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[Tizoc]

Mike Bison
That's the name of Boxer in Japan, and to make it more asinine, this is his portrait in the CPS1 SF2 games

Granted they trimmed down the Mike Tyson resemblance in later appearances, but why and how the hell did they think it was OK to name a character like that?

I know that 80s Japanese video games had lots of 'borrowing' from popular movies and featuring real life actor portraits in them, like this from Metal Gear 2 (which isn't the only game where Kojima's Western Fanwanking is apparent)

But how in the seven hells did they agreed to settle on that name and even go so far as to have his portrait look VERY identical to Mike Tyson?

At least this (excellent) fan video does a nice job of making the names flux well together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9KvRDaIpbs

Also kickass Boxer art I copy pasta-ed from Fightersgeneration cuz they are awesome artwork

...but naw seriously, did they look at Punch Out NES and think the too would get a free pass?

 

[entremet]

Tyson was an international sensation in his prime.

It wasn't about copying the NES game

 

[Strangelove77]

They probably just didn't give a fuck.

 

[Warxard]

Most Japanese game developers probably haven't seen enough black people to make a good black character

...then again that isn't exclusive to Japan devs

 

[Saikyo]

They simply didnt knew that sf2 could be suceful and they know they could be sued because of the american version. So they just swapped the names and called it a day...and sf2 was a sucess.

 

[NeonZ]

Well, Street Fighter I had "Mike" and they ran into no problems with him, so I guess they felt there would be no problem making an even more obvious reference.

 

[Nirolak]

Well, two notes.

The first is that video games weren't exactly huge attention getters in that era. When you have a small medium, there's much less scrutiny on doing things like this.

Secondly, if you set your game up as a parody, you can still do this. See Broforce, which instead of generating lawsuits, got the developer a contract to make an advergame for The Expendables.

 

[Warxard]

Well, Street Fighter I had "Mike" and they ran into no problems with him, so I guess they felt there would be no problem to make an even more obvious reference.

SF1 was ass and you could only play as Ryu, no one cared at the time

 

[Phediuk]

It's a Japanese game; they didn't care and probably weren't even aware of the potential legal problems until the American branch requested the changes.

 

[Tizoc]

They simply didnt knew that sf2 could be suceful and they didnt they could be sued because of the american version. So they just swapped the names and called it a day...and sf2 was a sucess.

True but even still there is way too much resemblance for it not to be noticed.
Furthermore, the character remains being called Mike Bison in later SF games.

 

[entremet]

I love that his moves still echo the original name. Buffalo head butt for example.

 

[ciddative]

What exactly are you asking? Is it cool? Is it legal?

They used a famous guy for publicity in their video game, changed the name slightly to avoid being sued.

It's fine, it's an interesting wrinkle in SF history.

 

[Tizoc]

Well, two notes.

The first is that video games weren't exactly huge attention getters in that era. When you have a small medium, there's much less scrutiny on doing things like this.

Umm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_City_Studios,_Inc._v._Nintendo_Co.,_Ltd.

Secondly, if you set your game up as a parody, you can still do this. See Broforce, which instead of generating lawsuits, got the developer a contract to make an advergame for The Expendables.

SF2 wasn't a parody though...in fact it doesn't seem like a parody far as I've seen >_>

 

[NeonZ]

SF1 was ass and you could only play as Ryu, no one cared at the time

Balrog originally wasn't playable in SF2 though. He was one of the four unplayable bosses. And, yes, obviously SF1 wasn't nearly as successful as SF2, but I don't think Capcom would know that while developing the game.

 

[JayEH]

Japanese are fairly lax when it comes to things like this. An example being from the manga Jojo's bizarre adventure where characters and stands are named after bands/songs. When it gets localized else where the names have to change but they have no issues in Japan.

 

[Stormblessed]

Perhaps you just have been exposed to this kind of parody (I still remember seeing Bored of the Rings in book stores), where characters often have names that are plays on the those of the source or else hew very close to them and are intended to be legally safe (if iffy) in evoking them.

 

[Tizoc]

Japanese are fairly lax when it comes to things like this. An example being from the manga Jojo's bizarre adventure where characters and stands are named after bands/songs. When it gets localized else where the names have to change but they have no issues in Japan.

I wonder if the only reason he got away with it for oh so friggin' long, is because JoJo wasn't very widespread outside Japan and a few European countries at the time XP

 

[Stallion Dan]

Was the other side of the world in a time with no internet, who was gonna notice?

 

[Vital Tundra]

I'm just glad they switched the names around. Vega and Bison are way better than Japan's Balrog and Vega.