Chris G. JonesJones is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada, where he specializes in Eastern philosophy, Japanese Buddhism, meditation, and religion. From this, it is understandable that his ** Street Fighter is a martial art? Why start with philosophy. As a philosopher, he observes the gameplay of today's fighting games, such as Street Fighter, and traces how the popular culture of Orientalism, embedded in it, has regained its foothold in the age of technology. Today's article was published in 2018 and still looks interesting.
from dragon to the beast
In his search for the origins of fighting games, Jones takes a pop-cultural perspective and argues that the ancestors of fighting games are Bruce Lee and his film series. He compared Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" and "Game of Death" and other representative films in the 70s of the 20th century, and the famous scenes of fighting games in 2004, namely EVO 37, and Daigo Umehara's "The Beast Event".
Street Fighter 3 gameplay footage.
This famous e-sports scene, known as the moment of the gods, refers to the duel between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong in "Street Fighter 3", when they faced the crisis of being knocked out immediately by only a trace of blood, Umehara did not use a normal block (ordinary block will force blood loss, resulting in KO) to block the opponent Chun-Li's super kill, but chose blocking (that is, when the opponent attacks, make a forward command) to drop each of the opponent's attacks, complete the perfect defense, and then jump, using super must-kill counter-kill to kill the opponent, A famous scene that achieved a shocking reversal. After seeing this scene, Jones realized that the martial arts craze that appeared in Bruce Lee movies in the 1970s had re-emerged in fighting games in the 00s of the 21st century.
Jones believes that just like the martial arts craze centered on Bruce Lee that swept Western countries in the 20th century, the academic community does not understand this period of e-sports in the 00s of the 21st century. If you want to understand Umehara's backwater reversal scene, you should have at least 2 abilities. The first is the ability to understand the basic system and rules of Street Fighter 3, and the second is the physical movement ability to perfectly understand and accept this system and perform the correct movements. Jones refers to them as object skills and locomotive skills, respectively. He believes that the current field of game research has a tendency to focus on texts and ignore the skills of users who accept the rules.
Jones argues that the martial arts movie craze of the 2070s is in the same vein as the fighting games of the 00s of the 21st century in terms of the use of skills, that is, in terms of the perceptions and attitudes of the audience who received a given text. Although modern martial arts have destroyed the actual combat nature of traditional Chinese martial arts, the oriental martial arts centered on Bruce Lee movies in the 20th century set off a boom in martial arts dojos in North America, making countless young people scream and pose for martial arts moves. And the EVO 37 also allowed contemporaneous audiences to begin to imitate the scene movements of digital martial arts.
Jones talks about martial arts with a focus on the posture and way in which the concept of martial arts is approached. Jones believes that Bruce Lee and his martial arts movies show physical skills that are not only physical arts, but also contain a mysterious and pious cultivation posture. Jones, for example, focused on the concentration scenes that Bruce Lee showed in the film that were close to meditation. When the martial arts movie tells the story of the protagonist's cultivation, (represented by "brave and diligent") repeatedly and continuously proficient in martial arts, it not only refers to simple physical exercise, but is closer to a kind of spiritual cultivation.
And now, when it comes to digital fighting games, players and the community are repeating similar images. The community believes that the realm of martial arts players can reach a certain level through cultivation and refinement, and this refers not only to physical proficiency but also to mental cultivation. For example, the aforementioned Umehara has to block Chun Lichao's 13 combos in 4 seconds, without the slightest mistake, and make moves at the right time. To do this, it takes not only the speed of reaction of the hands and eyes, but also the composure and calm mind in the face of desperate situations. Such a gesture is the same as the one shown by Bruce Lee.
Fighting game with Tegna - Orientalism, otaku.
The theme of martial arts, which is mostly intertwined with Orientalist views in the West, is accepted by people. Westerners see Bruce Lee as a counter-hegemonic male image created by non-white Americans. His victory in "Raptors Crossing" after fighting Chuck Norris hand-to-hand is a prime example. Just as "Jingwumen" is set against the backdrop of the Japanese imperialist invasion of China, Bruce Lee's martial arts films are difficult to detach from the theme of ethnicity and race, and this context also continues in today's fighting professional game scenes.
Stills from "Raptors Across the River".
