Street Fighter: The Animated Series

Street Fighter: The Animated Series had a very rocky start. It was based off of the Street Fighter film, one of the biggest examples of miscasting and plot contriving of the 90's, and part of a trend of increasingly bad video game to movie conversion given to hack directors. Hopes for a show like this were reasonably low. And the first season of this show gave no reason for anyone to think any differently. To be blunt, it was GI Joe with Street Fighter characters shoehorned in, and was indistinguishable from the dozens of other cartoons out at the time. Showing how derivative the American animation scene had become, it tried to take cues from both Joe and the animated X-Men series, failing on both counts. Poorly plotted, animated, the first season was not faithful to the true source material at all.

However, the second season managed to turn things around a good deal. Someone must have seen the incredibly animated Street Fighter 2 anime or watched the II V TV series, because by the time the second season came around, the producers hired a more expensive animation studio for better artwork, went away from stand-alone episodes to create something of an ongoing plot, and most importantly, distanced itself from the live-action film by adding characters from the Street Fighter Alpha and Final Fight games and developing the current roster of characters. True, hardcore Street Fighter fan-boys might have been disappointed by the absence of Sakura from Alpha 2, and certain problems with the first season, such as the tendency to serverly overuse the American characters continued (For instance, in the episode with Akuma, the American born Ken is the one to best him when nearly all other media suggests Ken can't even touch Akuma), but the show did a rather admirable job of introducing the new characters they did use.

So first season bad, second season good. That said, the anime versions of Street Fighter far exceed this effort in almost every way.

One word sums up this 1995 TV series based on the popular Street fighter game by Capcom and the 1994 Street Fighter movie. That word is "inconsistent".

Quality of writing and animation varies greatly between seasons and even between episodes. Season 2 can be easily regarded as immensely superior to season 1(a trend that many 90s animated series seem to follow, like Fantastic four or Iron man)

Season 1 generally follows in the footsteps of the 1994 movie. Cheesy, self contained episodic stories. Some episodes, especially the more character centric episodes are quite good and help a lot with the character development. But some episodes come across as terrible toy advertisements. Sometimes characters are thrown in just to showcase their powers and the scripting at points is terrible with juvenile humor and cheesy dialogue. The animation in season 1 is mediocre. The character designs are nice, more realistic than the designs in the game or the Japanese manga. But choppy animation, simplistic art and static camera angles with little attention to detail lends to a very low budget look for majority of the episodes in season 1.

Season 2 saw a huge improvement in the show. Starting from the episode "The Hammer Strikes", one can tell the the overall tone of the second season is generally a lot more serious than the first. The episodes are still self contained but have an underlying storyline to tie everything up. Character subplots are carried on and developed nicely as the series goes along such as Blanka's conflict with the beast within, Cammy's mysterious past and Guile's wavering confidence in his leadership of the team. Animation in season is also taken up a huge notch. The animation is smoother and more dynamic utilizing a good mix of close-ups, full body pans and kinetic framing of shots to give the show a very strong, almost movie-style look. Some episodes are even on par with the quality in the Japanese Street Fighter anime movie. With the improvement in animation, the art detail takes a jump too. The blacks are heavy and body contours are sharper, all adding to the enjoyment.

A small side note here. The portrayal of the "special powers" like Guile's Sonic Boom or Ryu's hadouken in this series is possibly the most true to the game ever. In the game, a single Hadouken can be fired multiple times and just knocks an opponent down. It does not destroy require great strain on Ryu, nor does a single blast take down a building(as portrayed in other adaptations of Street fighter).

So overall, this series was a noble effort, possibly one of the better animated series based on a game. Shaky at first but finally showed improvement. The characters were easy to relate to, the animation and writing were enjoyable in the end. Personally, i recommend just watching the first episode, then skipping to episode 14 onward.

I give it 7 out of 10 for a good effort, and in keeping true to the spirit of the game it is based on. Not perfect, but not bad either.

Okay, so you probably watched this show as a kid and came back to it to realize how much it "sucks," or you managed to see some M. Bison "YES!" videos on YouTube and decided to explore the rest of the show. You then realized that the show wasn't quite what it was cut out to be, huh? I challenge the notion that the show is what's at fault, but rather it's the viewer's perspective that needs enlightening. I'll explain.

Street Fighter: The Animated Series is not only a series that merits watching, it merits rewatching. I've personally seen each episode at least 8 times. You can't just be the passive couch-potato observer, however. This isn't an action flick meant to engage semi-dispassionate viewers dragged into the cinema by their friends, this is a (clearly) low budget cartoon made by some people who only had a cursory understanding of what Street Fighter was really all about. Maybe they watched the 1993 movie and played some Street Fighter II Turbo during the breaks to get some ideas for the characters, but that's really it.

So why is it so great? Why bother even watching past the first episode? When you look past the recycled and poorly done animations, the cheesy action, the continuity and drawing errors, and so forth, it's because this show is outrageously funny. In fact, everything I just listed contributes in some way to this show's value, but it really shines with the characters themselves.

