It’s not for the reason you might think
The Misfits have a song called Demonmania (pronounced Deh-EE-Mono-Mee-Ah). In the song, Glenn Danzig clearly sings the words “Look upon me, I am a bee… My mother was a wolf… My father was a wolf.” That’s what it sounds like anyway. As a teen, I never understood how two wolves got together and made a bee baby. Just lucky I guess.
Weirdly enough, the topic of bees and wolves is currently a hot-button issue with the developers of Ultra Street Fighter IV. Ryu’s name is commonly thought to mean “Dragon” in Japanese, and yet, he doesn’t look anything like a dragon in the game’s upcoming animal-themed costume pack. Instead, he looks like a gosh darn wolf! Similarly, Cammy is dressed up as a classy, scarf-in-her-cleavage fox lady. Why isn’t she wearing a killer bee costume? Isn’t that what her clone friends call her? Why is she defying her clone-given nickname?
EventHubs recently got to the bottom of this mystery through a brief interview with Capcom’s Tomoaki Ayano. According to Ayano, “…the meaning behind Ryu’s name, when translated in English, is not ‘Dragon’ … The ‘Ryu’ Kanji (隆) used for his name means ‘to rise.’ To rise to the occasion. To rise from defeat.” Whoa.
While that doesn’t exactly explain why he’s dressed as a wolf, it’s still a pretty neat fact. Ayano went on to confirm a dragon-clad reveal for a later date, stating “…as opposed to Ryu, there’s somebody else who’s more suited for the dragon motif. There will definitely be a character whose costume motif is that of the dragon. So it’s probably ‘that character.’ Although I can’t tell you whom just yet.”
As for why Cammy isn’t dressed like a bee, Ayano seems dead set against bugs in general, stating “We wanted to go with only animals in the pack — no insects.” Darn it. Tropes Vs. Insects in Videogames strikes again.