This is where the concept of "Asian hands" came about. Asians have made their mark in a number of esports (including StarCraft and League of Legends in South Korea), and Westerners see these Asian pros as superhuman, mystical, and different from themselves as Bruce Lee of the past. It's not just Westerners who hold this opinion, but Japanese players who participated in the tournament themselves said in interviews, "We are Japanese, so we will do better."
In order to understand the "Asian hand" of what is considered mysticism, Jones carefully examines the results of the Osaka Observation Game Study (2012) in Kijima. He believes that the reason for Japan's dominance in fighting games is not some kind of mysterious training, but the difference in the arcade environment. In Western countries, there are almost no arcades about fighting games. However, in the large game rooms of Japan's major business districts, fighting arcade games are still everywhere. (But that's hard to fully accept.) Because the disappearance of arcades is a common phenomenon, the phenomenon of arcades disappearing has occurred throughout East Asia, including South Korea, but on a different scale. According to Jones's analysis, the dojo-yaburi (kickbox), which originated from the culture of "bushido", is very popular in Japan. Therefore, Japanese players will continue to encounter strong opponents in the process, so that their cultivation will be more refined.
In contrast to this view, people prefer to think that the "amazing fighting ability of the mysterious Asian"** is still excellent in martial arts. In the digital age, mythical versions of martial arts are still a hot topic. In addition, with the transformation and reuse of the tekno-orientalist martial art otaku style centered on Japan in the 80s of the 20th century, martial arts discussions and modern fighting games gradually merged.
Tekno-Orientalism in the 1980s used neon lights from Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Shanghai to depict "exotic" night scenes, which later fitted with digital games to create a new realm of otaku. In his book "Animalized Postmodern" (2001), Higashi provides a preliminary explanation of this change that occurred with the emergence of "cool Japan" in the 90s. Jones believes that otaku, as a database-based animal and a super-information processor, are different from otaku in other mediums. Before the game otaku reaches a certain level of obsession, they will distinguish their level through forms such as compulsive devotion and continuous practice. To this end, the game Otaku has created a gameplay called "込 (Extreme Achievement)". After encountering a fighting game that combines martial arts discussions, the game Otaku understood it as an obsessive martial arts practice and refinement, and promoted the popularization of this concept.
It's not the emperor, it's the Lee Sang-hyuk problem of the demon king.
From the standpoint of Korean readers, it is very interesting for Westerners to look at martial arts or games with the concept of martial arts. Because concepts such as martial arts are an intrinsic concept for our East Asian cultural circle. We don't see martial arts as a mystical thing, like Westerners. In South Korea, for example, we can compare a moment in a fighting game to martial arts, or the gathering of fighting game masters to a kind of martial arts, or the Pakistani expedition of Knee Bae Jae-min (a Korean professional fighter in Tekken) as a retreat. Clearly, Jones's understanding is similar to ours. But we don't see these as mysterious things as the West, so the difference between the two is very obvious.
Together with digital games, Tekno-Orientalism weaves a new look at otaku culture, presenting a unique scene. But, according to Jones, it seems difficult to explain all this. In response to the question "Why are East Asian players making their mark in esports?" It is difficult for Jones to give a clear answer to this question. If we take into account the dominance of esports in South Korea, we have to re-face the debate of whether they can be classified as otaku mentioned in Jones's concept. In South Korea, arcades are moving away from popular culture, and fighting game masters have long since shifted to online games. Although Internet cafes exist as offline strongholds like arcades in the past, it is difficult to find a clear answer to this question, considering that games like League of Legends are played not mainly from Internet cafes, but in online 5:5 matchups.
If the above discussion is taken as a hint in lieu of conclusions, it would be a good idea to address the question "Why is South Korea's esports achievements so prominent?" At least we can discuss the possibility of a new answer from the perspective of East Asian players. We say that South Korea is an esports powerhouse, but Jones writes in the article that the fact that the nickname of the world's top League of Legends player Faker Lee Sang-hyuk in Western culture is not "emperor", but "demon king" (big devil) has not attracted much attention. In other words, in order to understand the current state of e-sports, which is intertwined with Tegna-Orientalism, it is necessary to understand not only e-sports itself, but also the tendency and consequences of "East Asian e-sports," which is constantly being alienated by the West.
Reference: Kijima, Y (2012). the fighting gamer otaku community: what are they fighting about?” in fandom unbound: otaku culture in a connected world, eds. mizuko ito, daisuke okabe, and izumi tsuji. yale university press, 2012, pp. 249–74.
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