As promised, Capcom revealed a new character for Street Fighter 5 this weekend at South East Asia Major 2017, and as many had suspected, the identity of that character is Zeku.
Zeku is the final Season 2 character to be added to the Street Fighter 5’s roster, and just like Kolin, Ed, Abigail and Menat before him, he is entirely new. However, unlike the other four, Zeku has a bit more exposure to the Street Fighter universe (tied with Kolin, most likely) due to him appearing in Guy’s ending in Alpha 2.
Specifically, Zeku was the 38th successor of the Bushinryu School and served as Guy’s teacher. Eventually, the two would battle — just like how he and his own teacher did before — in order to see whether Guy was worthy of being the 39th Successor of the Bushinryu school. Guy won the battle and following the results of that match, Zeku disappeared and was never seen again…until now.
With Zeku’s sudden appearance in Street Fighter 5, it’s easy to see where Guy got his moves from as their battle styles are very reminiscent of one another. The one thing that definitively separates the two however, is that a fair portion of Zeku’s attacks incorporate ninjutsu, as opposed to Guy’s which is pretty much entirely taijutsu-based.
Unfortunately, we still don’t have any specifics on Zeku’s moveset quite yet. All we know is that he can transform into a younger, Strider-esque form when doing certain attacks. For now, it doesn’t appear that this is his V-Trigger, as he’s seen doing what looks like his actual V-Trigger while in both forms. As such, his ninja form might be linked an indicator of his current stance (like Gen in Street Fighter IV).
Like stated before, Zeku will be the final character to be added to the Street Fighter 5 roster in Season 2; which means we’ll have to wait until Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition arrives before we see anyone else. There have been many rumors about who will appear as a playable character, but the one that seems the most likely is this guy.
Zeku will be available on Oct. 24.
Check out Zeku’s reveal trailer below:
