Ryu (Street Fighter) the development team, was meant to let viewers know he was "a karate master at first sight". In an interview with "Game On!", Capcom Research and Development head Noritaka Funamizu stated that of the series' characters, Ryu was one of the most popular characters with American audiences, alongside Zangief and Guile. For "Street Fighter IV", Kyle Hebert was cast as Ryu in preparation of the return of his "Evil Ryu" persona. In an interview with Gamereactor, Ansah talked about Ryu and Ken's story from "Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist" and said "a good analogy with Ryu is that he's not actually
Ryu Hayabusa movie. In 2012, GamesRadar ranked the "particularly brutal good guy" 26th in their hundred "most memorable, influential, and badass" gaming protagonists. IGN held an online poll in 2008 asking readers whether Ryu or fellow ninja Joe Musashi (from Sega's "Shinobi" series) would win in a "Hero Showdown"; Ryu received a decisive 82% of the votes. Readers of the Japanese magazine "Famitsu" voted Ryu 43rd in a 2010 poll deciding the best video game character of all time. Ryu is additionally esteemed as an iconic video-game ninja character by gaming media such as TechCrunch, "Unreality", "PC World" (who added that Ryu