As the man himself points out in Wreck It Ralph, just because he is a bad guy, it doesn't mean he is a bad guy!

Zangief’s always been my favorite SF character, his straight forward, brutal yet wholesome personality is always such a fun time.

I like how he still enters the villain club just because he feels bad for the players who hate playing against him

You can tell the writers love writing for Zangief, he’s such a great character within the lore!

It would have being great if you would have made a mention of mecha Zangief.

Gorbachev, Zangief, and Top Hat Gaming Man are alright

What a wholesome video, mate. Thank you Top Hat daddy ❤

Seen Viktor Zangief on a wrestling show this year. He ran to a ring and made a submission manuver

Top Hat, you missed one thing. In Wreck-it Ralph, Zangief said he was bad guy, but not "BAD-GUY?"

This is a good overview of the character.

13:14 zangief’s Domain Expansion

in the russia stage you can actually see Biff Slamkovitch from Slam Masters in the background. Gief being turned into a jovial and motivating person and one who represents the best of Russia. a hero. fits him well. the way he motivates your character in World Tour is great. Gief seems to be nervous around women that come on to him. He got nervous around Marisa and while its probably non canon he is shown very nervous around Julia Chang in the Sf x Tekken intro video

Street Fighter 2 and Super Street Fighter 2 that Zangief was a villain working with Shadowloo for many reasons. Even Street Figher Zero series.

Lol the megaman and zero reference with Gief and Mika is a nice touch ^_^

I see can’t believe in a Shadow Falls Gief’s Chest hair snaps Satsuki’s one of the Dolls Katana’s in half I don’t care if it’s because of his Muscles that is a Weapon which it’s Blade is using Forged Steel.

Fun fact: The only reason why Zangief is a “bad guy” in WiR is because one of the producers hated playing against him as a kid.

Zangief is my go to character when I want to punish new players. It's hilarious how frustrated people get when they see the damage from an EX- SPD.

love your series about sf fighter’s lore. looking forward to learning lots about sf6 without playing it ;-)

Some of the endings in final challengers are the exact endings from SF2 hd remix

I have mixed opinions about the Zangief's status to be honest. The idea I got from "Street Fighter 2" was that it was supposed to be a situation where other than M. Bison (or Balrog in the Japanese version) being generally a bad guy running a criminal syndicate, it was basically just a tournament to which the best fighters in the world were invited. Even the criminal syndicate running it mostly seemed to be because that explained it being underground and most of the world not knowing this was a thing, and also made it a sort of conceptual homage to "Enter The Dragon". I was aware Ryu and Ken were carry overs from the first game, and MAYBE Karate Champ, depending on who you listen to, and thus the semi-official "heroes", but anyone could be "the hero" depending on who you played and most of the contenders like Zangief were just there because they were tough, and being a major world power known for producing massive athletes it only made sense Russia would have a contender. I never really felt that there were supposed to be any serious moral judgements about anyone except M. Bison and perhaps Sagat given his role in the first Street Fighter game. Plotline wise, I did realize that they needed clear good guys and bad guys for more elaborate stories. To be fair I think Zangief being a jobber for the bad guys was somewhat political, but also due to the fact that he does look like a quintessential thug... and well... Russia was known for basically hiring out mercenaries globally. I will say that in the alleged "official" comics I read as fan translations (they said official on the title and had the capcom logo and were supposed to be Japan only series released alongside a lot of the games) Zangief was mostly presented as sort of neutral, being there for the tournament part of things, more than he was involved in any of the criminal stuff. Dee Jay was also neutral, but on the evil side, as he was defined as basically running a Carribbean based crime syndicate of his own that was trading with Shadoloo. One thing I will point out is that I don't think the US ever really "did Russia Nasty" to the extent people think we did. It is true we had a lot of action-adventure movies where there were Russian bad guys, but typically Russia was taken seriously even in an antagonist role. You also had a fair amount of stuff where the US or it's allies and Russia were working together against worse people despite The Cold War. It was to be fair a somewhat different attitude from what we saw of Russian takes on the US which were almost always incredibly nasty, and from what little I saw, American antagonists were rarely portrayed as being competent or having much in the way of redeeming values what so ever. A bit of their stuff leaked to the US, and inspired things like the long running "Cosmo Patrol" gag which was a Russian TV show that never actually was, which was how people thought they might knock off "Star Trek" in the spirit of other things they had knocked off. I grew up during The Cold War and saw a lot of the 80s propaganda stuff, and weirdly people imagine it being broadly worse than it was.. and to be honest a lot of that stuff actually made me surprised at how easy "Desert Storm" was, or how badly things are going in "Ukraine". I mean it was always "look out for these guys, they are really dangerous", so I expected a battle for the ages a few times, and well... it wound up being a total roll over. I will also say as a bonus for those who read this far.... Zangief has a very specific inspiration. That would be Nikolai Volkoff from the WWF. See unlike some of the guys mentioned Nikolai was a major promotion as a heel for a while, and part of his whole gimmick was that he routinely defeated "heroic" wrestlers that went up against him the the 80s. He used to team with The Iron Shiekh and the two were major forces opposing Hulk Hogan at the height of "Hulkamania" and Nikolai contested Hogan not once, but twice, for the heavyweight title. Hogan overcoming his partner's "Camel Clutch" a formerly unbeatable "super move" that had downed many "top tier" superhero type wrestlers at the time was seen as a big moment of a much simpler era. Nikolai also became a hero later, though somewhat different from Zangief, when he defected from Russia, became entirely pro-west and was for a while the only force that could stand up to Sergeant Slaughter who had betrayed the US and sold out to Iraq and was now teaming up with Nikolai's old parther.... The Iron Shiekh (yes this was a real thing). It is true he doesn't look a whole lot like Volkoff, but some of his poses, mannerisms, and some aspects of his story arc, I know a lot of people closer to the 90s thought the same thing, and it's part of why people liked him. I mean Nikolai was a great villain, and he did well when he had his hero moment later and the former villain came out to confront the fallen hero as the only force that might be able to stop him.....

