at the "switch 2" nintendo direct on april 2, 2025 they announced street fighter 6 was coming to the switch 2.
i hadn't kept up with street fighter despite loving it as a younger teenager because i didn't like street fighter 5's art style, so this was the first time i'd actually sat with street fighter 6's existence

and it piqued my interest! i wasn't planning on getting the switch 2 (i ""still"" don't have one at the time of writing, or see myself buying one until animal crossing or a numbered splatoon releases on it... something big like that) but the announcement of it coming to the switch 2 sent me down the path of watching videos related to street fighter 6 across platforms. it really made me want to play it, but because i don't have any of the consoles it's on (and my pc isn't powerful enough to handle it) i had to stop watching things about because it felt like a tease.

time passed, cut to earlier this year (2026). i look up to the street fighter 3 games a ton artistically! it's normal for me to look to them for inspiration (and heck, i can play them anytime i want), but this time it evolved to me deciding to see how street fighter 6 is going, they added new characters right? what's it like now!!

i didn't expect to get endeared to a character in the way i did, lol.

at first i was looking at "all costumes" videos (amazing character design), then it turned to watching matches, then it became reading up on the characters.
i'd read up on the characters last year when i was interested, but something was different now? maybe it was because last year i was hungry to play the game, meanwhile now i was looking to it more artistically. whatever the case though, i didn't expect to become endeared to a character in the way i did... that character being jamie siu.

here's the timeline of how that went:
reading up on all of the characters -> "oh jamie has a drink mechanic? how didn't i notice that last year?" -> "oh my god the way his animations change depending on how drunk he is is hilarious" -> "HIS THEME SONG SOUNDS LIKE THIS?"

i knew it was over when i watched a match where a kimberly player landed her third super art on a jamie player. seeing him all silly laying on the ground with his arms up, covered in paint (braid and all) forced me to pause so i could laugh and coo at him... and i only have that sort of reaction to characters i'm especially endeared to.

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on one hand i feel like a poser for getting so many feelings about a character from a game i've never played. which yeah! i still haven't played the game. i attempted to play it at a friends house a few months ago (i rented it from the library and brought it over), but it turned out her console didn't have enough space to download it (and haven't been able to coordinate a time to try it again).
but on the other hand... doesn't it speak to the team doing an awesome job that the artistry even divorced from it's intended form grabbed me in that way? fighting games are in a way, pure character driven artistry. there's a material benefit to making a given character unique from the others, oozing with personality, trying new and fun things. so i'd like to explore some of the reasons i believe jamie struck me in this way.

to start, i wanna shout out this awesome video. i already in jamie-fan mode by the time this video came out, in fact i already was planning on making a write-up like this! so when youtube (i suppose out of spying on how many jamie siu related matches i was watching) recommended me this video i was pumped. it's much more eloquently said and made than this casual post, i highly recommend giving it a watch! imagine i'm nodding along, and pointing at the screen like i'm sports fanatic watching football the whole runtime.
piggybacking off of this video, here's a bunch of things i like!

in street fighter 6, every character has four different 'win poses' (animation/voice lines that play upon winning a match that's not the final round), in one of jamie's he says "of course i'd win!" this shows off his overconfident personality, right? well, it does. but also, it's specifically his "low health" win pose. which of the four win poses is played is dependent on how much health the character had at the time of the win (no health lost, some but not much, somewhere in the middle, low).
so him saying his most showboaty line when he narrowly wins adds depth to his overconfident persona.
adding onto this, in the correlating animation he celebrates as you'd expect, but after he poses with his arms crossed he kinda seems to like... catch his breath? huff a little? which makes sense! it was a narrow victory. but he still felt the need to show off just before this.

speaking of win animations, his 'only a bit of health lost' one he hits a pose where he looks surprised, then goes into a dramatic pose (showing off), but then he takes a sip where he puts his whole weight into it... and it makes him look so unguarded, like he's so lost in the sauce he forgot anyone's looking (the way he's up on his toes, the way he just vacantly looks into the distance). it's so funny (and cute to me)! and it shows so many sides of him so rapidly

on this note, his 'draw game' animation; he stomps around all disappointed, and then stares down his opponent with what i'm imagining is his attempt at looking intimidating. this expression is also so funny to me

i could go on forever about animation things, but i'll share one more in detail for now.
in his 'continue' animation (countdown before you get a game over), he progressively gets more tired as the timer runs out (as you'd expect) but around the count of 3/2 he strains to flash a smile. i'm not gonna do it justice in still form, but it again really speaks to his personality!

and in less detail: i love in world tour the animation when he looks surprised and then scratches at his neck nervously kinda avoiding eye contact. i love how he plays to the camera in his walkouts.

then when it comes to writing/story stuff, i love that his grandma is who taught him how to fight. i love that in a series that's all about fighting internationally, his arcade mode has the same stage for every fight since his whole deal is being a peacekeeper of his hometown.
i just like that he exists conceptually. the idea of a character who: uses martial arts but also break dancing to fight, but also has a mechanic when you get him drunk enough he gets additional hard hitting moves? that's so awesome.

i could keep going, but i've already gone on for longer than i anticipated, haha!