Akira Yuki

Akira Yuki is a fictional character and mascot of the Sega video game series Virtua Fighter. His fighting style is Bajiquan, a Chinese martial art (pronounced "Hakkyoku-ken" in Japanese). Canonically, he won the second World Fighting Tournament.

Akira strives for perfection and will drive himself relentlessly to master his techniques. He seeks worthy opponents to fight in order to find flaws in his skills to further attain mastery.

Virtua Fighter
Bajiquan is one of the foremost Chinese martial arts. During the Second World War, the Japanese army developed their own techniques to improve their infantry's fighting ability. Akira Yuki is a fictional grandson of the man who developed these techniques. Akira serves as the assistant instructor at Yuki Budokan, and is known to be hot-blooded and impulsive by nature. He also can be naive and intemperate. After completing his training under his grandfather's tutelage at the age of 23, he went on a quest to test his abilities. When he got word of the 1st World Fighting Tournament, he decided to enter and test his abilities and skills.

Virtua Fighter 2
Akira is the only person to whom the ultimate martial art of Bajiquan is handed down. Realizing that the last time he lacked experience; Akira is now testing the results of last year's training and practice. During the last Tournament, Akira was a bit too "enthusiastic" and his attitude was met with much disapproval. He was defeated and humiliated by his rival Kage, and now he bears a grudge against him.

Virtua Fighter 3
Realizing that he lacked experience from his failure to win the First World Fighting Tournament, Akira went through rigorous training to prepare himself for the Second World Fighting Tournament. Akira returned home, with the second tournament trophy. Yet as he was about to proclaim his victory, his grandfather told him, "Don't flatter yourself. You haven't mastered anything yet." In order to answer the question, "What is true strength?," Akira resolved to fight in the tournament once more. On the Third World Fighting Tournament, Akira's main intentions were to show his grandfather and himself "true strength".

Virtua Fighter 4
After Akira failed to win the tournament, he went back to Japan and told his grandfather about the disappointing results. With further encouragement from his grandfather, Akira decides to continue his training in the mountains. This time, Akira trained harder than ever, while trying to understand exactly what "true power" really is. However while training, Akira received an invitation for the 4th world tournament. Akira decides to join the tournament to test out the new skills he had learned and try to find the "real" power within him.

Virtua Fighter 5
After losing to his rival Kage-Maru in the Fourth World Fighting Tournament, Akira returned to the mountains to train harder than ever before. He began to doubt his previous training and could not understand how he had been defeated. One day he caught sight of a leaf floating downstream and he held his breath as it spun easily around a boulder, avoiding it neatly, and continuing on in the flow. He suddenly understood that he had been resisting the flow and he resumed his training with renewed confidence. Soon after, he decided to join the Fifth World Fighting Tournament.

Virtua Fighter Kids
In Virtua Fighter Kids, Akira is depicted as a young boy (6 to 8 years old) and he lives at the dojo that he works in, Yuki Budokan. In his FMV movie, he fights a giant warrior which results in a large hole in the dojo wall. He hammers it up but accidentally stubs his thumb.

Trivia

 * Akira is one of only three characters in the Virtua Fighter series who have officially won a tournament. The others are Kage-Maru and Lau Chan.
 * Akira teams up with Jacky Bryant in Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing. Jacky does the driving, and Akira is the All Star move where he uses his Tetsuzanko attack to send the car flying at higher speeds.
 * Akira teams up with Pai Chan in the crossover title Project X Zone and teams up with Kage-Maru in it's sequel.
 * Shenmue was originally going to be a Virtua Fighter RPG starring Akira as the protagonist. This later changed to Ryo Hazuki.
 * Akira appears as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He is based on his appearance from Virtua Fighter 10th Anniversary (a classic blocky polygonal look, and Virtua Fighter 4 voice lines) in this game.
 * Akira classic blocky VF1 look and Jacky’s VF5 outfit both appear as costume options for Mii Fighters in Super Smash Bros. series, starting from Super Smash Bros. For 3DS/Wii U.
 * Akira appears as a Green Campaign Hero in the mobile game SEGA Heroes alongside Pai Chan, Kage-Maru and Sarah Bryant.
 * Akira appears alongside Pai Chan, Sarah Bryant and Jacky Bryant (the latter added in Ultimate) as a guest fighter in Dead or Alive 5 sub-series.
 * Akira appears as one of the two playable guest characters alongside Selvaria Bles in Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax (developed by French Bread, creator of Under Night In-Birth and Type-Moon’s Melty Blood), as part of collaboration anniversary between Sega and ASCII, with both Pai and Alicia Melchiott as assist guest characters in the said game. Akira and Pai were NPCs in the original arcade release with incomplete moveset, until both became unlockable characters with complete movesets in home version after beating the game alongside Selvaria and Alicia (the latter Valkyria Chronicles guest characters were added in home versions), but cannot be used in Arcade Modes. In a standalone Ignition update, Akira and the rest of Sega guests becomes regular characters and usable in Arcade Mode. Unlike his 3D appearance, Akira is a close-ranged shoto character and easy to pick.

Gallery
Akira Yuki