STREET FIGHTER II: VOL. 2
© 2001 Manga Video

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STREET FIGHTER II

This half hour anime TV series was based on a popular Capcom arcade video game (not the 1970s Sonny Chiba movies). The series does a good job of weaving a story connecting all of the game's characters, rather than just one face-off after another, like in the games.

Ryu is a hard working young Japanese man and martial arts expert who decides to accept an invitation to visit his old dojo partner Ken Masters in San Francisco. Upon arriving, he learns something about his old pal he hadn't suspected - Ken is fabulously wealthy. The boys get into a bar fight that night and both get their asses kicked by an Air Force officer named Guile.

Their defeat gets them to thinking about how their fighting skills have been tested, and decide to set off on a quest to see how many other guys around the world can beat them up. The plan sounds crazy, until you consider that Ken is rich enough to pay for all their travel expenses and hospital bills.

First stop on their tour: Hong Kong, where Ken checks them into a luxury suite. There, a mystic tells Ryu that a great secret power hides within him and gives him a nice wall hanging. Their tour guide Chun Li successfully guides them to trouble, taking them into the most dangerous part of town. Luckily, she's been trained to be a pretty good street fighter herself by her father Dorai, a police inspector.

From there, they get involved in shooting a movie, bust up a Thai drug ring, visit an Indian shrine, enter a Barcelona bullring, fight monsters, learn a variety of new martial arts techniques, and endure many beatings. Throughout their adventures, they meet new fighting champions against whom they can test their skills.

The series features great theme music, addictive continuity, and some fine martial arts fight scenes, though the limited animation sometimes makes various moves too repetitive. This may be the first anime TV series with an action director (Shinchi Tokairin). Though shown on TV in Japan, STREET FIGHTER II is often much too gruesome for U.S. broadcast. Not only are the fight scenes brutal, but some episodes feature torture, and one has a villain fond of collecting the arms of his enemies. Despite these elements of direct-to-video action movie sleaze, because of the pure-hearted heroes, the general atmosphere is closer to that of the Hardy Boys. The English dub goes a bit overboard in Americanizing everyone's speech, but it's likely the original dialogue Japanizes just as much.

Each disc features seven episodes each. Colors on the transfers are bright and the image is reasonably detailed. Extras are limited to Manga Video promotional features.