Street Fighter II: V

As part of the endless Street Fighter craze in the early to mid 90's, two Street Fighter TV shows were made. One was an American GI Joe knockoff, and the other was II V, a prequel to the Street Fighter II game. Let's compare the two, shall we?

II V is about the main characters of the game, Ryu and Ken, barely out of their teens as they travel the world in a quest to improve their martial art skills, meeting new foes and friends along the way (most game characters of course). No top secret crime fighting organization (US cartoon) or country invasion that has nothing to do with street fighting (US movie), the show actually sticks to the premise of the title, street fighting!

The show does deviate in character designs for a bit, but most are recognizable. Fighting babe Chun-Li looks a bit different from her video game incarnation, but she's still immediately recognizable.

The show is reasonably well animated, not as good as the SF II anime movie (although that's expected considering the budget) but far superior to its American animated counterpart.

And of course, how can you not like a show that ends its previews with "Gonna burn some muscle!" You can't. Unless you're a soulless critic (oh wait...) So if you like fighting anime and don't mind some deviations from the plot in your instruction manual, do yourself a favor and hunt down the DVD's, or wait till it airs on WAM! or Encore Action. You won't be disappointed.

"Street Fighter II: V" is cool. It's been a while (since about 1994) from when I last played the video games but this animated series, done in true Japanese Anime' style, remains tasteful and respectful to the source material. But still, obviously it was meant to cash in on the "Street Fighter" craze of the early '90s. Ken and Ryu are two fighters who have trained together since childhood and embark on a worldwide odyssey to learn the secrets to fighting. They encounter many friends and enemies (including Chinese babe Chun-Li and American military hard-a** Guile) and run afoul of martial arts-trained nasties including ruthless dictator M. Bison. The "Street Fighter" movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn't cool, but this piece of animation takes the cake. It's just too cool.

That's basically the only flaw of this anime series, the plot is fairly slow to develop, I guess by choice, since it's a series made of several episodes, but aside from that, it's a great view. Very nice artwork, and cool fighting scenes.

The IMDB has only 1 series for Sf but thats incorrect theres another tv series that came in 96 produced by USA Studios in fact I am watching the Spanish version of it here in my country Nicaragua. The action is just as great, but animation is alot better characters look smoother, older and more graceful. This series is just as good as 95 series check them both out.

I haven't seen such a good anime (except for Rurouni Kenshin, that is as good as SF II V). First of all... The music, what a great music! very appropiate in every scene. Is a shame that Manga Entertainment replaced the intro video (and also the intro music) for the US market; the Japanese intro is very similar, but the music is very pretty and smooth (the music is the one placed at the end during the "NEXT EPISODE" summary, but they have supressed the lyrics of the song in the US), But the US music is also great.

Great action scenes, and a very attractive plot after the fifth episode.

I allow myself to say, that this is the greatest action anime ever. If you saw Saint Seiya or Dragon Ball, and you are looking for something different, you should see Street Fighter II V.

Also is shame that this series is too short, i have seen it twice, and i still want to see more... (I could also watch it four times more and still not get bored).