Street Fighter II: Victory

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.

I bought all 4 of DVDs of this show some time ago and only started to watch them now. I liked the Street Fighter II animated movie but I was put off watching this one as I wasn't too keen on Street Fighter Zero, even if this series is directed by Gisaburo Sugii who did Street Fighter II (as well as the brilliant Night on the Galactic Railroad). How is that for confusing?

What makes this better than the rather dour Street Fighter Zero is that it has a pretty good sense of humor, great fight scenes, interesting plots and the occasional moment of cartoonish goofiness. Each episode is made up of a brand new adventure as Ken and Ryu travel the world, getting into mischief. A simple formula, but it works.

Since the show is from the mid-nineties the animation isn't as smooth as more recent stuff, but you shouldn't let that ruin your enjoyment. The only thing I can complain about is the opening credit sequence, which just takes too long.

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.

"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.

I've purchased every one of the videos for this series, and am thoroughly impressed. I saw the animated movie first, and thought I'd check the show out too, and found that the show is much better. Some of the best fighting animation I've seen with the exception of Voltage Fighters.