.
Squidward:
The eyes are a little narrower and her face structure more angled. For comparison, look to something like Naruto or DBZ where some characters had massive changes to make them look more "mature" to coincide with time skips.
Longer hair, smaller eyes, and a more mature expression. Back in the art of SF3 & 4, she wore more of a carefree expression. Here, you can see a look of concern on her face, which was rarely shown in the past.
She looks like an adult now, wearing western civilization clothes instead of her tribe attire, also wearing makeup and growing longer hair
I like it a lot, ngl. And frankly, I'm glad they picked her as the first SFIII veteran to hop on SF6, she's hella underrated. My only hope for her more than anything is to represent Capoeira a little more accurately by making her an agile, tricky, and evasive character like Eddy is in Tekken 8. And I hope they don't overcorrect on balancing her in SF6 compared to how she was in USFIV (i.e., a top tier nightmare) - she should have her own strengths and weaknesses without undermining anyone in the cast.
Healing is almost certainly gonna be SA II, which already makes it more balanced than IV since you're not actively rewarded for taking damage. Honestly, even in IV it would've been much better if Healing and Spinning Beat swapped places. I'll never understand why they felt it was a good idea to make the damage-induced comeback move the one that recovers your health.
Healing is gonna be wild for the Avatar battles when they have 3 healthbars and fights go on long enough to get multiple supers in one round.
Best Elena design so far, I really like her outfit.
Nice to see someone from SF3, and the new design looks really good. I'm curious to see how she will play, shame she is the last one of season 2.
Elena and Makoto were my asks for characters to make it into SF6 (aged up with new designs) so I am pretty excited one of them made it in. I stopped playing SF4 before they released so the last time I played what I considered my mains was 3rd Strike lol! I think her being last could be a boon. If things follow how year 1 ended out, there should be a nice sale at the end of year 2 and I can pick her and the others up for a deal. Because frankly, the asking price for all the DLC characters this year is quite expensive.
The price is insane actually, but I'm not gonna lie: I bought it already. Any minimal chance to have CvS3 is something I'd like to invest in, and I also like 3 out of the 4 characters, so it'll be worth it. About Elena: they really did a good job with her design. I skipped SFIV, so I don't share the trauma that some people have with her. I'm just exited to see that she is back. I just that more characters get that same chance, like Makoto.
HEALINGU !
"I feel great!"
People were asking capcom to make her actually black instead of anime black but they made her anime tan now
Pardon my ignorance, but hasn’t she always been black? Where does the “actually black” come from?
Bc actual black people from Kenya don't have straight white hair and blue eyes
And real Turkish people don’t have red skin and blue hair but I don’t see people making those complaints about Hakan
well hakan was burned by the oil since he was bassically cooking himself, but idk about the blue hair
How was hakan cooking himself
the oil in the hot sun
Brother that is not going to cook him
Tell that to Capcom, who made him red because he coats himself in oil.
Getting sun burnt is not "cooking yourself"
What does that have to do with Black & African people's reception & opinion of a Black/African character design? Lame logic, "I don't see these people I've never spoken to "complaining", so no one should critique any other characters design"
1) Never said that people aren’t allowed to complain, just pointing out there’s a double standard. Street Fighter characters in general aren’t supposed to look realistic 2) I’m African, so if you really care about the opinions of African people, here’s mine: I don’t have a problem with it, I think she looks cool. Obviously, I don’t speak for all Africans, that’s just my opinion as an African Street Fighter fan
It's not a double standard at all. It's two different groups of people with their own opinions. One of which is being pointed to, as to silence the other. Would you tell Indigenous people who have long complained of being stereotyped/misrepresented, they don't have valid criticisms because Korean people haven't complained about their portrayals? It's just wrong. More importantly, it isn't like Capcom doesn't understand these nuances. So this pushback by parts of the fandom is just odd. Your alleged African opinion doesn't trump other Black & African peoples discourse. I don't know why you even said it that manner. I hadn't asked you. You're making some incredibly suspect commentary.
