Bear Hunt Winners

A Zangief cosplayer took top honors at a manly-man pageant last week, and our Kotaku team of super ‘shoppers swung into action. We’ve got 20 studly submissions, plus Debaser101’s winner, inside!

For starters, I know everyone was expecting me to pick aardvarkattack’s Asshole Dog entry this week. I hate to go all coach’s kid on A.D., but I have to stop showing so much favoritism. He’s going to have to step up his game to get back in our starting lineup. I’m sorry. I know I just condemned him to an adulthood full of daddy issues. He’ll be strong, successful and full of repressed anger for it.

https://lastchance.cc/496959679%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Also, much as I’d like to include a.sievewright’s awesome Zangief-Power Girl team up, I just … yeah … it’d send a bad message. Nothing stops you from looking at it, though. (NSFW)

https://lastchance.cc/496959783%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Alright, on with the roundup. Toshi (20) gets in the first callback to Casey the Zangief Kid from Australia. dummysystem (5) parties down with the Miss USA runners-up. Major_Error (9) makes a strong debut, a little late for the exergaming trend. The extra effort on the Mii sells the ‘shop. I know it was quick and dirty, but I like the big-head mode effect greentrace (6) created, intentionally or otherwise.

https://lastchance.cc/casey-the-bully-breaking-zangief-kid-gets-the-street-5782603%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Lots of people looked at Zangief and saw Robin Williams. jjangu (7) gives us the best interpretation of that. pan1da7 (11) had the best take on the many A-Team submissions. robase (14) was suitably meta. SphessMahreen (16) and Stuart.C (18) both went with a nude-Arthur motif in Ghosts N’ Goblins.

https://lastchance.cc/robin-williams-named-his-daughter-after-princess-zelda-5812122%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Finalists? asanab76 (1) went way old school and gets a nod. bugeyestn (2) imagines that the TSA would bother with the backscatter X-ray before giving Zangief the full-cavity. Shadoroch’s “Bears of War” (15) is nice, but a little subtle, not transformative enough. Speaking of not subtle, check out Zangief in my overall No. 1, by Debaser101 (4). An inspired work and a fan favorite. Can’t go wrong with that.

You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.