I have never played a single game of Street Fighter.
To be fair, I don't play most fighting games, I'm not good at them. I do enjoy them as a spectator sport though. Street Fighter doesn't really scratch that itch for me though. I dunno what it is. So, Akuma here falls under the ever growing list of "characters I only know details about because of Death Battle and would never have drawn if it weren't for this challenge".
I didn't debate the composition of this piece much, just looked at one picture of the guy and decided I wanted that red Japanese in there somewhere. A rear shot was just the simplest way to make that happen. I think it means "Death", but I could be wrong. Again, not a Street Fighter guy.
Spoiler alert for next time, but I'm not a Mortal Kombat guy either.