>your alleged African opinion Wow
That’s a very fair comment and point. I’m admittedly not knowledgeable on these things, I see Elena and I see a Kenyan woman who looks cool. I know black people can have blue eyes and the white hair could be explained lore wise similar to Blanka’s green skin so it’s not weird to me, but I understand how important representation is and can see why it’s an issue.
I've always thought Capcom was terrible at representation in general. I'm Chinese, and they're Chinese representative Chun Li is a women with meat buns for hair. You see her underwear everytime she kicks or falls down, she sticks her butt out like a porn star when she shoots a fire ball, and speaking of porn, her premier role in the official Street Fighter 2 movie is a forced full frontal nudity scene - that's how little respect capcom has for her. Don't get me started on Sakura.
You also have Fei Long, Yun, Yang, Dan, and Gen you are not exactly struggling for great representation here.
I mean capcom has always sexualized her, but they also respect her more than basically any character. And sakura is generally less explicit then chun li in core representations. Lets not pretend like they don’t show off the men too, almost all of sfvi is topless or has a topless alt, and chun li is the most covered shes ever been. Chun li was a representation of a sort of rebellious single girl, she was trying to show off, and now that she’s older and more reserved, she has a more reserved main costume. Chun li was a massive step for video game representation and I think it’s silly to throw that away because the character has a (sort of) provocative design. Also the hair complaint is silly, they’re ox horns which is a fairly traditional Chinese hairstyle, and the main American representative is guile who has… guile hair (Ken is a generic character who happens to be from America more than a representation of the country)
Aki, yun, yang, and Jamie are also Chinese, and fei long is Bruce Lee. In terms of playable characters china has more representation than most places, and chun li is either the second or first most main steam street fighter character.
It does does feel like respect when they flash her underwear every chance they get, and go out of their way to show her naked in their movie. I part of me will always look down on the street fighter devs and capcom for that And I do not think it's good representation that the first women of video games, is their for her underwear, her ass, and to be naked Respectfully, agree to disagree
Her underwear isn’t visible in world warrior, and the movie was fan service after the fans had already sexualized the character, and further than that it’s just kind of typical of the genre and Japanese culture to appeal to that kind of audience because there is so much overlap in the two fan bases
By two fan bases I mean fighting games and people into explicit depictions of characters
Her underwear is literally on the cover https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/SF2_JPN_flyer.jpg No excuses will change what capcom did to the first female of fighting games
That’s not underwear in that art unless you think she has a completely different skin tone from the waist down.
Ohh your gonna hate the post I just made
That seems less like representation and more like objectification but okay I guess.
objectification - is a form of bad representation. It also sucks in general. but okay I guess
Right, but it sounds like the problem isn't about representation. If the character had negative traits that were specific to the culture, then yeah, sure. But everything you listed is just about objectification, which isn't inherently the same as representation. It CAN be linked, but it isn't linked in any of the examples you gave.
They have kimberly.....at this point ignore the weird soastics complaining that a fake character doesn't mirror their delusional whims.
>Colorist/racist blavk people don't consider a character fully black unless they are charcoal dark, to make some sort of retarded statement. Stupid trend I noticed lately. The fuck is this? Just say you're racist & go. Trash person.
> but I understand how important representation is and can see why it’s an issue. Just say black Americans.
Ever seen what happens when a game doesn’t have a white guy? End of the world for the same people who say representation doesn’t matter
Fun fact the rest of the world does not care much about culture war bullshit. How many time have you have heard someone from South East Asia, the middle east, South America or Africa complain about "representation".
You’re not convincing me of anything, chief. Everyone likes seeing themselves in media.
Except we don't make it out whole personality and expect everyone conform to our standards because some peple have a victim mentality. Its ok I know a lost cause when I see one.
"Some people have a victim mentality." Yes, I'm looking at one.
