Zangief

Zangief is a fictional character in the Street Fighter series made by Capcom. Zangief first appeared in Street Fighter II, later appearing in other games, media, and promotions related to the Street Fighter franchise. Zangief is considered to be the first fighting game character whose moveset is centered around grappling.

Conception and creation
Designed by Akira Yasuda, Zangief was initially conceived for Street Fighter II as a character named "Vodka Gobalsky", planned to be a very strong but extremely slow character to play as. Early designs of the character closely resembled the character's finalized appearance, but with the addition of a black tanktop and anchor tattoo on his upper arms. His name was later changed to "Zangief", though the development team would not learn until twenty years after the game's release that the name Gobalsky was not possible within the Russian language. In an interview with Game On!, Capcom Research and Development head Noritaka Funamizu stated that of the series' characters, Zangief was one of the most popular characters with American audiences, alongside Ryu and Guile.

Portrayal
Various actors have voiced the character in his video game appearances: he is voiced by Wataru Takagi in the Street Fighter Alpha series, Tesshō Genda in the Capcom vs. SNK series and Capcom Fighting Evolution, and Kenta Miyake in Japanese and Anthony Landor in English for Street Fighter IV. In anime, he is voiced in Japanese by Tetsuo Kanao and in English by William Johnson. In the live-action Street Fighter film, the character was portrayed by Andrew Bryniarski, who was dubbed over by Ryūzaburō Ōtomo in the Japanese television dub and by Katsuhisa Hōki in the video and DVD dub.

Appearances in other media
Zangief appeared in Masaomi Kanzaki's Street Fighter manga, which was released in the early 1990s. In his depiction in the comic, Zangief was depicted very much like his video game self. One of his main motivations was to defeat Guile, who as an American, represented the rival country of Zangief's homeland. In more recent adaptations, Zangief is shown to have a rivalry with Ryu, and Street Fighter IV implies that it was Ryu who knocked Zangief out of the second tournament.

Zangief appears in Masahiko Nakahira's Sakura Ganbaru! manga, in which he is introduced fighting in his exact same stage from Street Fighter Alpha 2. He first defeats Blanka, and then is engaged by Sakura and Cammy, whom he easily overpowered. He was later defeated by the duo and his friendly and good natured personality soon surfaced.

Zangief appears as a playable character in the crossover fighting Street Fighter X Tekken, with Rufus as his official tag partner.