Hadoken Explained: What Street Fighter’s Legendary Words Actually Mean

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Street Fighter II is the perfect video game sequel. It took an archaic fighting title and turned it into one of the most influential games of all time. SFII also marked a step up in what arcade hardware could do, showcasing some fancy digitized voices that gave each character a bit more personality. Hadoken!

As great as hearing Ryu and Ken finally speak really was, it came with some caveats. The sound bytes used for each character had to be compressed as much as they could, resulting in the audio appearing a bit muffled. Add to that the chaos of all the other special effects and the background noise of an arcade and what you get is a collection of characters screaming all sorts of crazy stuff. That’s how you end up with Ryu wanting some pound cake.

Have you ever wondered what the characters were really saying during these intense combats? Nowadays, Street Fighter special attacks are mostly common knowledge, but just to refresh our memory a bit, let’s go over what these cryptic sound bytes (like Hadoken) actually meant.

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This martial arts master from China is well-known for her mastery of kicking techniques. Though most games have her use her Hyakuretsukyaku attack as his iconic skill (and also appears in Fortnite as an emote,) Street Fighter II also introduced fans to the Spinning Bird Kick.

Chun-Li comes from China, but in the game, she speaks perfect Japanese – more or less. Her attack is pronounced in Japanese but written in English, so she ends up saying Supiningu Bādo Kikku – Spinning Bird Kick. It’s an easy one to miss, but it makes sense once you isolate the sound bite. By the way, Chun-Li also says Yatta! when she wins, which is the Japanese way of saying “Yeah!” It’s a rather common phrase you’ll hear in most Japanese games.

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Just like Chun-Li, E. Honda’s most popular technique, Hyakuretsu Harite, thankfully goes unpronounced in the game. He