#nguuhao

Since seeing the concept art for A.K.I. back in late June, I noticed her “eye shadow” on her swimsuit Outfit 4 was different from her default. They’re basically dark circles instead of makeup. I figured because it was due to the poison training, so her eyes look unhealthy like that. I’ve been wondering if the concept would look like that in the game, and it actually does.

F.A.N.G actually had eyes like that in SFV with his Nguuhao Story costume (Outfit 2). FANG’s other costumes in the game didn’t have dark circles around his eyes though. And then in SF6, his eyes are a lot darker.

“Who is he?” A new Nguuhao member named Achara asks the nineteen-year-old that brought him in.

Fifteen-year-old Achara is asking about a too tall, too thin man seated at the head of the head table. It is clear the man is of high standing within the cartel.

“The F.A.N.G of the Nguuhao. He started running our group two years ago,” says Chalermchai, the nineteen-year-old that brought Achara in.

“What can you tell me about him?” Achara asks.

“All I can say is he has earned his rank. It is rumored that he killed off most of the members that were brought in with him when he entered the Nguuhao. It may be a combination of that and the poison slowly killed most of them off over time or it could just the poison and bad luck on their part. By the time he was nineteen, he had already earned a high position within the cartel but at a price. He was already hardened by life but losing his lover, Udon, only made it worse. That’s what pushed him even further to succeed. He hasn’t loved since,” Chalermchai says. “He brought it upon himself though by falling in love. We can’t love.”

“But why?”

“It is not for a Nguuhao to want. It is not for a Nguuhao to feel. A Nguuhao is an artist of the assassin world. We stalk, we kill. We entertain, whatever is needed. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret,” Chalermchai explains.

Achara watches as F.A.N.G, T.U.S.K, and T.A.I.L get up from the table. He is surprised by the sheer height of F.A.N.G. He notices the gaunt face, the dark brown, almond-shaped eyes that seem to take in every detail, but most of all, he notices the odd, almost Geisha-like grace that F.A.N.G has when he walks. As the three men walk past, F.A.N.G’s gaze flickers to Achara for a few seconds.

Achara is taken with the weirdness of the Nguuhao leader’s grace and presence. He was torn away from his family, he was torn away from his friends and everything he knew and loved and he was thrown into this life of poison and assassination. He felt that F.A.N.G was a kindred spirit. Achara becomes soon becomes a fixture in F.A.N.G’s life. It is F.A.N.G that teaches him the ways of the Poison Hand and the art of moving quickly and quietly. F.A.N.G was a harsh but effective teacher. He expected the best of his cartel.

F.A.N.G’s talent for organization rubbed off on Achara. It was something that Achara came to appreciate and utilize in his everyday life. In time, Achara becomes F.A.N.G’s Golden Child. With that tile came great responsibility. Everyone watched him, watched his every move but he also a certain amount of privilege with that title tacked to his name.

When the Nguuhao was sent out to kill Bison, F.A.N.G took T.U.S.K and T.A.I.L. with him. F.A.N.G made Achara stay behind. He told Achara to start over with a new life if something happened to the cartel. When the Nguuhao folded, it was rumored that all of them had died.

There was, in fact, two that had survived. One went on to lead a normal life. The other went on to become the second most powerful man in Shadaloo. Achara often wondered if F.A.N.G’s death was quick and painless. As far as he knew, F.A.N.G was gone. F.A.N.G’S thoughts often wondered to how Achara was doing in his new life, if Achara went on to have a normal life or if he stayed in a life of crime and how he was doing in whatever life he chose to lead.

Achara wound up living a reasonably normal life. He went and finished school and went on to college. He then managed to find a job in weapons. It was in this job that he witnesses a weapons deal going sour and a too tall, too thin Chinese man with a purple, silk changshan, black hair, sunglasses, black Chinese capris, black shoes, and red long socks. It could not be… It could not be F.A.N.G, he was almost certain it was. He watched as a long, slender, taloned, purple-tinged hand swiped at a guard. The nails hit their mark and killed the guard.

“F.A.N.G!” Achara calls out as the too tall, too thin man and his four cohorts run into the night.

F.A.N.G pauses ever so briefly at hearing his name called.

“Achara,” he thinks as he continues to run. He does not bother to stop, slow down or even acknowledge the call. He keeps running. He is happy that one Nguuhao member has a chance of normalcy. Achara is happy and content that F.A.N.G has possibly survived the attack against the Nguuao cartel. Achara thinks about what F.A.N.G once said.

“I shall and will be on the side that kills… I will not be on the side that is killed.”

It’s something I’ve been wondering myself for some time. There was also a Reddit post about it where people had their own theories, some speculating that A.K.I. might’ve started the poison training at an older age than when F.A.N.G started.

I have a few theories of my own:

THEORY 1: Poison affects each person differently. AKI lost her melanin whereas FANG lost his libido and his hands leak poison permanently. FANG also can’t get drunk because of his poison tolerance, so I’d probably assume that could be the same for AKI…? I don’t know lol.

THEORY 2: AKI is now at the point where her poison tolerance levels are higher than that of FANG’s (?). In “Toxicity,” FANG saw that AKI has a strength that he had never seen before, neither from himself nor from his “brothers.” Maybe the reason why FANG still has his melanin is because he’s already at his threshold and that he can’t go any further with the poison dosage or he’d die from it? Hence, he can’t reach to the point where his hair and skin turn white.

But then AKI already had streaks of white hair as a kid after doing some poison training, and there’s no way she’s at FANG’s level at that point. Which leads to—

THEORY 3: The poison that AKI was trained with was much more potent than what FANG trained with. From his SFV Character story, it is said that FANG is the strongest poison user of any generation before him. He must’ve been training with the previous generations’ poison whereas AKI trained from FANG’s which is more corrosive, and that’s probably why AKI’s hair and skin bleached.

