Franchise: Street Fighter

Producer Noritaka Funamizu confirmed in a 1998 Famitsu interview that Guile's overall appearance was modeled after Jean Pierre Polnareff, a character from the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Guile's page in Street Fighter X Tekken Artworks goes into detail, explaining that they started with Polnareff as an inspiration, then stretched his hair out to give him "the always distinctive Stroheim look" instead. Noritaka also explained that Guile's name was derived from Polnareff's archenemy, J.Geil, though this was a mix up from the development staff at the time.

Additionally, during the early development stages of Street Fighter II, Guile's Sonic Boom attack was originally known as "Divine Sandstorm", in reference to the character Wamuu.

Juri Han from Street Fighter IV was inspired by Jolyne Kujo/Cujoh from the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, aspects of Juri's design, such as her hair and chestwear, are resmincent of Jolyne. Along with this, Juri has a spider motif and cleaves a butterfly in her official artwork, while Jolyne has a butterfly motif and spiderweb-patterned clothes, her Stand also turns her body into threads and webs. Both characters also use the same "ora ora ora" battle cry.

Rose from the Alpha series was inspired by Lisa Lisa, a character from the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Rose's outfit is almost identical to Lisa Lisa's and both share a similar fighting style that consists of channeling energy into a scarf. Both characters are also known for enjoying baths. In addition, Rose's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 is Venice, which is the same city where Joseph Joestar meets Lisa Lisa in the story, and Rose's Soul Drain move is inspired by a scene in the manga where Lisa Lisa puts a breathing mask on Joseph Joestar.

The character design for Q from Street Fighter III: Third Strike is heavily based off of the 1970s Japanese superhero Robot Detective K.

The game's designer, Yoshiki Okamoto, originally wanted Chun-Li's health bar to be shorter than the other fighters'.

He said "You know how each character has a life bar? At one point, I wanted to make the power gauge for Chun-Li shorter than for the other characters because women are not as strong. But [another designer] didn't want to do that. We both had legitimate reasons, but then we came to an agreement to not make it shorter."

In a similar vein to Dan being a parody of Art of Fighting's Ryo Sakazaki, the appearance of Dan's father, Go Hibiki, is also a parody of Mr. Karate.

In Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix, Dan can call upon his father's ghost, whose tengu-like face bears a striking resemblance to the mask worn by Mr. Karate, who is also known as Takuma Sakazaki, the father of Ryo Sakazaki.

The character Hugo Andore is a homage to the late wrestler, Andre The Giant. Hugo's intro is based on Andre's entrance at Wrestlemania III, and both share the same birthday of May 19th.