sfv era ed was not 2-3 years old-
i'm sticking with the actual in-game dialogue because it makes more sense
Reblogging this a second time this time on here because Capcom really has no clue how rapid aging works. So, for one, there is a difference between a growth spurt and rapid aging. And two, what doesn’t help is that Capcom selectively does not specify ages in characters. Specifically, in Street Fighter 6 from what I’ve seen, characters that are young without a specified age like Ed, Kimberly, and Lily are in the current roster without specified ages.
I’m just going off my own guesses/headcanons here. Going way back to SF4 and SF4 Ultra Edition, Balrog’s arcade ending, he saves an at the time, unnamed young boy that was a Shadaloo experiment. The young boy is 10 years old.
The boy that we then see in Balrog’s SFV arcade mode is Ed, who is (again, another guess) approximately 12 to 13. Then in Ed’s official roster debut in SFV Chamption Edition, he is about, give or take 18-19 years old. Keep in mind that Street Fighter has never had an underage character in the roster (that I know of because who knows what Capcom kept hidden in the past). Which brings us to Street Fighter 6, which takes place I’m gonna guess three to four years since Bison’s defeat. Which would make Ed in his early 20’s.
As for how he went from being tiny to being literally a foot taller than the some of the short people that love him? Growth spurt. Or… he just grew up.
Rapid aging does NOT stop at just making someone taller. Rapid aging would mean that Ed would be very unhealthy. Clearly, from how he looks, he is not unhealthy, nor does he have wrinkles all over, nor is he so stressed to the point of aging by a few decades (despite being constantly chased around by Shadaloo wannabes).
A minor detail, but in the character select screen when you go into Fighting Ground shows Ed clearly drinking beer. The legal drinking age in America is 21 (wow, look at me incorporating real life drinking age into my guesses and headcanons of a video game character lol), where Ed is mostly located in World Tour mode.
Also, back to Capcom… if Ed was underage, they would not make a body pillow of him as an April Fools Joke (look it up). Plus, Ed was intentionally designed to attracted more women to Street Fighter so him being in a revealing costume in SFV Champion Edition makes a bit of sense. And again, if Kimberly and Lily were underage, then they wouldn’t be wearing their default outfits.
You cannot look at Lily in Daisy Dukes and go, “oh yeah, she is still a kid.” In addition to that, Kimberly graduated high school, which would make her approximately 18-19, since the game states that she is a teenager, but she is not shown in high school, plus Kimberly would not be wearing revealing clothes either.
You also cannot look at Ed’s default design in SF6 and go, “oh, he’s probably much younger than he appears to be.” Dude, he’s walking around shirtless and he was literally designed to be a thirst trap to women. And it worked. I’m using this slutty M. Bison costume he had in SFV to prove a point here. It would be REALLY weird if Capcom made Ed younger than he looks but then they gave him this costume anyway.
Unless the ages of the characters come from the mouth of Capcom, I wouldn’t worry. Well, I still would not worry because Ed is literally pixels on a screen, so even if that were the case, it’s not like the creepy Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber situations (if you know you know), because Ed is not a real person.
TL:DR, unless it comes from the mouth of Capcom, I’m not too worried about Ed and I will continue to say that he is in his early 20’s. Because ain’t no way Capcom is convincing us that Ed is younger than he looks when they clearly designed him to attract women (and possibly a few men).
