Ryo Sakazaki

Game series Art of Fighting series
Fatal Fury series
The King of Fighters series
SNK Vs. series
First game Art of Fighting (1992)
Voiced by (English) Curt Gebhart (Maximum Impact)
Voiced by (Japanese) Masaki Usui
Tetsuya Besho (anime)
Akira Kamiya (Dengeki Bunko drama CD)
Information
Birthplace Japan
Fighting style Kyokugenryu Karate


Ryo Sakazaki (リョウ・サカザキ, Ryou Sakazaki?, sometimes written as 坂崎 亮 or Sakazaki Ryō) is the main character in Art of Fighting, a fighting game series from SNK. His name is most often written in kana, however, in some games kanji is used to write parts of his name. In the series, Ryo is a martial artist that practices his family's fighting style, the Kyokugenryu Karate. He and his best friend Robert Garcia enter the Southtown city to rescue Ryo's sister, Yuri Sakazaki. In their fights, Ryo and Robert learn that the Sakazaki became the target from the criminal Geese Howard, and decide to face him.

Ryo is also a regular character in the crossover series The King of Fighters, in which he participates in fighting tournament in a team composed of his friends a family. He would also make appearance in other SNK games under the name of the 2nd Mr. Karate. Additionally, he stars in manhua adaptations of the several series, and appeared in the anime film from Art of Fighting.

Ryo has been well-received by gamers; his character has ranked high in several popularity polls from journals. Video game publications have provided praise and criticism on Ryo's character. While Ryo has been criticized for its similarities with the Street Fighter video games' characters, several reviewers have praised his development in several games from SNK such as his introduction in The King of Fighters.


Appearances

In videogames

Art of Fighting series

The story of Ryo begins in the first Art of Fighting. His sister Yuri Sakazaki is kidnapped by Mr. Big, a local criminal mastermind. With the help of best friend and rival Robert Garcia, Ryo manages to confront Mr. Big, leading him to a karate dojo where a mysterious man (originally unnamed in the game, but was named "Mr. Karate" by fans, and officially named as such in later games) challenges the two to a fight. When Ryo prevailed, he threatens to kill Mr. Karate unless he knew that Yuri was alive. As Ryo prepares to kill him, Yuri appears, telling Ryo to stop, for Mr. Karate was their father.

In the second game, Takuma reveals that Geese Howard turned him into the assasain Mr. Karate. With the Sakazaki family reunited, the family, along with Robert, focused on exacting their revenge on Geese, and providing justice to all others who were wronged by him. Part of this preparation included, to Ryo's initial opposition, teaching Yuri the Kyokugen techniques.

While entering into Geese's tournament, The King of Fighters, Ryo is able to fight and defeat Geese. However, Geese had manages to escape with help from his assistants before Ryo could finish him. This ending effectively closed out the Art of Fighting series and brought forth the beginning of the Fatal Fury story, one that does not directly involve Ryo. Although Art of Fighting had a third game to the series, Ryo's role in that game was largely insignificant, as he acts as a supporting character to Robert. However, one plot thread from Art of Fighting 3 that carried over into the King of Fighters series was the introduction of Kasumi Todoh, the daughter of Ryuhaku Todoh, whom Ryo fought and defeated in the first Art of Fighting.

The King of Fighters series

Ryo was the core of the Art of Fighting Team in this first game, one that was composed of Ryo, Robert, and Takuma (much to the displeasure of Yuri, to which Ryo was opposed to letting her even join the tournament, although she would find her own team). Throughout the series, the Kyokugen style was depicted as a struggling family business, funded almost entirely by prize money earned from KOF and Robert's vast wealth. Despite all this, the family manages to keep two gyms running, one in South Town (setting of many SNK games), and a second in Mexico on his already deceased Mexican mother Home. Before the events of The King of Fighters '96, however, Takuma decided to retire from competitive fighting, and thus allowed Yuri to join the Art of Fighting Team.

Due to a new rule allowing teams of four in The King of Fighters '99, and Takuma's coincidental "sudden urge to fight again", the Art of Fighting Team, for the first time, involved all four members of the Kyokugen family. The next year, as Yuri left to join another team, King would join the Art of Fighting Team. The King of Fighters 2000 had South Town (named "Southtown" in later games) destroyed by way of the Zero Cannon, a space-based satellite weapon. It is not known what had happened to the Kyokugen dojo that had brought forth the livelihood of the Sakazaki family after the destruction of South Town. He will be playable in the upcoming KOF XII, but like each character, he will not have an official team.