Characters like Zangief and Planeteer Linka make me nostalgic for old, fictional interpretations of the USSR.

Just realised.... zangief's outfit is basically Superman without the cape and the blue overall... 😂

Zangief best boy

Please do videos on Ryu, Birdie, Gen, Rolento, Ibuki, & R.Mika

zangief by himself in sf2 was no big deal... Dealing with some one who knew how to use him really well was how ever:/

"You are bad guy, but that does not mean you are a bad guy"

Hey Top Hat, I can tell you're also an OG wrestling fan. Hope I get to see a collaboration with the folks from Cultaholic or WrestleTalk, or even Simon Miller from WC.

Looking for an R Mika video one of these days top hat.

The Udon comics usually portrayed Zangief in a positive and heroic light.

I will never get over "Zan-Geef". I love how they actually attempted to make his name actually sound Russian by pronouncing it as "Zan-Gee-Ev" in Street Fighter 4 and 5.

This was very well scripted and edited Great job

Woohaaa how do you make the pixelart look like vector graphics?

Tbh...I was confused why he wasn't one in the old GI Joe toy line.

T.Hawk next?

He does confirm that people think he's a Babyface in world tour.

Okay let's be honest, we all ship zangief and marisa

80s tv sitcoms: Don't change that channel, we'll be right back. Zangief: Quick! Change the channel! 🤣

Eddie Hall could play zangief if they shot a new street fighter movie

Zangief Modern controls rules in SF6 Idc if it’s cheap it’s fun as hell 😂

best russian i have ever pllayed with. dude is cool

Well Zangief was a villain in the cartoon.

I am really curious what Russians really think about Zangief. His OG theme is perfect.

The Rock is a good guy supposedly but Zangief is always depicted as a bad guy in made media, interesting.

The proper term is 'heel'

Sad that the 90s movie is more faithful than Wreck-It Ralph, simply because Zangief realized he's on the wrong side and quickly changed to do good

WHAT ABOUT CHEDDAH GIEF!?

5:03 - boy your Russian accent makes me uncomfortable 😄

Evnil

Pro wrestling is consistently inconsistent. 😂👏😂👏😂👏

I didn't know he wasn't now. :-\

They call him ZAN-GI-EF :) not ZAN-GEEF :)

I don't mind him as a villain or neutral.

Sf2 is inaccurate Where is voodka in it? Even punch out knows you can't without that:D

Quick change the channel! General m bison is a... bad guy? 🤔

HOROSHO

You got.... paid?

A russian. Was in soviet, and now probably turns to be a very loain again because of current event😂

I assumed Zangief was evil as a child because he was Russian. And I thought Vega was a good guy because he's handsome 😂

I miss Gorbatshow. The sociopathic current "President" of Russia ruins everything he built. Russians will feel the negative consequences of that for a couple of decades. They'll have to rebuild much of their own country, while paying reparations. But at least, there won't be many unemployed, There will be lots of work for the survivors, who aren't crippled too badly..