Now before the SNK fans start to poke me with the pitchforks, let me just very quickly say I know
what the true inspirations are for characters like Robert Garcia, Takuma and Ryo Sakazaki; it is just
uncanny on how these similarities played out. With that out of the way... The Karate Kid films, with
the addition of Cobra Kai, are a staple of pop culture. While that might be the understatement
of the century, it's important to note that pieces of pop culture become so big that they are
referenced in other media. Enter Art of Fighting, a 1992 fighting game developed by SNK that served
as another answer to CAPCOM's massively popular Street Fighter II. What does a fighting game have
to do with the Karate Kid, you ask? Well, what if I told you that it's possible that the Karate Kid
could have inspired some of the elements of this game? Did The Karate Kid inspire Art of Fighting?
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Now for those of you who are familiar with my channel, more than likely you're
familiar with the basics of characters of those seen in Karate Kid and Cobra Kai,
but I'm going to treat this as a very short excerpt if you're new here, or have never seen
the Karate Kid films before, and if you guys want to skip, go to this timestamp or the next chapter.
The Karate Kid is about a teenager named Daniel LaRusso who, after moving to California,
has run-ins with a fellow high student named Johnny Lawrence, top student of the Cobra
Kai dojo. Daniel finds a father figure and karate teacher in maintenance man Mr. Miyagi,
and as he trains for his showdown with Johnny at the All-Valley tournament, Daniel learns important
life lessons through his training. Part II picks off right at the end of Karate Kid I where Daniel
defeats Johnny and 6 months later, accompanies Mr. Miyagi to his home in Okinawa to visit his elderly
father. Mr. Miyagi also runs into his childhood friend and rival, Sato who has a score to settle
with Mr. Miyagi, and they also meet his nephew Chozen, who ends up having issues with Daniel.
In the Karate Kid Part III, after returning from Okinawa, Daniel is unknowingly manipulated through
an elaborate plan of revenge by Terry Silver, war buddy of John Kreese, Johnny Lawrence's teacher,
and Daniel has to learn to fight through fear when facing off against karate protégé Mike Barnes.
Art of Fighting is a game where Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia,
two students of Kyokugenryu Karate, fight through the streets of South Town after Ryo's sister,
Yuri, is kidnapped. It is revealed that Mr. Big, under the orders of crime lord Geese Howard,
kidnapped Yuri in order to get Ryo and Yuri's father, Takuma Sakazaki, to cooperate.
The final fight comes down to, depending on who you play as, either Ryo or Robert fighting Takuma
dressed as his alter ego, Mr. Karate. Some notable features about the game is the introduction of
larger sprites to compete with games such as Street Fighter II at the time. Art of Fighting
also introduced the concept of the spirit gauge, where depending how full the bar was - this would
determine the effectiveness of a special move and if the character could perform it.
If you taunt your opponent, this would cause their spirit gauge to go down, and you could
charge your ki to raise your spirit gauge. I do have love for this game, simply because I
do enjoy the lore just a little more in the SNK games than I would in Capcom games, and Art of
Fighting has gone on to be relevant with elements appearing in games such as King of Fighters
as either cameos or references, so clearly it holds importance within the SNK universe.
Now with the introductions out of the way, let's go through some of the similarities I noticed in
this game growing up. At the time of my first play through, I had only seen Karate Kid Part
II at the time, with seeing Karate Kid Part III a few years after this. I always intrigued by so
many interesting similarities primarily between Part III and Art of Fighting 1. I'm going to talk
about the first one and get it out of the way, as it's fairly obvious – Robert Garcia and Terry
Silver. Now granted, I know that Robert was modeled after Andy Garcia and Steven Seagal,
and I don't know if SNK would ever admit that Art of Fighting took some inspiration from Karate Kid.
But, some of these similarities are hard to overlook. Physically of course,
there's the slicked back hair into the ponytail. One of the earliest scenes I went “oh yeah,
that's definitely Robert Garcia,” was when Mike Barnes threw Daniel out of the Cobra Kai dojo.
Some of the early artwork of Robert really reminds me of Terry Silver. In terms of character profile,
both are very wealthy, with Robert being the successor of the Garcia foundation that his
father Alberto started, and Terry Silver going on to become the CEO of DynaTox Industries,
and buying the original Cobra Kai dojo. Both men also have the hobby of collecting cars,
which we can clearly see Terry picking out a car to use for his plan, and Robert not only
collecting cars, but also producing futuristic concepts for them as well. Robert, like Terry,
is a foreign practitioner of his martial arts style – Robert is the first foreign student
of Kyokugenryu Karate while Terry, along with Kreese, are foreign students of Tang Soo Do.
Robert is a fiery smart mouth in the game, having a similar attitude and personality to what we see
from Terry in Karate Kid Part III – being very much of a smart mouth to Daniel and Miyagi,
and being a bit fiery when Kreese comes to turn into the dojo keys. Robert would excel
at his martial arts training very quickly, which would cause Takuma to train Ryo harder to keep
up. Although it is implied that Kreese was a senior student compared to Silver in dialogue in
Karate Kid Part III and in Cobra Kai flashbacks, Terry nonetheless had a much longer fight with
Mr. Miyagi, due to Thomas Ian Griffith's extensive background in Tae Kwan Do. This could also apply
to Robert, as he focuses more on kicks in his fighting ability and special attacks.
