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Did Akira Nishitani Lie in the 1994 Capcom vs. Data East Lawsuit?

The Street Fighter II designer claimed his characters were not inspired by “other sources,” despite a certain Mike Tyson lookalike.

In a roundtable discussion about the series celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Street Fighter II, it’s mentioned explicitly — although not by Nishitani — that the boss name do-see-do was done to avoid a potential lawsuit from real-life boxer Mike Tyson, on whom Balrog was based. … The artist is a big fan of comics, and I think he was influenced by that.” In 2014, Polygon’s amazing oral history of Street Fighter II would identify JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure as the inspiration for Dhalsim’s stretchy limbs, and although it’s not explicitly named, the reference is presumably to the Ripple technique Zoom Punch. But while this seem like decent enough evidence that Street Fighter II’s cast drew inspiration from various sources, I wonder if it’s possible that Nishitani is not lying so much as underscoring a radically different philosophy underpinning Capcom’s creative efforts that, at least in his eyes, was lacking in Data East’s.

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