Over two years ago, I posted one of the wildest theories I’ve ever done. It was a theory on Sakura Kasugano that claimed that the Sakura we see in Street Fighter V was a clone of the original and an agent of G. Based on the design choices we see in Sakura’s story, it looked like this Sakura was an imposter, someone whose entire purpose was to spy on others. https://manestreetblog.com/2020/02/08/the-truth-about-sakura-kasugano/
Little did I know, there was more to it than this. If I had only looked a little closer, the truth would have been uncovered. However, it took another two years, the announcement of Street Fighter 6, and a recent YouTube video to finally solidify what I had suspected all along:
Street Fighter V’s Sakura, clone or not, IS an agent of G.
What makes this whole thing even crazier is that the proof was sitting in front of us for nearly FOUR YEARS, untouched, unexamined, but nonetheless there for the world to see. No one saw this evidence just sitting there. No one pointed this out until now.
Even crazier, Sakura telegraphed G’s arrival before G was even in the game. So, let’s take a look at what was found, and determine what in Street Fighter V and Street Fighter 6 will allow us to determine Sakura’s future.
Fellow voice actor and Street Fighter lore analyst Shockdingo released a video on YouTube analyzing Street Fighter III’s characters and their potential impact on Street Fighter 6. One of his sources, who goes by the handle @Ta_Nooki on Twitter, pointed out a few things between G and Sakura that were absolutely fascinating. https://youtu.be/9VBC0FF4_5o?t=1300
After watching this video, I reached out to Shockdingo, and he was generous enough to let me use a couple of shots from his video for this theory. Let’s take a look at Sakura.
This is an interesting profile of Sakura we don’t see from official sources or otherwise. We never see the full left side of her head. It’s always turned toward the camera. You would think this is just a way to make her facial features stand out, but in reality, it’s to conceal the headphone she is wearing from the viewer’s line of sight. Notice how the developers took great pains to hide it, using her hair to cover most of it up.
When we do get a good look at the left side of her body, however, we can finally see part of the headphone.
Fortunately, we don’t have to guess what the rest of it looks like, since there’s already a render of the headphone itself.
That’s the letter G, in the same font as the G on the Ring of Galaxy stage (as found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/ma1no6/interesting_floor_details_on_the_ring_of_galaxy/).
There is no mistake, no coincidence here. That headphone was made by G.
Perhaps you’re still skeptical on the idea of this being a G-manufactured headphone. Perhaps the G is just a design anomaly and nothing more. Also, as Shockdingo points out, the G is silver on the headphone. My argument? The color doesn’t matter. Even the font of the G doesn’t matter. Why? Because we see something in the Street Fighter 6 trailer that confirms that G is making headphones.
This Metro City advertisement features the product Best Bespoke Beats, a set of headphones that apparently allow people to “unlock potential” through music, or, if the name of it is a giveaway, through spoken word. Right next to the name of the product is a stylized G. As I wrote in “The Base Story of Street Fighter 6?”:
“If the Illuminati wants to bombard Metro City with visuals, it would make sense that G, their destined opponent, would do the same with audio. Considering his power seems to come from people listening to his words, he could have used his, by this time, worldwide brand to make several audio devices that would force his listeners to hear him and, by doing so, be controlled by him.” https://manestreetblog.com/2022/06/03/the-base-story-of-street-fighter-6/
Sakura’s headphone also seems to solve another mystery: what happened to März after her fall in Shadaloo headquarters? There are only two characters in Street Fighter V who wear one ear headphones – Sakura and März; while März’s headphones are slightly different, it could be that G simply took März and everything that came with her, developing his own brand of headphone off of the one she already had.
Of course, this headphone isn’t the only thing that seems to confirm that Sakura is working for G. As Shockdingo and Ta_Nooki point out, there’s one other design on Sakura’s person that links her to G.
The scarf around Sakura’s neck has a pink and white floral pattern. Considering Sakura is named after the cherry blossom tree, it makes sense for her scarf to represent her in a similar manner. However, take a closer look at her scarf, and you’ll see gold chains weaved into it.
This appears to be a metaphor, seemingly saying that Sakura is permanently bound to G, with the scarf representing Sakura’s soul. How do we know this? Because of Street Fighter’s most famous scarf-bearing character.
Rose and her scarf utilize Soul Power, which, as the name suggests, is the power of a person’s soul. As it turns out, it was Rose’s story that fully revealed G to be the next major villain of the Street Fighter series.
Through her scarf, Sakura now has connections to both G and Rose, and along with her friendships with Ibuki, Karin, and, to a lesser extent, Akira, it appears that Sakura will undergo a major transformation in Street Fighter 6. Much like Ibuki, she may become a villainous character, fully under G’s control.
Here’s the thing, though: Sakura only wears her headphone when she’s fighting. In no story where she appears is she ever seen wearing it.
Not in her own story mode…
…Or at the Kanzuki tea party.
She doesn’t wear it in Ibuki’s, Dan’s, or Blanka’s story modes, either. So, what are we seeing here? Well, it looks like what we’re looking at is Sakura BEFORE she puts on the headphone and BEFORE she’s controlled by G. The in-game model wearing the headphone represents Sakura in the present rather than in the past, where all of the stories in SFV take place. There’s already dissonance between gameplay and story, anyway. For example, Nadeshiko never appears in A Shadow Falls, but she nevertheless makes appearances when Mika is fighting. Just because Sakura is wearing the headphone when fighting everyone, it doesn’t mean that she canonically wore it at that time. Gameplay fights are simply non-canon. However, it could also mean that Sakura, who is currently wearing the headphone, is misremembering those events in her life, imagining herself with the headphone when she didnt have one at those times, opening whole new possibilities regarding G.
Regardless of the headphone, though, there appears to be enough information in Sakura’s story mode that suggests how Sakura ended up under G’s control in the first place. After leaving Karin’s estate, and before running into Ryu, Sakura is deep in thought about her future, and she has the following monologue:
She repeats “a real job” twice, meaning she’s looking to advance her financial position in life to be able to secure her dream of being a teacher. In other words, she started working as G’s spy as a way to get money. It makes sense; working with one of the most influential Footube personalities would not only be a boon for her resumé, but it would no doubt pay well.
If only she knew the price she had to pay.
Street Fighter Game Lore Theories 