Fingers...

I've gotta be honest with you; I've always had a little problem digesting that myself and never really understood the writers' decision to give Blanka what many fans refer to as "Yoda hands". My best guess is that Norinaga's estimate is probably correct. That said, Blanka is, perhaps, the most challenging of the Street Fighter characters for writers to have to explain.

a) Raised by wolves and electric eels from early childhood after the plane bearing himself and his mother crashed in the jungles of Brazil.

b) Because the rain forest shields him from the sun, Blanka smears himself with chlorophyll to imitate the plants' method of using photosynthesis to maximize the nutritious effects and other physiological benefits derived from available sunlight. We are told that, somehow, the resulting green pigmentation of his skin became permanent.

c) He is somehow taught by electric eels to acquire and use bioelectricity which gives Blanka the ability to defend himself from predators.

Now we are led to believe that unknown forces to which Blanka was exposed during his life growing up in the wilds of the jungle have managed to further mutate his body giving him claws and fangs. As writers, our challenge is to find a way to explain how he could have mutated in this manner. We're already postulating that Blanka's skin pigment from chlorophyll became permanent through some kind of reaction to his acquisition of bioelectric power throughout his body which, in turn, caused a chain reaction of other physiological mutations. Because we are planning to restore Blanka's five fingered hands to him in "Reunion", we will surmise that, at various times in his life, his body continues to undergo inexplicable mutations. This would explain why, in 2009, Blanka no longer has fangs, for instance.

Most of the Street Fighters possess super powers, some natural, some acquired, making them all mutants to some extent, barring any other explanation as to why they're born with these powers. Therefore, we will assume that Blanka is a natural born superhero who was additionally exposed to other forces and unusual circumstances which served only to enhance his already amazing abilities and properties. Zangief, for instance, is, for some reason, born superpowered as the strongest man in the world. He is already naturally larger than most other men so we, as writers, will assume that his early training at the hands of Soviet scientists who extraneously fortified their athletes with anabolic steroids, caused Zangief to further mutate. This would explain why he continued to grow to such ridiculously extreme physical stature and muscle mass throughout the 1990s. It is our running joke throughout "Street Fighter Reunion" lore that, since his formal training and maintenance ceased after the fall of the Soviet Union, Zangief's physical stature decreased dramatically due to his withdrawal from the steroids for which his abuse was notorious during his first heyday. Among his acquired superpowers, then, are his abilities to withstand extremes of heat and cold and to focus his chi to the point of being able not only to slap fireballs and other projectiles out of the air but to dissipate them by reversing or nullifying their energy.

Let's just say that the elements of character biography left officially unexplained by canon keep us real busy.