In KOF: Maximum Impact, Ryo's alternate costume is similar to that of his Buriki One costume. If you complete the game with him, you are able to use his "Rigging Model", a few additions to his costume include a Tengu Mask similar to Takuma's. In Maximum Impact 2 he also has the Buriki One costume as a secondary but still plays similar to KoF Ryo. In KOF: Maximum Impact 2, Ryo has two 'versions': his traditional KoF one and his Mr. Karate version, the primary costume of which comprises a Tengu mask slightly different from his father's, that Ryo is seen using for the first time. His "Another" costume is a very slightly modified version of his Fatal Fury Wild Ambition costume.

Other games


Ryo is also a central character in Buriki One, a game for the Hyper Neo Geo 64. In this game, he appears in his older persona, and fighting in a grappling tournament without many of the flashier moves he is known for. His look in the game is similar to Takuma's in the KoF series, only with his traditional spiked hair dyed blonde and a dark grey gi instead of white or orange. He appears as the sub-boss in the single-player mode (if chosen by the player in Story-Mode, Gai Tendo will be the sub-boss).

Ryo also appears in Fatal Fury Special, an updated version of Fatal Fury 2. He appears as a hidden opponent at the end of the single player mode and is playable in the home versions. In the PlayStation version of Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition, Ryo uses the title of Mr. Karate, as an aged and more powerful Ryo.

Aesthetically, other than looking somewhat older but still with blonde hair, he's unshaved and is not wearing the top of his orange gi, showing instead the black t-shirt underneath. Although he has appeared in no other unrelated games, he is often referenced indirectly in Garou: Mark of the Wolves, he has his own student, Khushnood Butt (a.k.a. Marco Rodriguez).

More recently, in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Ryo goes by the name 2nd Mr. Karate, while his look is the one used for Buriki One. There he retains many of his classic moves, along with using some of Takuma's, and one of his supers appears to be a homage to Buriki One's unique control system, since the player has to input a sequence of joystick directions (instead of button presses) after a specific command in order to attack. He is joined there by an older Robert, previously unseen in other games. He also has a special ending artwork if the player finishes the game with Robert as his partner. He also stars in the crossover video games SNK vs. Capcom series.

In other media

Ryo appears in the anime film from Art of Fighting from 1993. While looking for a cat, Ryo and Robert witnessed a murder related to a stolen diamond. After fighting the murdering mobsters, they discovered that the top mobster, Mr. Big, had kidnapped Ryo's sister to exchange her against the diamond, which he believes to be in the possession of the protagonists.
He is voiced by Tetsuya Besho in the Japanese version, and by Alden Crews in the English adaptation. Ryo also appears in the manhua adaptations from The King of Fighters series, which tell how Ryo participates in the fighting tournaments.

Reception

Ryo has been well received by gamers, ranking high in several popularity polls. In Gamest's 1997 Heroes Collection, Ryo was voted as the staff's twenty-fourth favorite character.

In the January 30, 1995 issue, Ryo ranked at no. 24 in Top 50 Characters of 1994. In a 2005 poll made by SNK-Playmore USA, he was voted as the fifth fan favorite character with a total of 193 votes.

Reviewers from video games and other media have provided praise and criticism on Ryo's character. Wesley Yin-Poole from Videogamer.com commented that Ryo and Robert are "two double-hard bastards" and complained about the "wicked" designs from Ryo. Eurogamer reviewer Spanner Spencer mentioned that Ryo "seems to model himself after Ken from SFII" due to the similarities within their designs.

David Simpson from AceGamez also noted the similarities between Ryo and Ken, and jokingly commented it could not be avoided to note them. Chris Sanderson from Darkzero.co.uk additionally mentioned that Ryo and Robert are "basically the Ryu and Ken of the series", although he commented that they have different movesets.

However, William Usher from Cinemablend noted Ryo and Robert's relationship to be very unique as they never attempt to kill each other. He also noted Ryo to be one of the main responsibles for the creation of The King of Fighters series, praising his development in the series.



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