Every Button Hurts the Other Guy
is a webcomic penned by brothers Luke and Jake Townend that ran from 2012 to 2015. The plot, an Affectionate Parody of fighting games, follows the adventures of Shota, an Expy of Ryu from Street Fighter, and his friends Russel, a fellow martial artist whose stupidity often leads to him being the universe's punching bag, and Mao-Yin, an absent-minded Interdisciplinary Sleuth and Intercops Special Agent as they deal with the machinations of various comically bizarre enemies.
Violence is usually the answer.
Every Button contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Every named female character that has appeared in the comic so far is this to some degree, even if it is with the aid of magic.
- Affectionate Parody: Of the fighting game genre and its surrounding inspirations in martial arts cinema, and Shōnen manga/anime.
- Art Evolution: Over time, characters proportions become more cartoonish, backgrounds become more frequent, and some block colours are replaced with gradient effects.
- Badass Adorable: Chihiro held her own against Shota, and is
literally powered by her own moe. - Bad Boss: Buffalo doesn't kill or maim his subordinates, but he is exceedingly rude to them.
- Battle Aura: Justice has a Super-Saiyan style yellow aura that surrounds his body when he fights.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Russel and Shota could both give Groucho Marx a run for his money.
- Blood Knight: Shota's life seems to revolve around fighting, and he relishes the challenge posed by the Bronze Fist Tournament.
- Butt-Monkey: For a comic where almost every character is a martial artist, Russel takes a disproportionate amount of punishment.
- Caption Humor: Whenever a new character is introduced, a caption box shows their name as well as a humorous title or description.
- Cartoonish Supervillainy: Buffalo's modus operandi; he has a volcano lair, employs a mad scientist and has skulls on his uniform. You don't get much more cartoonish than that.
- Classified Information: Subverted. The information probably is classified, but that doesn't stop Mao blurting it out at every opportunity.
- Comical Overreacting: Most characters get in on this at some point.
- Convection, Schmonvection: The semifinals of the Bronze Fist Tournament take place inside Mount Pain, an active volcano. There are considerably fewer third degree burns resultant than one would expect.
- Cool Mask: Alejandro's 'serious face' is a mask and, arguably, cool.
- Curtains Match the Windows: Chihiro has sky-blue hair and eyes as part of her anime-inspired aesthetic.
- The Ditz: Russel's defining traits are slowness on the uptake and... unique chains of reasoning. Mao also fits this trope insofar as she is at times less than self aware.
- Drama Queen: Alejandro is frequently seen overreacting, and taking almost everything as a personal affront. This trope may be considered unsurprising considering his vocation.
- Establishing Character Moment: Russel arrives on the Island of Doom water skiing on the backs of two alligators. There was a plane, but he couldn't afford a ticket because he spent all his money renting the alligators.
- Evil Laugh: Buffalo's is quite impressive.
- Evil Plan: Buffalo has one, though nobody seems to know how it's supposed to work.
- Expy: Just about every character is one of somebody.
- Shota: Ryu from Street Fighter
- Russel: Terry Bogard/Ken Masters
- Mao-Yin: Chun-Li/Mai Shiranui
- Buffalo: M. Bison, with elements of Sagat and Tekken's Heihachi Mishima.
- Alejandro: Vega
- Vodka: Zangief
- Afro: Balrog and Dudley
- Chihiro: Sakura Kasugano and Athena Asamiya
- Justice: Kazuya Mishima and Phoenix Wright
- Fan Disservice: To the point that Russel's eyes literally melted out of his head. He got better though.
- Fanservice: Mao cannot seem to keep her clothes on for the whole of any fight.
- Fictional Counterpart: Intercops: International Crime Fighters.
- Gasp!: Played straight as Alejandro reacts to the tables being turned on him here.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Played with in Chihiro's case, since entire design is meant to evoke innocence and most of the time her actions reflect this, but at the same time her crush on Shota borders on the perverse.
- Intentional Engrish for Funny: Vodka's speech. Russel also once paraphrased an infamous example of the unintentional kind.
- Interdisciplinary Sleuth: Mao is not just a detective, but a world class martial artist.
- Interpol Special Agent: Mao is one, though she works for a Fictional Counterpart of Interpol.
- Iron Butt Monkey: Russel. Being impaled through a tree is totally survivable, right?
- Island Base: Buffalo's organisation operates out of the Island of Doom.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Shota's fireball.
- Lame Comeback: Russel has a theme song too...
- Martial Arts Headband: Shota wears one. Unsurprising considering his role as the 'generic karate guy.'
- Meaningful Name: Usually not very subtle, for example: Afro Cashbucks.
- Ms. Fanservice: Mao routinely casts her clothing aside when it becomes inconvenient during combat.
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: The Evil Eye. Little is known about them aside from the fact that Buffalo is their leader and that their goal is world domination.
- Obviously Evil: Buffalo makes no effort to disguise that he is a super villain. He practically advertises it.
- Overly Long Name: Alejandro Rodrigo Jesus-Maria Domingo Ruiz del Teatro.
- Parody Names: The name N. Buffalo is a direct parody of that of Street Fighter's main antagonist, M. Bison. Don't worry if you missed it, it's super subtle.
- Power Trio: Shota, Russel and Mao, and Alejandro, Vodka and Afro.
- Punny Name: Shota Kuron is a pun on the term 'shoto clone,' a name for fighting game characters whose appearance, fighting style or control scheme is similar to that of Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Buffalo's lieutenants are under contract, so they qualify (Vodka even explicitly states that he works for the highest bidder) though none of them are Affably Evil.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Vodka, to varying degrees. Russel also fits this trope every now and again, which is odd considering he's one of the few native English speakers in the cast.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: The selection process to determine who will fight whom is not rigged in any way.
- Take Over the World: Buffalo aims to do this... somehow.
- Tournament Arc: The whole comic to date has revolved around the Bronze Fist Tournament.
- Trash Talk: Afro dispenses this liberally, especially to Russel.
- Versus Character Splash: There is one before almost every fight, as an homage to the source material.
- Volcano Lair: Buffalo has one shaped like his head.
- Villainous Cheekbones: Buffalo and Vodka.
- Walking the Earth: We're told Shota does this at the beginning of the comic. Kind of an Informed Attribute since he has spent almost the entire comic to date in one place.
- Webcomic Time: The entire first arc mostly takes place over a single day, but was written across two years.
- With a Friend and a Stranger: Shota and Russel trained together as children. Mao is literally just someone Shota ran into at the airport.
