Blanka

**Blanka** (ブランカ *Buranka*?), also known by his birth name **Jimmy** (ジミー *Jimī*?), is a video game character from the *Street Fighter* series, first appearing in *Street Fighter II*. He is a feral man from the Brazilian jungle with green skin and the ability to generate electricity.

## Biography

### Personality

Blanka is generally passive and docile, and is fond of family connections and friendships as well as children, as seen in the animated series. Yet, when angered, Blanka attacks like a wild animal let loose from a cage, ferociously attacking his opponents with predatorial rage.

As the series goes on, Blanka while retaining his usual manner of speech, starts to develop a bit more common sense, which ironically makes him a more cautious-minded foil to the hot-headed Dan Hibiki. His dislike of masked men is also shown in his rivalry battle with El Fuerte.

### Concept

Designed by Akira "Akiman" Yasuda, the concept behind Blanka emerged in an early design as an African man named Anabebe who was raised by a lion.[*citation needed*] After the release of *Final Fight*, Capcom again approached *Street Fighter II* and considered several designs for the Blanka character (including a masked wrestler modeled after Tiger Mask and a ninja-style warrior).[*citation needed*] His prototypical name was "Big Dean Caves".[*citation needed*] His design later changed to a large man with thick hair and sideburns, named "Hammer Blanka".[*citation needed*] The staff then adopted Blanka's feral appearance, because they felt the game would be "dull" with only human characters.

### Appearance and characteristics

Blanka's most prominent physical characteristic is his green color, initially attributed to his consumption of chlorophyll from plants to blend into his jungle environment, a color change that eventually became permanent. However, when *Street Fighter* was brought to the US, Blanka's coloring was attributed to his being struck by lightning during the electrical storm in which his plane crashed. In *Street Fighter II* Blanka's skin is yellowish-green, but later versions of the character are bright green. Early *Street Fighter II*artwork of Blanka showed him having pure green skin, despite the in-game renders showing him with yellowish skin color. Aside from his green skin, Blanka also has vivid orange hair.

In the non-canon *Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter*, Blanka appears in the ending of another green-skinned powerhouse, The Incredible Hulk. In the ending, Bruce Banner theorizes that gamma radiation caused Blanka's mutations, as they did his. He is also seen in the background of one stage, sitting in front of a campfire, in a crouch and face affixed in a snarl, across from The Beast, who mirrors his expression.

## Gameplay

### Fighting style and abilities

Blanka fights in a self-taught, animalistic savage style (however, Capcom's USA division originally depicted it as a Capoeira technique). When using his signature attack, Electric Thunder, he crouches and emits an electrical current shocking anyone and anything it touches.

### Moveset

Despite being a primarily charge-based character, Blanka's fighting style is based on speed and unpredictability. His unusual appearance and movement mean he can often surprise opponents with the range and sudden ferocity of his attacks, most of which are various incarnations of his Rolling Attack. His jump is very fast, allowing him to quickly hop over projectiles and attack opponents before they can recover.

In addition, his bestial characteristics allow him to counter moves in unusual ways - for instance, in the *Street Fighter II* series, Blanka can avoid a High Tiger Shot from Sagat by simply walking forward, allowing it to pass over his head. Later games modified the Rolling Attack so that the weaker versions of the move stopped short, allowing him more tactical capability, as well as introducing other variants of the move to increase the player's options for approaching opponents.

The series, as well as later games, grant Blanka moves that allow him to rush backwards and forwards quickly to surprise opponents, and sliding moves such as the Amazon River Runthat allow him to slip under projectiles and attack an opponent's legs.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Blanka is very friendly and wants to make sure everyone is safe. He is prone to anger but Fluttershy is the only one who can calm him down. He also helps the Turtles out during some of the missions.

## Trivia

* Blanka is Ono's favorite *Street Fighter* character, and he is often seen with a Blanka toy that he uses to hide spoilers.
	+ According to an interview with Nintendo Channel[*citation needed*], Ono obtained this toy along with a few extra, from the hamburguer restaurant Jollibee's Kids Meal set in the Philippines similar to the Happy Meals from McDonald's.[7]Currently one of them is broken and Ono keeps the other close to him.

* The meaning of Blanka, in esperanto, is "white". It is similar to "blanca" in Spanish, which also means white but in feminine form.

* Blanka shares a birthday with the Naturalist Charles Darwin who postulated evolution by natural selection. Many of Darwin's facts were collected during his expedition of South America. Darwin has been depicted as a monkey-man (like Blanka) due to the implications of his theory on man's evolution.

* His 10th alternate color bears a striking resemblance to his original color scheme in *Street Fighter II: The World Warrior*.

* Blanka and Adon share some similarities with each other: they have orange hair, they are both voiced by the same person in English (Taliesen Jaffe), and their 10th alternate colors represent their former color schemes from when they first debuted. Adon first appeared in the original *Street Fighter*, and Blanka first appeared in *Street Fighter II*.

* His Japanese voice actor, Yuji Ueda previously voiced Urien in *Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact*.

* In Felicia's ending of the original game *Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors*, she says she wants Blanka as her co-star.

* According to Blanka's *SSFIV* win quote towards Ken, he is the only electric fighter, which is not true as C. Viper fights with (among other gadgets) her electric gloves. Other fighters who have also made use of electricity are Ryu, Necro, Urien, Gouken, and Laura. It should be noted that Blanka considers C. Viper to be a cheater because of her gadgets. Additionally, he has yet to encounter Necro, Laura and Urien at this point.

* Blanka is one of the few characters in the original *Street Fighter IV* to have one rival (in his case, El Fuerte) throughout the whole game series.