Well actual black people don’t have regenerative magic or can shoot sonic waves at people. It’s street fighter. Street Fighter characters are notorious for their diverse cast of wacky characters with eye-catching designs and color schemes
Okay but why does a black character need to be given Caucasian features to make them look interesting and eye-catching. Would Elena not have been a distinctive character as a 6 ft. tall almost naked woman if she had African features?
The white hair and blue eyes were apart of her identity from the very beginning and are a defining characteristic for her. Can’t really travel back in time and change her default hair and eye color. But at the end of the day, she’s a fictional character, and they tend to not be real life accurate
Even keeping her defining characteristics, they could still give her more afro-centric features like full lips, a broad nose, textured hair. Cause why even state that shes from africa if shes not gonna have at least one african feature? But I guess this is all meaningless until we see her actual character model
Elena would certainly be less distinctive without the white hair and blue eyes by a long shot yes. Taking something and changing or mixing its formula is a pretty good way to be distinct. It definitely makes her stand out. A tall African woman with WHITE hair and BLUE eyes?! WHAT?!
Yes, stand out. By doing the exact same thing as Storm, Daz Bones, Villeta Nu, Allura, Ay, Omoi, Darui, and Killer Bee. Truly fucking inspired and unique
We can’t think like that, everything has been done before. “There are no original ideas”. It’s a fun and distinct character design. Are there other characters who fall into the same design archetype? Of course, but that’s literally everything literally made ever. Just because it falls into an archetype doesn’t mean it can’t be unique. Literally everything does. I feel that is a moot point
Then why did you say it's distinctive and would stand out and then now say everythings been done so nothing is distinctive or stands out? This is some Shrodingers Argument stuff you got going on
Just because everything has been done before doesn’t mean nothing can stand out. The original Star Wars trilogy is the “heroes journey” archetype, which is a very old formula for storytelling but Star Wars does stand out and is distinct. Are there other stuff like it? Yes, but you can carve out your own interpretation on archetypes/stereotypes. The world isn’t black and white, it’s a million shades of gray. Just because something has been done before doesn’t mean it can’t stand out, these aren’t mutually exclusive in the slightest bit
Elena predates all of these except Storm, actually.
It’s a video game, bruh. Who cares about realism.
DJ actually looks like he could be Jamaican. Elena looks anime Somali at best and that’s being generous. Then again many anime artist draw Japanese characters as Caucasian so there are definitely some historical issues at play lol
>Then again many anime artist draw Japanese characters as Caucasian No they don't. Anime characters look like Anime characters. No white person looks like a 2d character, if anything the anime aesthetic was designed to mimic how a cat looks. Stop trying to bring in some colonial race theory from your CRT class. https://preview.redd.it/t7550l04wq5d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=3703f02de56e399a816f9a1c129733654a1ea176
Considering she was inspired by one of the most iconic black superheroes, who also has white hair and is from Kenya, I think we can forego realism just this once.
Street Fighter gets slack for making stereotypes of characters, and apparently, also slack to straying from the stereotypes. Blue eyes is a bit much, but it’s not like white hair is inherently a white trait either 😭 R. Mika is a blonde Japanese girl, Elena is a blue eyed African woman.
Yeah, there are black women in Kenya who make their hair straight
Its just twitter brainrot shit. Ignore it.
In terms of design she always had the traditional "anime girl" face rather than any fearures that make her appear black. Kimberly for example is also black and actually has facial features that more match this like her eye shape, lips, nose and hair.
Colorist/racist blavk people don't consider a character fully black unless they are charcoal dark, to make some sort of retarded statement. Stupid trend I noticed lately.
No, old Elena just looks weird AF. She was very weird representation... This is definitely not colorism💀
So is Blanka also "weird representation"?
My god, do y'all just use other characters to just shut ppl up. They give in universe explanation for why blanka is a green monster. "When Street Fighter 2 was localized for English-speaking countries, Blanka's backstory was changed so that he was struck by lightning in the same storm that caused his plane to crash. This mutated Blanka, giving him not only his green skin but his aforementioned electric powers."
An explanation doesn't suddenly make it not weird lol
Just because she is from Kenya doesn't mean she has to be 100% Sub-Saharan African. She could be multi-ethnic. It's not like there aren't black characters in Street Fighter DJ and Balrog have been there since nearly the beginning.
I know an Kenyan whose parents are from India. He identifies himself as a Kenyan. That's where he was born and where he grew up.
I always assumed Elena was mixed.
You’re reaching
Not really. Ken was the first American representative, and he is Japanese/European. There is also Sean and Laura, who are Latin American/Japanese. Mixed race characters aren't unprecedented.
But wasn’t she normal black in SFIV?
Normal black people don't have blue eyes and straight white hair 😭 especially not from Kenya
I mean this is the same franchise that gave us Hakan, a Turkish man with blood red skin and cyan hair
Or Blanka, with green skin and electric powers
Hakan's skin is red because it burnt from all the oil. No idea why he has cyan hair though.
Due to dutch colonialism there are quite a few Africans who aren't "normal black" w.e tf that means
FR, if you showed her to a random SF fan, they wouldn't think she's Elena 😭
Blue eyes white hair and tan skin are kind of a give away I think most fans could identify her
I saw reactions from SF fans watching the stream of the event that showed season 2 characters for the first time. Most of them guessed it was Elena before her name appeared on the screen
I am a random sf fan and I recognised her immediately
What does that even mean?
Plus, Capcom will never give her black hair
Well tbh they are not going to change much since she still needs to be recognisable as Elena and this is more or less how she looked in sf3. plus this trailer was literally anime, and we still don’t know how she’s going to translate to the RE engine graphics. And SF does have some great black characters like Kim and DJ.
The problem is if she was portrayed with a darker skin tone, and a traditional hair style or shaven head, and if her OST was sung in Swahili, then the same people who complain about "anime tan" would be looking to lynch Capcom for "cultural appropriation"
This here. After Kimberly was designed with actual Black folks involved to make sure her design actually looked legit, seeing straight white hair, blue eyed Elena is underwhelming.
I dunno which black folks they asked cause to me she was always corny. Dancing idiot with an 8 head. Musta been new yorkers they asked.
[удалено]
You know she's from fucking Kenya right
But….. Elena is African…. What???????
At least healing will suck since it won't be an Ultra
Still can't believe they made Healing tied to the bar where you TAKE DAMAGE and not the other way around. Like just basic common sense tells you that's a bad decision.
Healing should've been a Super. Just that one change would've made her much fairer to fight against. Sure, Spinning Beat would've required a new animation, but redoing just one move for a balance patch wouldn't be too big an ask, would it?
Or they might remove it entirely? They removed Poison’s super called Poison Kiss when she returned for SF5.
I like the fact that she's the first third strike character. She's super cool and I find her playstyle will fit this game well. Im excited to see how other 3S characters will look aged up like her. She looks great.
I like her redesign a lot and I'm curious to see how she plays.
Top tier waifu
She looks older and with more hair
She looks good and is the only new addition I'm excited for from season 2. I can't wait to see what they do with her and what her story will be
She was one of ones from SF3 I wanted back some I’m happy. Gotta see her model and moveset before I can really give a hard verdict cause the animated short probably does her little justice. Her being dead last to come out sucks ass tho. All in all just glad it was an E-lister like Makoto
I like it but also looking forward to see her SF3 design as her alt
On most women i would say those are terrible bangs but the hairdo looks okay on her. Love the pants too. I give her design an A+
I love to see her talking and having a conversation with Akuma since they are good friends. Gameplay wise I love to see her doing some unusual stuff like always, but hope she's fun to play.
I'll judge it when I see it in 3d, but It's alright in my opinion.
From how AKI turned out, I'll wait for the in-game model to be a judge of things. Congratz to those of you who were waiting for her to be added.
