| R. Mika | |
|---|---|
| Street Fighter character | |
 R. Mika inStreet Fighter Alpha 3 (1998) | |
| First game | Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998) |
| Created by | Akira "Akiman" Yasuda[1] |
| Designed by | Akira "Akiman" Yasuda[1] Daigo Ikeno[1] Toshiyuki Kamei (SFV)[1] |
| Voiced by | List
|
| In-universe information | |
| Fighting style | Professional wrestling |
| Origin | Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
Rainbow Mika (レインボー ミカ), better known asR. Mika, is theprofessional wrestling moniker ofMika Nanakawa (七川 美華), a character inCapcom'sStreet Fighterfighting game series. First appearing inStreet Fighter Alpha 3 (1998) as a wrestler trying to make a name for herself, Mika was designed byAkira "Akiman" Yasuda with the help of artist Daigo Ikeno. The character has since appeared in comics related to theStreet Fighter franchise and other titles by Capcom. Mika returned inStreet Fighter V (2016) with a redesigned appearance by Toshiyuki Kamei, now a mainline wrestler with a tag team partner. Originally voiced byJunko Takeuchi, as ofStreet Fighter V she was voiced byBonnie Gordon andHiromi Igarashi in English and Japanese respectively.
R. Mika has received mixed critical reception since her introduction, with a significant focus being on her appearance and discussions on character sexualization. While several outlets were critical of her design, others noted it was suitable for her wrestling character, and in particularThe Mary Sue utilized her in a discussion contrasting sexualized versus empowered in regards to the differences between her game and comic counterparts. The character was also the source of some controversy when one of her attacks inStreet Fighter V was seemingly censored, with several outlets questioning the validity of the controversy.
Designed byAkira "Akiman" Yasuda forStreet Fighter Alpha 3, the character's design was originally very different according to producer Norikata Funamizu, with the core concept being to implement a "tricky and technical character" to enhance the gameplay.[2] After another developer suggested to add a femaleprofessional wrestler to the game's roster, Akiman took the suggestion to heart and quickly drew a basic sketch,[1] drawing some inspiration from an article he read inGamest about Japanese professional wrestlerCutie Suzuki.[3] His initial rough draft was significantly different, lacking the heart theme and mask while giving her a spikey hairstyle inspired by the mangaKimagure Orange Road, later switching topigtails instead on the second draft.[4][5] Artist Daigo Ikeno later helped fill in the details, giving what Akiman calls "a sense of realism" to her design.[1] A particular goal of her gameplay was also to present a subtle difference between her and fellowStreet Fighter characterZangief, in both positive and negative regards.[6]
R. Mika stands 168 cm tall (5 ft 6 in) and hasmeasurements of 97-72-93 cm (38-28-37 in).[7] InStreet Fighter Alpha 3 her outfit consists of a blue and white leotard extending down her thighs and arms, while her long blonde hair is in pigtails on the sides of her head. The leotard itself has various cutouts exposing her skin, namely on the shoulders, cleavage, thighs, buttocks, and a heart cutout on her upper back intended to bring attention to her backside. A white bustier covers her breasts, with a large blue heart on each of her nipples,[3] an aspect inspired the characterMichiru Saotome fromGetter Robo.[8] White frills circle her neck, wrists, and sides of her pelvis, while white laced wrestling boots extend up to her knees.[3] A bluerounded domino mask covers her eyes, a feature inspired byanime characterYatterman-2 in an attempt to capture what Akiman felt made that character cute. In the bookHow to Make Capcom Fighting Characters, Akiman added that her blonde hair/blue/white color scheme combination was also inspired by another character, in this case Lisa Kusanami fromSega's fighting gameLast Bronx.[1]
Years later,Street Fighter IV producerYoshinori Ono heavily petitioned the game's director for her inclusion in the title, citing her as his personal favorite character, with no success.[9] However, she was later included inStreet Fighter V, with art director Toshiyuki Kamei focused on updating her outfit with a bolder design, and adding flair to signify her character transition to a headline act in professional wrestling. Describing her in a design note as a "peppy girl with some meat on her bones and a classic pro-wrestling style", they emphasized her "girlishness" and "cuteness" in contrast to the other series wrestlers, and wanted to show her bouncing around the arena as she fought. In this incarnation more skin is exposed, while her chest is now covered in white material with a heart shaped cutout extending around the top of her breasts.[1] Akiman on hisTwitter voiced approval for the change, stating that she was easier to see thanks to the removal of the hearts from her chest, adding in a later tweet they made her look "overdone" and describing the cutout as "very neat! The juniors at Capcom are very proper!"[10][11] In addition to the changes, Mika was also given a wide variety of secondary outfits, including a version of her regular attire that exposes less skin with a white stylized "M" on her chest, a schoolgirl outfit with glasses, and a red ornate outfit modeled after aphoenix.[12]