That being said, if it was any other person that’s not AKI, they’d probably die under FANG’s poison training. FANG’s training days was full of kids dying around him and that affected his perception of survival. So of course, if he knows a kid that’s just as strong or even stronger than he was (that be AKI), he would accept them as his student.

THEORY 4: AKI overdid the poison training, going beyond the dosage that FANG had recommended. In her World Tour and also in FANG’s SFV story mode, poison immunity is built through controlled exposure, with non-lethal doses. AKI warned the WT avatar not to mimic her methods unless they want to die in the process. This may imply that AKI overexposed herself with poison, putting a toll on her body and health. Knowing AKI, she probably did this because she wanted FANG to praise her along with her own fascination with poisons (no matter how painful it was).

But looking back at AKI’s old concept art, she initially had dark hair and some color in her skin. She also had poison stained hands similar to FANG too. AKI was going to be the same as FANG in a visual and symptomatic sense.

Of course, sometime later the designers decided to have AKI’s hair and skin bleached, which goes in-line with the white snake motif. No official lore reason why the poison turned AKI this way while FANG’s hands permanently leak poison and his libido is gone (I think AKI still has hers with the way she talks about FANG).

A.K.I. facial expressions 💜🥰💜🥰. I drew this on IbisPaint X on my iPhone with a rubber tip stylus.

The reference I used:

AKI’s wonderful Master F.A.N.G of course 💜🥰💜🥰. A lot of her facial expressions reminded me of his. But of course, A.K.I. learned from the best 💜😀💜😀.

I know this may seem ooc considering the relationship dynamic between A.K.I. and F.A.N.G, but let me explain myself. I had some thoughts about A.K.I.’s name when I drew this little doodle. I know the story on how she got it, but I don’t know exactly why she’s named that way.

How A.K.I. got her name (from F.A.N.G):

A.K.I.’s name in Chinese characters:

After surviving her 1st poison training, Phantom (鬼) became A.K.I. (阿鬼). In kanji it means Ghost-chan.

In Chinese, 阿 (a) is used as an endearment for someone who’s close, especially within family.

F.A.N.G gave A.K.I. this name. But I thought emotional attachments are forbidden? Why did F.A.N.G gave her a name so cute and endearing?! Was he that proud of her on the day when she passed her first poison training? 💜🥺💜🥺. I honestly don’t know. F.A.N.G naming A.K.I. with 阿 shows a sign of an emotional bond. It’s almost as if he unconsciously raised A.K.I. as his own daughter 🥺🥺

Maybe sometimes F.A.N.G is not aware of his own actions? Based on how he interacts with the avatar in World Tour Mode, perhaps he acts similarly towards A.K.I.? F.A.N.G is reserved at first. If the avatar does a specific emote, F.A.N.G would laugh and dance until he stops himself from being too friendly. Maybe this is how A.K.I. learned her perfect win pose? I mean, that was obviously F.A.N.G’s from SFV. He gotta slip sometimes and A.K.I. would catch it 🤭🤭.

As for their acronyms, we all know what F.A.N.G’s is: Fantastic Asian Notorious Gang.

A.K.I.’s…well it doesn’t really mean anything canonically. Director Takayuki Nakayama said her name has a meaning in only Kanji or Chinese…which is Ghost-chan. It doesn’t have a real meaning in English. So no, it’s not Acute Kidney Injury lol.

All members of the Nguuhao have acronyms names. T.U.S.K (left) and T.A.I.L (right) from F.A.N.G’s SFV story mode. I don’t know the meaning behind their names lol.

More about them here: https://game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column/131363

I remember back in January, atgrbread mentioned that F.A.N.G forbids A.K.I. for calling him “Shifu” in the Japanese version of the game. This word is spelled differently depending on the context in Chinese, but the spelling in question is 師父, which has a “fatherly” connotation. Deep down, A.K.I. wanted to call F.A.N.G Shifu (fatherly master) because that’s how much she loves him 💜💜. Sadly, F.A.N.G forbids it because the term has an emotional attachment to it. So A.K.I. opted for “Xiansheng”(先生), which means teacher/sensei/sir/Mr…and secretly in her mind “husband.” Tbf, she already formed a crush on him when she first met him as a kid. It’s F.A.N.G’s fault for not settling for Shifu lol 😂😅😂😅

But then that got me thinking even further. Perhaps F.A.N.G doesn’t want to be called “father” because it would remind him of the time when his “brothers” called him their “brother.” He was very close to them, like family. And then he was tasked by the Nguuhao organization to kill all of them in order to become the ultimate poison master. It’s either him or them. And that’s the day where he swore off from having emotional attachments towards anyone in his line of work. I can imagine that being called “father” would bring back painful memories to F.A.N.G, and that’s probably why he doesn’t want A.K.I. calling him that. Maybe also perhaps F.A.N.G doesn’t want A.K.I. to go through the same emotional turmoil like he went through in his past. That’s probably why he makes a point that she shouldn’t get too attached to him, especially if there may come a time when they are pitted against each other. Although A.K.I. understands this, she secretly disobeyed because she loves him that much. She can’t change her feelings, even if F.A.N.G would disapprove.

Fanart of F.A.N.G and 3 of his “brothers.”

F.A.N.G’s first professional job.

F.A.N.G becomes the Ultimate Poison Assassin, but at what cost?

I can see why I often find cute F.A.N.G & A.K.I. fanart by mostly artists from Japan and China. The Shifu “fatherly master” part is mentioned in these languages, thus it sends out more emotional impact. I wish the localization didn’t omit this detail. We’re definitely missing out on something that’s very poignant.