In Karate Kid Part III, we see Terry acting on behalf of DynaTox as a tournament sponsor.
While there is no tournament in Art of Fighting, it's interesting to see that later on in crossover
game Capcom vs SNK 2, Garcia Foundation is a main sponsor of the game's fighting tournament.
And while we don't see an exact fit of Robert wearing what Terry wears during the All-Valley,
it's very easy to see some similar outfits we do see from future games that Robert dons later on.
Next, let's took a look at the other protagonist, Ryo Sakazaki. Now as far as physical appearance, I
don't know if I can say that Ryo has a resemblance to John Kreese, outside of similar hairstyle.
In future games his hair varies from time to time, but in some of the earlier appearances as we can
see here, it is very similar to Kreese's look in Karate Kid Part III. Compared to his counterpart
Robert, Ryo is the more serious of two, something we can obviously note between Kreese and Silver.
Story wise in the future, Ryo would go on to be the successor of Kyokugenryu Karate and become
Mr. Karate II. At this point, Ryo is older and takes his karate even more seriously than before,
and this level of seriousness would be closer to Kreese's level in both Karate Kid and Cobra Kai.
It should also be noted that Ryo's gi has gone now from orange to a dark blue/almost black color,
similar to Kreese's black gi. After his mother's death, Ryo would go on to look after his sister
Yuri at the young age of 10 after their father mysteriously disappeared, very similar to Kreese
fending for himself after his mother takes her own life. Ryo's fighting stance is also very
similar to Kreese's from the movies and Cobra Kai, depending on which game he appears in.
It should be also noted that during his win pose, Ryo will grab his gi in a very similar
manner to how Kreese grabs his gi at times. While we're on the subject of John Kreese,
I think it's also worth pointing out a character that definitely does bear a striking resemblance
to him – John Crawley. Crawley works directly for Mr. Big, making him an antagonist like Kreese,
and is a former martial arts instructor for the U.S. Navy, while Kreese was a US Army veteran and
US Army Karate Champion. Crawley is proficient with firearms, knives, and survival skills,
something Kreese undoubtedly would be proficient in as well, thanks to his own time in the army.
Also it should go with out saying that they have very similar names – John Kreese,
John Crawley. A nice touch is John's stage is on a navy aircraft with a helicopter in the background.
While this may not directly reference John Kreese, it could be a reference to
Martin Kove's portrayal of a helicopter pilot named Ericson in Rambo: First Blood Part II.
For Mr. Miyagi, there isn't a specific character that shares any resemblance or direct elements.
The closest would be Lee Pai Long, though the difference is that Lee practices
Chinese martial arts and is of Taiwanese descent. Lee is a professor of medicine,
similar to Mr. Miyagi being able to heal Daniel's injuries in Karate Kid I and III.
Like Mr. Miyagi, Lee is also shorter compared to other characters such as Ryo and Robert. Both men
are elderly masters of their martial arts, as noted in their respective character profiles.
The last character of interest I want to talk about is Takuma Sakazaki,
AKA Mr. Karate and the father of Ryo and Yuri. Takuma's personality is that of a traditionalist,
which we could compare to someone like Sato. They both train very strictly as seen in the media that
they are featured in, with Sato notably in Karate Kid Part II. Takuma is also the grandmaster of
Kyokugenryu karate, much like Sato forming his own brand of Miyagi-Do back in Okinawa. Specifically
his unmasked appearance in Art of Fighting 1, he does share some similar features to Sato in Karate
Kid Part II. Now, outside of this, what makes Takuma and Kyokugenryu Karate so interesting
is that they were based on a real person and fighting style – Masutatsu Oyama, the founder of
Kyokushin Karate. Not only that, Kyokugenryu also has some influence from another style – Goju Ryu,
the very same style that Miyagi-Do is based on. Also a side note – there are other notable video
game characters whose fighting style was based on or influenced by Kyokushin Karate – namely Ryu
from Street Fighter, Jin Kazama in Tekken 4 and onward, Jean Kujo from Virtua Fighter, and more.
What's also very interesting are the bonus games themselves and the way they are laid out in this
game. If we look at this from left to right, it's almost a clear reference to the Karate Kid Trilogy
itself. The first mini game is the Bottle Cut, something we see Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid Part
I do against racists who refuse to grab their bottles off of his car. The second bonus game
is the Ice Pillar Smash, where after the player charges up their strength or focus for a set
amount of time, they can successfully break the ice. This is very similar to what we see Daniel
do in Karate Kid Part II in the bar that after focusing for a certain amount of time, he breaks
all six ice. The final bonus game is where you have to perform the command for the Haoh Shoko Ken
five times. If done successfully, you unlock this super move in the game which comes in handy
against your opponents. While we don't see anybody in the Karate Kid films throwing fireballs,
this could be referencing to the Miyagi-Do Kata Daniel learns in Karate Kid Part III. There is a
dummy that you practice this technique on, and this could also reference either the
dummy Silver has Daniel train on or the heavy bag Mr. Miyagi has at his dojo. Funny enough,
we see Daniel perform the kata in 5 different scenes in the movie (or attempting to at least),
similar to the 5 times you need to practice the Haoh Shoko Ken to unlock it.
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Let me know what you guys think down below – do you see the similarities?
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