So the way I propose for you to watch this cartoon is like a hawk. Try to find out the badass things Bison says (the best acted character on the show). Seek out all the goofy dialogue. Try to ascertain whether or not the creators of the show were seriously putting in effort, or if they thought the many glitches of the show were actually rather hilarious (especially considering that they had to have known exactly what they were). I cannot walk away from the show without the feeling that Will Meugniot wasn't making a piece of crap, but was rather stringing together a collection of inside jokes for the audience to pry into if they could.

As for the content of the show itself, like I said it really shines with the characters. Bison and Guile diametrically opposed in their struggle of good v. evil. Deejay being as stereotypical as possible ("Yes mahn! Dhe champ is bhaak!"), Honda the ace computer hacker, Cammy the ho, T. Hawk the lovestruck... hawk. The characters are all just completely amusing in their own ways. The second season features (for the second and final time since season one) Col. Sawada (how did he raise in rank from the movie? Watch to find out!) talking at a million words per minute. Have some fun trying to repeat his lines or make up some of your own in a Sawada-esque speed and style. The same can be done for Chun-Li, who in my mind can easily be exaggerated into a manly sounding woman.

So go away if you expect this show to just unravel itself for you. Please do watch this show if you want to try to find all the little nitpicks and to enjoy the cartoon with a critical eye, especially if you love Street Fighter.

This was a very cool show. Continuing after "Street Fighter: the Movie" (1994), (I don't care what anyone says, I liked that movie.) this cartoon followed Colonel William F. Guile and his co-horts as they tried to stop Major Bison (and some other villains, when it wasn't him).

Being a fan of the games and flick, I thought this show was perfect for someone like me. "Street Fighter: the cartoon" tied-in the movie's universe with the games'. The characters kept true to both universes, and truly became one of my favorite shows based off a video game.

Guile's main team consisted of man-beast Charlie Blanka, (his friend in the game, who was mutated into a beast by Bison and Dhalsim) news reporter Chun-Li Zang, (who also has a score to settle with Bison) and Ken Masters and Ryu Hoshi, two con men who Guile previously partnered with. His other teammates included action movie star Fei-Long (who was not in the movie), Native American T. Hawk (one of his aides), Jamaican kickboxer Dee Jay (back on Guile's side...cool!), sumo wrestler E. Honda, Professor Dhalsim (the aforementioned doctor-he and Blanka didn't always get along), and his other aide, Cammy (who temporarily teamed with Bison) Bison's team had his gun-runner Viktor Sagat and his protege, Vega, and Bison's hired muscles Zangief and Balrog (who could operate a computer pretty good...like Dee Jay in the movie.)

This show started tying in the movie with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Some other characters, like Akuma Long, Ken and Ryu's master's evil brother, and Captain Sawada appeared in this show, too. Later, Street Fighter Alpha characters like Sodom, Birdie and Rose appeared, and Alpha elements like Bison controlling Cammy's mind came into play, keeping in date with the games.

Essentially, Guile and Bison were the lead hero and villain, but sometimes they would stray from it a little and focus on Ken and Ryu, who, in the game, are the leads. One episode I remember involved Ken having many problems, like drinking and staying out too late, while forgetting his Shotokan training. Ryu and Fei-Long had to assist Ken back to his old ways. It ended with Ken and Ryu joining hands in friendship in the end.

I remember this show aired on the USA network. Does anyone know if it's still on? If not, Toonami should definitely pick it up. I am convinced that video games can make great cartoons. Other good examples are the Super Mario Brothers shows, Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog (the ABC cartoon, not AoStH or Underground) and Donkey Kong Country. Some can be total stinkers, (*Cough cough* Double Dragon *Cough*) but still, this is another good one. Give this show a shot, even if you didn't like the live-action movie. In my opinion, it blows away the Street Fighter anime movie.

*Street Fighter will never die*

As much as I hated the movie that this series follows I can at least says that Zangief was amusing. The animated series is quite possibly one of the worst things ever produced. The animation is quite often inconsistent, although it does stay consistently bad. The shape of a characters face is even capable of drastically changing in the same shot. The script and voice acting also leave something to be desired since most of the cast seems about as talented as the cast of a third grade drama play. Characters like Cammy and DJ are so forced into stereotypes of their nationalities that episodes containing them are almost physically painful to watch, not that the series isn't painful on a regular basis anyway. Episode plots seem to strive to reach new levels of lame with every turn and are so full of plot holes it amazes me they had time to show commercials. Truthfully, it amazes me anyone wold pay to advertise during the show. In addition to being a bad series it is an even worse adaptation of Street Fighter. Many of the characters maintain the failed adaptations from the movie. Examples include Ken and Ryu being idiot con men (even though Ken is supposed to be rich), Blanka being Guiles friend Charlie, and Chun Li being a reporter. It takes talent to take something as bad as the movie and make it worse.