Dhalsim (ダルシム, Darushimu, based on Malayalam ധല്സിമ്) is a video game character from the Street Fighter series of fighting games. In the story, he hails from Kerala, India.

Story

Generally a pacifist, Dhalsim fights to raise money for his village, but realizes that it might contradict his pacifist beliefs. The only significant part he played in the overall story of the series was to make Cammy self-aware.

Dhalsim has the power to suspend himself in midair, stretch his extremities in ways beyond the average human, breathe fire, read minds, and sense evil, the latter abilities he uses to locate the sinister Bison, and doing his part to aid those who can defeat the villain. He retired from fighting after the second World Warrior tournament, and continued to roam the world helping those in need.

It has been confirmed that Dhalsim will return in the fourth World Warrior tournament, but he reasons are currently unknown. ^[1]

Alternate storylines

In the Street Fighter II V, the UDON comic book series, and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Dhalsim is a wise and powerful mystic who aids Ryu in his quest to become stronger and defeat evildoers.

Appearance

Dhalsim is often depicted as having pupil-less eyes. His build is that of a normal man who exercises and weight trains regularly except for his abdomen and waist which appear much out of proportion and emaciated. He wears torn saffron shorts as his only clothing attire as well as saffron wristbands and anklebands. He has three coloured stripes adorning his head, and in the Street Fighter Alpha series, he wears a turban that he removes before battle. The skulls he wears around his neck are those of village children that died during a plague. In palette swap renditions of Dhalsim, his skin is often dark blue or other unnatural colors. He is the oldest of the original World Warriors.

Gameplay

Dhalsim is the original long-range fighter of fighting games. Dhalsim's intense training has given him the ability to contort and extend his limbs into forms physically impossible in real life; he can project his arms and legs outward in order to deliver attacks that would be out of the range of normal limbs. Dhalsim's fighting style involves keeping the opponent at bay with distance attacks and projectiles, and optimally, only getting close to strike with a surprise aerial attack or sliding kick. Due to his reach advantage, Dhalsim has both very low offense and defense, making it vital for him to avoid sustaining too many blows from a strong fighter. Dhalsim's sprite, while standing, is actually quite a small target, due to the total number of pixels Dhalsim's sprite occupies while not attacking. Dhalsim becomes a much larger target while attacking. As of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, the player can make Dhalsim do only short range attacks by holding back on the joystick.

Techniques

Using the normal moves called the Yoga Spear, Dhalsim can spin through the air at various angles, ideally landing close to his opponent so that he can deliver additional hits or throws.

Dhalsim can project from his mouth a rapid, immobilizing projectile known as Yoga Fire, and a stationary spread known as the Yoga Flame; later games incorporate the anti-air version known as the Yoga Blast. According to the English language Street Fighter II manual, eating spicy Indian curry gave Dhalsim the ability to breathe fire, but this was rewritten to being a gift from Agni, the Indian god of fire.

To escape opponents or otherwise change his physical location, Dhalsim can travel bodily through the astral plane in a form of teleportation, known as the Yoga Teleport. A glitch in the original Street Fighter II caused Dhalsim to disappear from time to time, rendering his long-reaching attacks invisible until the end of the round. While this was an unintentional error, Dhalsim was officially given the Yoga Teleport in Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting.

Dhalsim's super moves consist of the Yoga Tempest (an enhanced Yoga Flame), the multi-hitting Yoga Inferno, the aerial attacking Yoga Volcano and the low-striking Yoga Stream. Certain games also see Dhalsim with an anti-air grabbing super called Yoga Strike, and he is also able to use a multiple-hitting horizontally controllable super version of Yoga Spear called Yoga Drill and a midair combo assault called Yoga Legend in the non-canon Street Fighter EX series.

Actors

The majority of the time, Dhalsim is voiced by Yoshiharu Yamada. In SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, Eiji Yano voices Dhalsim.

Dhalsim was portrayed by Roshan Seth in 1994's live action film Street Fighter. In the movie, Dhalsim was changed from a fighter to a meek doctor working on a "supersoldier" experiment for Bison. His science was originally supposed to promote peace but Bison corrupted it to serve perversion instead (as he said so in the beginning). In the end, (after he is burned and altered to look more like the character in the game) he decided to remain in Shadoloo alongside with Blanka (his creation), with last words of "If good men do nothing, that is evil enough."

Character basis

Dhalsim's abilities resemble those of an Indian fighter in the 1976 motion picture Master of the Flying Guillotine starring Jimmy Wang Yu.^{[citation needed]} Like Dhalsim, the fighter in the movie used a yoga-based fighting style and had an unnatural ability to extend his limbs to attack.

Dhalsim's personality resembles that of an Indian mystic; vegetarianism, spiritualism and meditation, and simplicity, as Dhalsim wears very simple attire. Also Dhalsim is aware that if he uses his power to harm, he may become evil, and frequently questions his decisions to use his powers for fighting. In these aspects, he bears a remarkable similarity to Mohandas Gandhi. All forms of yoga are meant to aid a personal journey towards enlightenment and not to harm others. Therefore, Dhalsim is constantly concerned about his fighting style overwhelming his own principles of nonviolence. In contrast, Dhalsim's minimal clothing and necklace of skulls are reminiscent of the medieval Hindu ascetics known as Kapalikas ("skull-bearers") who were often related to macabre imagery such as cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Street Fighter IV

Dhalsim was confirmed as a playable character for Street Fighter IV on December 7, 2007.^[1]

See also

• List of fictional characters who can manipulate fire

Notes and references

External links

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