WithStreet Fighter V another character namedYamato Nadeshiko (大和 ナデシコ) was designed to appear in several of her attacks, and alongside her in-game.[1] An athletic Japanese woman wearing red and white wrestling boots and leotard with a bob style haircut, she was designed by Ikeno duringStreet Fighter Alpha 3's development as Mika's tag team partner, and appeared on the cover of Capcom's "Secret File" arcade flyer for the game.[13] When implemented intoV, game director Takayuki Nakayama sent an image of Japanese professional wrestlerHikaru Shida to the character designer to use as a guide.[14]
As introduced in the 1998 video gameStreet Fighter Alpha 3, Mika Nanakawa is a Japanese woman seeking to make her debut in professional wrestling under the stage name "Rainbow Mika", inspired by her idolization of Zangief. To promote herself, she decides to travel the world and fight various martial artists.[15] She encounters Zangief himself along the way, and after the two spar they are attacked by the criminal organization Shadloo and its leaderM. Bison. The wrestlers manage to escape and go their separate ways, with Mika pondering if she'll see Zangief again while she trains.[16] InStreet Fighter V, a game set after the events of her first appearance, Mika is now a full professional wrestler and works with her former tag team partner Yamato Nadeshiko. After encountering Zangief, she travels with him for some time, and after fighting off a rampaging bear together, he praises her spirit and agrees to be her wrestling partner. Later in the story, they work together alongside otherStreet Fighter characters to stop a revived Shadaloo.[17]
Outside of theStreet Fighter series she appears as a supporting character in the 2001PlayStation gameStartling Adventures: Kuusou Daibouken X 3's third chapter, where the protagonist helps her during a wrestling match by preventing attackers from entering the ring.[18] She is also an available character Capcom's mobile gameStreet Fighter Battle Combination.[19] TheSNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters series feature her as selectable cards,[20][21] as doesGungHo Online Entertainment's mobile gameTEPPEN.[22] In physicaltrading card media she appears inVersus TCG, a card game based onCard Fighters' Clash, and Jasco Games'Universal Fighting System.[23][24] Lastly, her outfit appears as an alternative costume forTekken characterKuma in the crossover fighting gameStreet Fighter X Tekken.[25]
In print media, Mika is featured frequently inUDON Entertainment'sStreet Fighter comic series. First introduced inStreet Fighter Legends: Sakura, the titular characterSakura Kasugano is a fan of Mika, and attends a wrestling match between her and Zangief.[26] After Mika defeats Zangief and knocks him unconscious, he later wakes up enraged and demands a rematch while she is attending fans. Mika fights him, and with Sakura's help they subdue him.[27] In the fifth issue ofStreet Fighter II: Turbo, a retelling of the titular game, Mika and Zangief appear alongside other fighters invited to the fighting tournament and are told to tag team against the duo ofE. Honda andSodom in the preliminaries. While playing to the crowd, she is taken by surprise when Sodom charges at her but manages tosuplex him, only to be thrown from the ring and eliminated from the tournament due to his quick recovery.[28] In the first volumeSuper Street Fighter, a collection of short stories, she appears as part of a wrestling committee alongside other wrestling-themed characters from the series, the group ultimately breaking into a brawl.[29] In the second, after appearing briefly inDan Hibiki's story and defeating him, she is featured in her own in a match against the wrestlerHugo Andore. Hugo, however, refuses to fight due to finding her "too pretty", and his managerPoison takes his place instead. Poison handcuffs Mika during the match, but is defeated when Mika instead somersaults butt-first into her midsection, knocking Poison unconscious.[30]
Since her introduction Rainbow Mika has been met with mixed reception.Complex stated "Street Fighter has never been shy with the gorgeous ladies, but they've always had full-figured back stories to go along with their full-figured backsides. Rainbow Mika on the other hand is the most blatant example of mysogynistic [sic] character design seen in the series."[31] Todd Ciolek fromAnime News Network declared Mika as "the worstStreet Fighter character," reasoning "every little detail about her annoyed me, from the stupid boob-hearts on her costume to the way she whomped opponents with her butt—and rubbed it after she hit the ground."[32] AtPaste, Eric Van Allen criticized her outfit by stating that "even byStreet Fighter standards, this amount of gratuitous flesh is rather ridiculous."[17] AtDen of Geek, Gavin Jasper stated that while each of the wrestling characters represented a different aspect of the sport, she represented the pageantry, praising her character for it but adding "While seeing her bust out Stone Cold Stunners is good fun, the way they’ve transformed her into a sexualized rodeo clown does get kind of embarrassing at times."[33]
