Just the other day, I was re-watching these movies and I thought to myself that it would be cool to do some illustrations for these guys.
one thing led to another in my head and now I've been thinking about what a full-blow karate kid fighting game would look like.
this, of course, led to another curious question... what fighting styles do each of the character actually subscribe to? I mean, duh, karate. But what kind of karate? luckily, the movie has managed to leave us lots of hints as to what each character would practice.
Miyagi: As it turns out, there is a real karate style that was pioneered by a man by the name of Chōjun Miyagi. The style that he pioneered was Gōjū-ryū karate, which had an emphasis of hard strikes combined with soft techniques for grappling, defense, etc. A great deal of it was focused on breathing properly, which was featured in the movies extensively. So, it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Miyagi himself practiced Goju-ryu karate with an emphasis of counters, defenses and dodges. Seems very appropriate.
there is, of course, the invented two moves for the miyagi-do karate: the crane kick and the drum fist.
Daniel: As a progeny to Mr. Miyagi-do karate, his fighting style is going to bear a strong similarity to Miyagi's. However, because of his age and youth, his martial arts tend to go for a more direct approach where as Miyagi has a lot of counter throws and defensive locks, daniel favors counter strikes instead.
Kreese: From the dialogue that Terry Silver had with Miyagi and Daniel in KK3, it's suggested that they both learned their karate styles from a Korean instructor. whether this means they have actually received a Korean variant of Karate or the instructor himself was merely korean is unknown. However, we can assertain the fact that whatever form of karate they used, it had a great emphasis of utility over spiritual development, thus it is possible that what they learned might not have been karate at all, but some kind of hybrid martial art. That or they were really referring to Tang-Soo-Do, which is heavily influenced by Japanese Karate.
His focus though, is shown apparent through his mantra, "strike hard, strike fast, no mercy". As you can see, the focal point of his martial art style is offense. From that mentality and deriving from the movies, it's possible that his skill sets will include a lot of linear strikes with lots of power and speed behind them. I recon that combinations are very popular in this school of fighting. for some reason, Kreese has not been shown to use a lot of kicks and focus mostly on punches and trips. It is possible that instead of learning the arts through formalized katas, he has learned his through practice drills and sparring from military training - again, application over theory. It is possible that he will bore a greater resemblence to many UFC strikers rather than traditional tang-soo-do masters.
Johnny Lawrence: obviously going to be modelled heavily off of Kreese's style. Just like kreese, he has a lot of fast jabs and heavy hits. His defensive work is minimal at best.
Terry Silver: Just like Kreese, his style could very well be a modified form of Tong-Soo-do. but because of the size difference between him and Kreese, he has been shown to use to more acrobatic styles of fighting and utilizes far more kicks in general to suppliment his reach.
Sato: As another student of Goju-ryu, he seems to derive far more emphasis on the basic strike stances and simpler attacks, unlike Miyagi, who has been shown using more of the higher level techniques. While I would not discount his proficiency in the higher level forms, his personality profile and his approach towards attack Miyagi shows that he favors simpler attack patterns but each one being a killing blow. In many ways, I can see his fighting style being like that of Ryo from Art of Fighting.