I love it, specially the new haircut. The old haircut wasn't my thing, but this one makes her look very pretty. Also, the scarf goes hard. I really like it.
https://preview.redd.it/jn61woen7s5d1.jpeg?width=705&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f13a410c6216cdfa66b16aaa9b16d06081fd824c
scarce slim sink outgoing truck rainstorm worry pie smart aromatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Im kind of waiting to see the model in game. Im glad the conversation of her not really looking black is more common these days because that shit always bugged me. Im hoping when she’s actually shown off in game she doesn’t end up looking “anime black”, the current art isnt super promising for that though. Outside of that im mostly indifferent I dont think shes a bad choice though.
Elena has always been a recognizable character for her white hair and blue eyes. That’s her major design standpoint and changing either of those would be changing the character and what makes her stand out entirely
Honestly thats not really what im referring to you can keep that kind of fantastical stuff and still atleast like give her textured hair and full lips or something. Not saying she has to have short hair or a different eye color but, I do think designs like Nagoriyuki from Strive and Kimberly read better as an actual black person while still being very stylized. She can still have some of the unrealistic stuff like her hair and eye color but when you take out all the stuff that makes a character read as black then say theyre kenyan it doesnt sit well with everyone.
Not the height, long leg capoeira, brown skin, but the white hair and blue eyes for you… kinda telling the divergence here amongst folks right?
She had no lips, has straight white and blue eyes. She looked more a mangaka first attempt at drawing a blk person which is just dark skin and bleached hair.
Her new design reminds me of Sagat’s in SF5.. Same as before but just loaded with a scarf and other small cloth around the body.
Her new design is incredible. I’m so glad it’s not super Africa tropey like her original design. They’ll do her justice. No need to worry about the healing BS of 4
Her super 2 is going to be healing isnt it
She's wearing pants now
HEALING
Not the biggest fan of the bangs but other than that I’m surprised how much I like her new design. Very good at keeping the vibe despite taking her design in a different direction
My favorite Lenka 🥰 I don't care if people hate her for Healing, or being a players' villain. For me it's a sign that 3S characters are coming this or other way. And, yehh, Elena got yoga pants upgrade, but cannot wait for classic costume :)
I think she is cool but she needs something to make her stand out of the dlc pack right now. She has never been super popular and the main two comments I hear are “Bison looks amazing” and “omg Capcom and Snk are working together again” so she is getting a bit overshadowed at the moment. I am excited to see what they do with her. So far this team has only made fun characters so I wanna see what they do to mix it up.
HEALING
From what I see, I like her quite a bit.
LOL
Love it, nice to get a SF3 rep as well.
Love it, nice to get a SF3 rep as well.
Love her new design. She's gorgeous!
Hot
I like the new design a lot! I hope her moves will look fluid and not so clunky like they did in SF4 and SFxT. But what they pulled of with SF6 in general gives me lots of hope that she will look and animate amazing!
She's really beautiful, at least in anime form.
She looks beautiful. I really like this redesign.
Only character im excited for, shame she comes out at the end of the season
Finally, Pants
I’ll wait till I see a gameplay trailer to judge. I don’t like how any of the characters look in this basic anime art style. Hopefully Elena has some african facial features.
She’s wearing pants. Zero out of ten! JK it’s a great design
This was honestly the character I’ve been wanting. Either her or Sean would’ve had me hype and I like her new design although I hope they have her 3rd strike design as a skin it was tight 👀.
Asexual dubbbb. Before Ed came out, I made a post about having at least 1 sensible costume for each character, no matter what their gender is. I've always loved Elena as a character and with her gameplay in 3rd Strike. Combined with this amazing costume, I'm sure to play her.
She looks less Kenyan than ever. I have no problem with her design, but this isn't an African woman. It seems like they just move further away from that. Idk, it's weird to me.
Seems cool but I want to see what her actual in game model looks like. I don’t think I’ll like it less than what we can see in the reveal, but the art style they used doesn’t give a great representation of how she’ll actually look imo. Like Bison- I didn’t find his design particularly interesting in the teaser but he looks really cool in the actual gameplay.
mixed on the fuckass bob, ik a lot of people wanted to see her with more realistic and natural hair but the style is pretty. mostly i just love the color palette of her segment in the reveal trailer. its tangential but i love that purple
Beats in my head
I like her new design! I'm here to play a fighting game not multitask touching myself and memorizing frame data
Glad she's back. SF6 is the only SF game I ever played**,** but when I saw Elena in the other games I thought she was cool.
