Edmond Honda's bath-house


 

 

Since Street Fighter II (The World Warriors) everybody knows Edmond Honda's stage: A bath-house.
It's located on Honshu, probably in Osaka.


(Honda put a typical sumo-ring on the floor of his bath-house so he can fight there)




You could see it on two popular SFII drawings, one is Honda's pic of the collection (every character in his/her stage) and one is Chun Li in Honda's stage (see below).

(left pic: Honda wants to clean his bath and the ground breaks because he's too heavy; right pic: Chun-Li in Honda's stage; both pics were drawn by Akiman for SFII; the stance is quite similar; you can also see his sumo-ring he put on the ground of his stage ...)

 

This image is not as famous as the ones above. It's from an early black and white collection of SFII. It can be found in the artbook Eternal Challenge.


Honda commands, bath cleaning following splendid training.
"Hey! Put more hip into it as you're washing!"
(Thanks to vasili10 for translating the text from the "Street Fighter II Complete File")

 

 

The bath-house was also shown on the cover and the manual of the SNES version of Street Fighter II Turbo (Hyper Fighting) outside of Japan (see below). Don't know who drew it, maybe someone from Capcom USA?

 


In Ryu's Street Fighter Zero 1 stage (which is nearly the same as Guy's SFZ1 stage and Sakura's Puzzle Fighter stage) next to the SONSON store, you can see E. Honda's bath-house.
For more info on the SONSON store click here.
So eventhough E. Honda did not fight or appear in any other way in SFZ1, his bath-house was there.


(Ryu's Street Fighter Zero 1 stage; no coverage on Honda's bath-house)

 

(Chun-Li vs Guy in Guy's Street Fighter Zero 1 stage; symbol on the front door)


In Sakura's Puzzle fighter stage (a neat version of Ryu's SFZ1 stage with Sakura's symbol, the cherry tree) they even used English letters. You can read "HONDA":


(Sakura's Puzzle Fighter stage)


("HONDA" zoomed in; symbol like in Guy's SFZ1 stage)


You can get a better few of the outside of Honda's bath-house in Street Fighter Zero 3.
You can see that the house has the same roof as the one in the background of the SONSON level of SFZ1 and Puzzle Fighter and the symbol on the pic is the same as the one next to the SONSON store. It can be translated as "hot bath" or "hot water" (thanks to vasili10 for the info).
The symbol says "Honda bath".
He made up his sumo-ring outside of the bath-house this time:

(E. Honda's stage in Street Fighter Zero 3; again with the symbol; click pic to open larger version in a new window)

 

In Marvel VS Capcom 1 there was a bath, too. I'm pretty sure it's in the same bath-house. At least the style is the same. The outdoor bath in Ryu's SFIII NG stage looks a bit different I don't think it's Honda's. You can see the outside of that other bath house in Ryu's SFIII 2nd Impact stage and it looks nothing like Honda's SFZ3 stage (see above) which shows his bath house from the outside.


Ryu + Wolverine VS War Machine + Wolverine in Marvel VS Capcom 1
Is it E. Honda's bath-house? Could be. Artwork in the bg has same style.


On this drawing of the giant Zero Gouki mecha from the game Cyberbots you can see Ryu, Ken and Honda standing in front of his bath-house on the left side of the drawing under Zero Gouki's fist. You can find the drawing in the "Early Days" artbook.

 

So far I have not seen any other official appearances of E. Honda's bath-house.
Like always, let me know if there are more.

 

Thanks to vasili10 for translating the section of the Hadoken No Himitsu (Mystery Of The Hadoken) book about Honda's bath-house:

It is said that Honda so earnestly practiced amongst the sumo world. He becomes a street fighter looking for new practice locations, so that by no means any area would weaken him. This his father would see and not go unnoticed, "My place is for conditional use." These two requests he accepted.
As for this place, as Honda's training location all desired stipulations were fulfilled. The first proviso is that scaffolds are bad. This supported feeling of balance and on the other hand, the legs and loins are hardened as much as possible. About the second proviso, after practice is over, sweat immediately pours. This for human beings, is probably specially understood from the mental attitude of the Japanese. Besides this, rent is cheap, there is a fixed wide floor, the walls are durable and so on. That location was where father constructs a bathhouse.
However, the above-mentioned manner, the practice place accomodates utilization of the provisos. From morning until noon a rope is laid above the cheap tiles, which can be used as the ring. Yet evening and thereafter a bathroom for the sake of a guest arriving, the rope is taken away, coming and going as needed. For that purpose, Honda and his students after practice bathe in the single bath, remove the hot water, clean up, and for the water still spread around, boil it. Here still it is used on top of the exchanged stipulations, it is believed.

 

 

Thanks to vasili10 for translating the section of the Complete File Street Fighter II about Honda's stage:

Japan (E. Honda) Edo Hot Baths (Tokyo)

With real ability the one worldly edge, for the largehearted son of Japan E. Honda, every time after practice comes a bath.
From the time he was little Honda was brought up with a large bath, and of course he likes a large bath most.
It became a predicament for Honda between his favorite sumo and large bath, "Might as well, put'em together!" he says, what a bathhouse placed with a ring.
Curious it was, his strength walked along together with rocomi, day after day turned into suspicions. (especially from the manly sumo wrestlers)
Such that rumors were heard, a street fighter could be fighting around at the Edo Hot Baths.
"Hahhahha, a bath is exceptional after bouts. Let's quickly apply the conclusion!"

 

 

Thanks to Michael for this info:
...the guy on the
poster in the background of Hondas SFII stage holds up
a card that reads "Shoubu ari" It basically translates
as "victory is had".