For Year 3, we’ve had Sagat’s and Crimson Viper’s respective releases, several DLC events, the return of Giant Attack, the Street Fighter’s Last Cry visual novel, and even Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves not only expanding on Ken’s and Chun-Li’s stories, but also becoming fighting game of the year. In all of that time, what are the things we have learned?
- Rocks are sentient in Thailand.
- Viper is not Asterisk, but is a major helicopter parent.
- JP is freakier than we originally thought.
- Chun-Li still isn’t doing much behind the scenes except for doting on Li-Fen.
Of all of these characters, JP’s story is the one that has advanced a bit more, because we find out a couple of things about him during other people’s events. In Viper’s story, he’s able to create fully tangible illusions of himself. In FF:COTW, he is able to spread his Psycho Power and influence to fighters in South Town in Ken’s story and take control of people’s minds there. The freakiest thing we learn, however, is that he is the person portraying Grace in Street Fighter’s Last Cry, taking the form of a blue-silhouetted young woman. Based on your interactions with “her”, you find that “she” shares JP’s powers, kills you with JP’s cane in one ending, and turns you into a Psycho-Powered puppet in another ending. We also know that each of the characters in Last Cry are represented by characters you interact with in World Tour, with the character John admitting straight up that he is Dhalsim. Other characters represented include Chun-Li, Guile, Thrasher, Mad Gear Elissa, Cammy, Kimberly, Luke, Rashid, and Blanka as a cat, with you, the avatar, portraying Max (the only thing we don’t know for sure is the identity of the sumo girl, who is thought to be E. Honda).
All of this reveals a few things about JP. We knew he was a chessmaster and a master manipulator. However, he’s also more than willing to hide or change his gender to get what he wants. He’s able to create illusions of himself anywhere at any time he chooses, and this was something Bison was sort of able to do after his death in Street Fighter V, being able to create illusions of himself to haunt Ed.
Interestingly enough, Ed seems to be part of JP’s plans anyway, and so is the amnesiac Bison. In Fatal Fury, JP controls everyone from Rock Howard to Mai Shiranui and JP more or less declares he wants to take over the entire city.
So, looking at everything here, what the hell is JP’s overarching plan? He can do all of these things, but to what end? He could easily be the next leader of Shadaloo, but he doesn’t want the job. He has all the money he needs from his money laundering operation. He ruined Ken’s life, but JP makes it very clear his villainy was a business move, not a personal slight to Ken. He does not care about the people he ruins to advance his own goals, but he doesn’t seem to have a clear goal in mind. So is he just doing all this for the sake of being evil?
My belief is that JP is a mole who works for G. Despite everything we’ve seen JP say about himself as well as his seeming familiarity with both Ed and F.A.N.G, I just don’t believe he ever worked for Shadaloo at all and simply said he did to hide what he’s truly doing. That being said, it’s hard to know what his plans are and it’s aggravating because you would think Viper’s story would have dropped some kind of hint outside of “JP can produce illusions”. Now, we have to wait for Alex and Ingrid just to see if Capcom will give us any hint at all as to what the story actually looks like.
In all, I’m extremely frustrated with the seeming mundaneness of the character stories. The developers have the ability to tell a story that makes sense outside of “Avatar gets strong, Avatar finds out about their masters’ family lives, Avatar gets stronger”. We need something better than that, because the way it looks now, JP’s story ends with him riding into the sunset and letting Bison take over as main bad guy again, which would be such a waste of so many characters’ stories and an even bigger waste of JP and his character arc.
Fortunately, after sitting down and writing and rewriting my thoughts, something finally clicked, and all of JP’s actions finally began to fit together. Now, it could be that Capcom really doesn’t have or want anything planned for JP with the way they keep kicking the metaphorical can down the road. However, it could also mean that they have something in mind, but they want the player to experience a moment in time that will make them question the character and the story in general.
So what do I think is Capcom’s plan for JP? At first, I thought they would go the Vega route and allow him to live a private life in peace. Considering that JP is much like Yoshikage Kira from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, someone who wants to commit a bunch of crimes and then live happily with his cat, Cybele, this could be JP’s true agenda. However, the problem is that JP is a capitalist with a powerful hunger to consume anything and everything, driven by the Psycho Power he took from Bison. In fact, one of his stated likes is local cuisines, and through this, he has his own comic series much like Juri has which also features his beloved cat: Yum Yum, Mr. JP.
While officially non-canon, it shows JP eating local cuisines in various places while surrounded by other Street Fighter characters, and JP and the others around him are plainly enjoying themselves. While it’s a common trope in Street Fighter art, both official and unofficial, for characters doing uncharacteristic things for laughs, what sets this apart is that unlike Juri’s comic series, which is humorous and chaotic, JP’s is based off of an official trait, making him the right person to enjoy the world’s foods as well as cluing us in to his true nature.
Based on his capacity to manipulate, influence, and drain the world and the people around him, JP is, in essence, a vampire. Even his bat brooch is yet another clue to who he is a person.
As I’ve stated before, G is the same, an energy vampire. However, JP adds one other thing to this: as a man who loves local cuisine, JP doesn’t just want to drain the world. He wants to EAT the world. He’s one part G, one part Bison, and one part Necalli, and although we haven’t seen JP dine on human flesh like Necalli, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it for the sake of being a “foodie”. Even Hannibal Lecter had a wide palate.
Just keep JP away from the fava beans and chianti.
Street Fighter Game Lore Theories 