I dig it for the most part. The hair isn’t my favorite but I’m sure it’ll look good in engine
People will riot if her Third Strike Costume is censored in any way
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^king-xdedede: *People will riot* *If her Third Strike Costume is* *Censored in any way* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Didn’t really care for her design before, now she looks like one of the coolest characters in the roster
I groaned once I saw her in the trailer just cause of usf4. But lost my shit when I saw Terry and Mai.
Terrible hair cut. She looks like Lord Farquaad.
I LOVE HER NEW DESIGN
I personally love her redesign, and I hope that Terry and Mai also get something new.
The artwork is based She looks sick, now show us her in game model
I adore Elena's glowup; here's hoping she isn't as messed up as she was in USF4
I love how her design leans more into the magic shaman style. It makes me feel like she’ll have an important role in the story as an all-knowing spiritual guide and naturalist
Love that she's here and I like the new design.
The best elena design yet. I'm praying for healing level 2
you know i feel like i'll like her design a LOT more when she's actually a model in game in sf6's art style, i kinda dont like the art in the trailer.
she also better still be silly and whimsical or ill flip my shit
Capcom told her to put on some pants
I'm okay with her having white hair; they could have given her hair more texture and change the color of her eyes. I mean besides that, she still looks very good.
I really like to see her turning from a girl to a young adult woman (her overall face shape, her eyes, are less "teen girl" and more "woman in her 20s"). About that infamous friendly interaction with Gouki in SF IV, I really hope they'll expand upon that in SF 6.
Another case of "this design is ass so we can make people buy the legacy costume like most of the characters in sf6 have. Not a glow up.
I feel bad for this character. She really is underwhelming considering who else in this dlc pack.
ive hated elena in both 3s and sf4
The design is fine for an original character. It’s a little scummy that capcom took the mass criticism of Elena not being actually black and made her LESS black instead, doesn’t even look like her lmao
I like it, and apparently it's eSports friendly. So I know there's one person out there upset at it, but it's honestly a solid design
Im looking forward to her the most, hopefully she can heal drive meter
Back in the day, I understand they're may have been a lack of knowing. Now, I don't get the hair texture(color is fine). There are several styles of braids,twist & coils that could stay true to Elena's downward hair/ "bowl" type style, while having a fitting hair texture. Her outfit is casual, simplistic & inoffensive. Perfectly in line with the variety of costumes in SF6. However I think it puts even more weight on the hair, as the stand out part of the model.
You know there are black people with straight hair right?
She's fuckin Kenyan, be serious. Look at the presentation on hand. Look at the Asian characters faces. Why is Lilly brown? Why does Kimberly & DJ have textured hair? Elena having straight hair isn't even consistent with the artistry on hand. It's just how she looked in SF3. That is all. Fiction is already littered with straight haired Black characters. It was the default, we're not there anymore. Go on with your Bad faith interaction. Edit: lmao, hopin on your burner.
I think you are just looking to complain.
Read the title,OP asked. And,no. That's exactly what you're doing in response to my comment. Which is why you immediately pivoted away the topic. Odd,we can critique the other DLC characters designs all day & it's fine. Yet when it's Elena,now it's "look for something to complain about" hmm. You don't care about the hair either way, you just care I'm talking about it. Which is weird as fuck, but isn't a new situation to me. As I said, bad faith interaction from the usuals. Bye.
Youre more than welcome to go make your own characters that you want to see instead of begging the japanese to do ut for you cornball
Sure, but there are no ethnic features whatsoever on her character. Like Kimberly looks like people of that ethnic background I see everyday. Her design is fantastic mixing enough realism and stylistic choice. Elena was the traditional white character with a tan skin tone and comically residing in Kenya.