This is really cool... I saw this on the official Street Fighter 4 blog (Japanese only, of course) and they have two scans of the first print ads for SF4 console posted. They said that the ads will be featured in this week's Weekly Famitsu magazine on Friday but they decided to post it early. Pretty cool if you ask me!
The theme of the advertisement is お習字, which means penmanship in Japanese. Written in Japanese are the move names for several characters like Ryu, Dhalsim and E.Honda. The tag line at the bottom of the advertisement says "Improve yourself through practice", which I guess is a good catch line that would emcompass the spirit of all fighting games, right?
There was another image on the blog, which is apparently the uncut version of the above ad. You can see that some of it has been left off due to space so they were nice enough to post the full version! The blog states that this full version is going to be on display at the finals of the SF4 National Tournament, which is on January 18. The tournament is in Tokyo and I really want to go and see it but seeing as that I'm not in the Kantou area, I have no idea if I'll have the time to go. :( Anyway, I took the time to translate the move names so that you guys can understand it!
Top row, left to right, the move names are:
Tatsumaki Senpukyaku - Hurricane Kick
Spinning Bird Kick
Somersault Kick - Flash Kick
Shoryuken - Dragon Punch
Electric Thunder - Blanka's electricity
Super Zutsuki - Flying Headbutt
Hadouken
Yoga Fire
Bottom row, left to right:
Hyaku Retsu Harite - Hundred Hand Slap
Sonic Boom
Wild Fang
Yoga Teleport
Flying Power Bomb
Kikoken
Headbutt! (I honestly have no idea whose move this is though lol)
The really cool thing about the advertisement is how they have some of the words written, but they have corrections all over the place for kanji stroke placement, misproper use of kanji, and such. It's a pretty creative ad, in my opinion. Can't wait to see the real thing on Friday!



Its funny to see the differences in marketing in Japan compared to the USA. Over here you have "Return of the 15 foot Pimp Slap" which is all fun and silly while in Japan it seems to be a bit more..well.. serious business. hah!
haunts04:18 PM CST