As a Chun-Li webmaster, I am often exposed to various fan art or fanfics involving romance between Chun-Li & Ryu. This must stop.
Where the delusion of Chun-Li and Ryu going out came from, I can only imagine that it spawned from the minds of those damned fanboys. I HATE fanboys. They suck. Along with the entire Chun-Li & Ryu thing, they're also responsible for countless tainted online polls, flames to Sephiroth fans because he killed Aeris, the success of the Tomb Raider series, and countless other despicable acts.
Ryu may be the poster-boy for the SF series, and he may the "perfect martial artist" as one Ryu webmaster put it, but let's face it, he's a jerk. He's a prick. A cad. He cares about absolutely no one but Ken and Akuma, and he obviously isn't too crazy about Akuma. He spends his whole life wondering around picking fights (and I don't think he carries a bathtub in that little white bag of his ^_^).
When a girl crazy enough to actually look up to him (it is my honest to God belief that Sakura is literally quite insane) tracks him down and shows her how serious she is about training underneath him, something you'd think a guy like him ought to respect, he doesn't even give her the time of day. Instead, he demeans her and leaves her alone on the top of a freaking cliff in the middle of winter. No girl in her right mind (namely, Chun-Li) would go out with a guy who would do something like that.
I've followed the Street Fighter series closely and I'm yet to see anything to indicate that Ryu is in any way a good person. He doesn't fight for justice or the future like Chun-Li does, he only cares about becoming the ultimate martial artist, a rather selfish thing, don't you think? Ryu has the potential to be a great crime fighter like Chun-Li, Charlie, Guile, Cammy, and to a lesser extent, even Zangief. Instead, all he does is run around looking for fights.
As for Chun-Li, she's a hell of a lot more down-to-earth than Ryu. She stays in one place, except when duty calls. She cares about the greater good and about what happens to people. Even before she discovered that Bison killed her father, she was tracking him down for his other crimes. In Chun-Li's SF3 ending, she saves a young girl kidnapped by the villains and realizes that children are the future, and so begins teaching martial arts to the local kids. A very motherly thing to do, don't you think? I should expect that any man she would be interested in would have to be equally fatherly.
You will never see romantic art or fanfics of Chun-Li & Ryu at Kikouken.com. The idea of Chun-Li falling in love with a guy who's always on the go and only comes around Beijing for a quick roll in the sack before hitting the road again may sound romantic to some, but I don't buy it.
I will probably get massive amounts of hatemail for this article, but I say bring it on. I will go head-to-head with anyone who thinks they can prove that Ryu and Chun-Li would make a good couple. It isn't in either of their characters to be even remotely attracted to each other, and I dare anyone who disagrees to bring me canon evidence proving me wrong.
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