Ryoko Shinohara and Tetsuya Komuro revive a classic for Street Fighter 6

In news that surprised the hell outta me, the main promotional song for Street Fighter 6 will be a newly recorded version of Ryoko Shinohara and Tetsuya Komuro’s 1994 hit classic “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to”.

This song choice seems random as all hell, and it still kinda is. But the Street Fighter franchise does have some form of history with this song. “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to” was used in the Japanese version of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie back in 1994. A full circle moment. A revival. A reference. Yay. However, I don’t think Street Fighter 6 was the right Street Fighter game to use this song, and I’ll get into why.

News of the song was revealed during Capcom’s special Street Fighter livestream for the 2022 Tokyo Game Show. Ryoko Shinohara and Tetsuya Komura with his fried out wig which looks like it hasn’t been pressed since the release of “Chase the Chance” also made an appearance, and talked about re-recording the song.

Everything about Street Fighter 6 to me at the moment just makes no sense creatively. First off, the game looks ugly. I don’t know what it is with Capcom and ugly beat ‘em ups. Street Fighter IV. Ugly. Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Ugly. Street Fighter V. Ugly. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Ugly. Street Fighter 6. Ugly.

The motif for Street Fighter 6 is in all of the trailers has been graffiti. The game has this whole urban, street style theme to it, which makes complete sense. I mean... The game is called Street Fighter. But none of this carries through into the UI of the game, which looks like it belongs in a sports game. Capcom also completely changed their classic Street Fighter logo that they’ve used variations of for the past 20 years, into some plain, sports drink, characterless looking logo - which makes no sense, given that the original Street Fighter logo is more in line with the theme of the game, and that Street Fighter V had a graffiti-esque looking logo that they could have just re-used. And the in-game graphics are just so plain, when they should have been far more stylised. I seem like I’m just ranting off topic. And I guess I am a tad. But I say all this to say that a game which is going for urban, street and cool, having a Ryoko Shinohara song is another creative decision for Street Fighter 6 which makes no sense. “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to” may seem relevant to Street Fighter 6 lyrically. But sonically? No fucking way. Why not go for a rap song, or something more R&B led and heavy hitting instead?

I also can’t help but wonder why Crystal Kay couldn’t have been approached to cover “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to”, given that she performed it on The Masked Singer last year and sounded great doing it. If we wanna get ‘the year 2000’ marketing with it all, Crystal Kay is ‘Urban’. But in terms of practicality, she is also fluent in English, so could record an English version of the song for International markets. They could even have Crystal dress up like Street Fighter 6’s new Black ninja character, Kimberly in TV commercials. Or really make racist folk mad, and have her dress up as the Korean Taekwondo fighter Juri. And because of Crystal’s range and being known for R&B, they could have even had played with the arrangement of “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to” so it ties in more with the vibe of Street Fighter 6. OR. We could have gotten a version of the song with both Ryoko AND Crystal, which would have been a cool ‘Ah-ha’ moment for fans of the J-drama Otona Joshi, which starred Ryoko Shinohara and featured Crystal Kay’s “Nando Demo” as the theme song. Where were these Zoom calls to book a bitch?

Gurl, fire the whole management and marketing team.

BUT. Capcom have had a relationship with Avex for years. Ryoko Shinohara wasn’t signed to them when she first released “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to”, but Tetsuya Komuro was and still is. Street Fighter IV featured an Exile song as its main theme song internationally. Capcom used Ayumi Hamasaki’s likeness for the character Rebecca Chambers in Resident Evil 0. And they also used Ayu’s songs “Startin’” and “Rainy Day” as the opening and ending themes respectively for Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. J-Rock band Laws had one of their songs used in the commercial for the Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. So the Avex relationship goes deep.

“Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to” is being billed as the ‘Japan image song’, so I don’t think there’s any plan for the song to be recorded in English. And I also don’t think the song will be used to promote Street Fighter 6 outside of Japan. I don’t think there would even be a need for an English version of the song, not with where we are now in music; with K-pop and acts like Rosalía and Bad Bunny topping charts with non English releases. And when it comes to J-pop in video games, whenever a song is re-recorded in English or outright switched for something else, most always end up seeking out the Japanese versions, and preferring them.

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