Akuma/Gouki's Symbol - Page 2

So... to answer this question, we have a bunch of faceless posters ready to argue their opinions without any substantial proof that they are correct. I even had to laugh at the guy who claimed he was right simply because he got the tattoo on his back. I guess that makes you and expert by default, right? I hear stories all the time about people getting Japanese or Chinese characters tattooed on themselves only to find out the meaning the guy at the tattoo shop gave them was completely wrong. Can we get somebody to answer this question and point us towards an authoritative resource backing the claim?

I agree with guys saying it means "sky" and "heaven". By using this sign, Akuma means that "Heaven will fall"

quote Santtu

Yeah, this thread should be dead, but I really must say this; martinwalker8, you're not a "shotokan" (that is actually ansatsuken) master if you don't know that Dan trains saikyo-ryu, not ansatsuken. And Gouki is not evil, his Satsu no Hadou philosophy is that killing in a battle is not wrong, and Gouki just wants to find strong opponents. Also, that ten-symbol on Gouki's back actually means sky.

[q][/q

www.chinese-symbols.com/s-chinese-symbol-for- sky
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Kanji
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Shotokan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ansatsuken
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Okinawan_martial_arts
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ryu_Street_Fighter#Fighting_style
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Kyokushin_kaikan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Dan_Hibiki#As_a_parody

(I spaced the last word of all the urls as i seen the amount allowed posted are limited.)

The true style they practice is actually called Kyokushinkai.
Because most westerners(USA)are not familiar with all derivatives of karate, they called it Shotokan.(Shotkan and Kyokushinkai are closely related)Also,I believe that when the producers,or whoever was responsible for the show's and game's reputation said "It is rooted in an assassination art", it was probably just for appeal and it ended up being called by the actual assassination style, Ansatsuken (who knows,they might actually be related also),even though their style form and technique heavily reflect Kyokushinkai.(So America made a mistake and Japan embellished)
Akuma's Symbol is heaven/sky but it could mean something else about heaven for Akuma i.e; "Im so high up im in the sky" or "humans cant reach my level" etc.Take note that in Street Fighter IV he says "Heaven trembles before my might" so it could mean he is on an assault for heaven and he's taking it over starting with the symbol (but that could be a stretch).I use variations only because unlike English writing,Kanji is (most of the time) a representation of a word or phrase and can have more than one meaning for each symbol. So you can more or less say the symbol is like slang where the person can create a new word or term or phrase based off the original.
As the story goes, Akuma IS evil in that he searches for opponents with the actual desire TO KILL.It's one thing to believe killing in battle is not wrong if your own life is threatened by your opponent, but to just want to kill them just because you are victorious in battle...I'd say that's pretty evil (or at least confused).Even though he only kills other warriors, that's just evil with a code of ethics.
Last and um *ahem* certainly least (sorry Dan fans) everything about Dan is a parody making fun of Ryo and Robert from the SNK Series Art of fighting.Even The name, Saikyo-ryu is a parody of
Kyokugen-ryū,Ryo's and Roberts style.But OBVIOUSLY he uses moves
damn near exact to Ryu and Kens style. (guess they didn't want to create a whole new list of moves or techniques for him)Dan is completely not worth mentioning for serious Street Fighter gamers, he's just there for fun.Although he has been known to be represented well by some pretty good gamers from time to time (you have to be REAL GOOD to make Dan look good)

Hope that helped and remember,
"The answer lies in the heart of battle"-RYU

So here is my 2 cents...

First of all, to "xyloz": '無' and '无' are the same words, '无' is just the simplified form.

Now from reading all the replies on this thread, i think "liguistic_master" comes the closest to being correct (except that being a master in linguistic, he couldn't even spell his user name correctly). However, he/she is very correct in that the meaning behind '無' or '无' are deeply used in philosophy, but he didn't explain the meaning of them correctly. To correct his/her statement on infinity: '無' or '无' only has meaning of infinity when "限" is added at the end, as in "無限" or "无限" because "限" would mean "limit," "bound," or "finite," and '無' or '无' would negate it. The philisophical meaning of '無' or '无' usually has something to do with "nothingness" as some of you have pointed out. But within philosophy, "nothingness" can lead to so many other things.

The following is from an English-Chinese dictionary:

Trad.: 無
Simp.: 无
Pinyin: wú
English: -less; not to have; no; none; not; to lack; un-

Also, I would like to add my thoughts on Akuma's (Gouki's) symbol. I think that his symbol was originally "无" because it only makes sense since his brother has the same symbol, just the traditional form. You see, '無' or '无' doesn't have a negative or positive connotation to it, but it can as well. It just depends on how it gets used -- that's why it's such an important word in philosophy. If any of you have heard of the anime "3X3 Eyes" <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3×3_Eyes>, there is an explanation of how '无' is used as well, which i feel may explain a little of Akuma's character. Anyway, back to my hypothesis; as the world of Street Fighter moved on, people must have mistaken the character '无' for '天' (which has a meaning along the lines of "heaven" or "sky"), and the people at Capcom probably decided to roll with it. I think that they like to make the word ambiguous to have their fans coming up with their own thoughts and ideas just like how musicians, poets, and other artists do in their work.

quote Akuma6

I have used this name for six years and never heard of this
game,now I must go buy this game and play it. Does anyone here know of the kanji for the word Akuma?

waaooow...

Wow I like akuma as much as the next person but you guys are *bleep*ing pathetic to be getting that symbol tattooed on your back.

Bunch of weeaboos.

i have never seen so many people fight over name i looked this up cause i thought it would be cool to know and the liguistic_master guys thing makes the most sense cause he is completely right

when akuma was introduced back in the day I read that the three kanji symbols for life literally translated into instant hell murder