Edmond Honda, also known as E. Honda, is one of the major protagonists in the Street Fighter series.
Biography
Concept
In initial designs for Street Fighter II, Honda was dubbed simply "Sumo", and stated that he would be a character recognizable by Americans and popular in Japan.
Appearance
Edmond Honda is an obese yet very muscular Japanese man, seemingly in his late 30s to early 40s. While not having the same height as T. Hawk, Sagat or Zangief, Honda is notably tall, despite not looking so due to his fighting stance with flexed knees and hunchback. He has black hair in a chonmage hairstyle and wears only a white and light blue mawashi with a striking red fundoshi underneath (the later is rarely seen). His face is painted in the kumadori style of red makeup used in kabuki. As a sumo wrestler he always fights barefoot, though many artworks depict him wearing a pair of geta (traditional Japanese wooden sandals with two "elevated" clogs).
Personality
E. Honda is an honorable and friendly man who warmly welcomes people he sees as good; he is also ambitious in regards to displaying the strength of sumo to the world, and to that end he always gives his all during his training and fighting regimens. In the sumo training he offers for others, he is known for being a very strict teacher, yet this is done out of his desire to see his students achieve their full potential rather than out of cruelty or malice. He also enjoys hot steaming baths between training sessions, his favorite spot being Kapukon Yu.
Despite his apparent lack of agility and portrayals in other media as clumsy or silly, Honda is a very powerful sumo grand master. He takes both his sumo art and his "Rikishi" title very seriously, considering it a sacred martial art just like any other; Honda often throws a handful of salt in front of him before he begins to fight, in reference to the real-life sumo ritual, often performed as a means of purification (specifically called "shubatsu").