However, this opinion is not shared between all critics, withGamesRadar noting her "ridiculously impractical attire" and propensity to attack with her buttocks as "all for her fans, and the Japanese wrestler's moxie comes through in her boisterous, crowd-pleasing personality."[34] Nadia Oxford ofUSgamer found Mika to be an example of positivefemale gender representation, writing "I can say that I have nothing against, er, voluptuous women in games. Or even scantily-clad women", and that "My problem has always been women characters whom I'm expected to take seriously while they slay dragons/wander the desert/travel the frozen wastes while baring their midriff through the majority of their journey", and that she enjoys Mika's "silly" and "goofy" design.[35] And despite his earlier criticism, in a laterPaste article Eric Van Allen instead praised the character, calling her style "effective" and added "R. Mika throws caution to the wind and just goes for it, making her a fun character to play and a riveting one to watch."[36]
In a series of articles examining characters from theStreet Fighter series, Becky Chambers and Amanda LaPergola ofThe Mary Sue offered contrasting points on whether the character was sexist or not in their eyes in regards to her handling in different mediums. They noted her outfit as "ridiculously sexist", but moreso criticized her personality in theStreet Fighter Alpha games, calling it "ditzy and dumb" and furthermore "irredeemably so." However, LaPergola cited her appearance in UDON's comic series, stating that while she continued to use the same out, "she is also treated as a top-notch wrestler with talent and fans that admire her for her skill in the ring. She’s not referred to as a bimbo or a sex object, just a really kick-ass fighter." She further added that an "important part of what makes a character portrayal sexist or not, is how they are treated by other characters. In this comic book, Mika is not a sexist character. Nobody treats her as one, and therefore she is not one."[37]
Maddy Myers, in her own article forThe Mary Sue, stated that while Mika's outfit represented "campy, posed sexuality" that often alienated players, she felt Mika as a character was more interesting than other sexualized characters in the series. Comparing her particularly to fellowStreet Fighter characterCammy, she pointed out that the lack of seriousness in Mika's portrayal helped her be seen as a "tongue-in-cheek goofball, albeit asexy goofball". Mentioning that while fans of the character may focus on the visual appeal, "she’s not exactly a straightforward sex kitten, either", and projected an "unabashed femininity" that Myers found amazing and uncommon in fighting games. While she acknowledged it was often played for laughs, she enjoyed that the joke regarding Mika's femininity was not one played on the character herself, and hoped that would remain the case.[38]
In debut footage ofStreet Fighter V, Mika is seen slapping her butt as part of her Critical Art attack.[39] The decision not to show the animation in the North American version of the game was a subject of controversy, leading to a petition to restore it.[40][41] According to producerYoshinori Ono regarding not showing her butt slap, "Those changes came up internally. We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable."[39] Some other shots, including the entrance animation forCammy, were also replaced.[40]
Jonathan Holmes fromDestructoid questioned the controversy over the decision by stating "While there are surely plenty of folks who adore seeing their screen filled with frilly thong shots, I imagine there may be even more players out there who'd find the sudden prioritization of arse in their fighting games to be little out of place."[42] Chris Carter atDestructoid commented "It's still a bit weird that something this goofy was removed, especially with the design Laura has in general," and noted that a character like Necalli is "probably far more harmful" for children's eyes.[43] In another article byDestructoid, Carter stated "It's such a weird thing to me, because R. Mika's butt is still very visible, she just doesn't lightly tap it a few times per match."[44] Likewise, ND Medina atiDigitalTimes expressed confusion over the change, noting that her butt was still being exposed.[45] Her butt slap was later restored as a mod for the PC version, albeit in a different pose.[43]
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