LXXXII: "Street Fighter II V"

Who hasn't heard about the Street Fighter franchise? It has a slew of games, but to add, a comic and a few animated works. Among which comes Street Fighter II V, an anime based on Capcom's cash cow fighting series, Street Fighter II (and I say series because of the many titles spun off this game alone.) While the backgrounds of the characters differs, other features stay true to what we know about the characters. Keep in mind that not everyone shows up in this one, while Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie does.

As usual, the characters involved are those of the Street Fighter franchise, though this series in particular follows the adventures of fighting buddies Ryu and Ken Masters. Enjoying what they do, they find themselves on the losing side of matters after a crushing defeat by the Army fighter Guile. Realizing they need improvement, they go to places like China, India, and Thailand. While they travel, they interact, mostly of friendly terms, with other fighters like Chun-li, Dhalsim, and Sagat (respectively), not knowing until later, through various trouble, that there are others wanting to take them down for various reasons, ultimately tying to staple antagonist and Shadowloo's spearhead leader, M. Bison.

While the special move Hadouken is seen, it's not used often like in the games, as this series features Ryu unable to tap into any powers, much like the others. Plus, this is the only time that we see Ryu wearing any shoes, let alone a basic T-shirt and pants. Group TAC created the work, which has 29 episodes. The anime was released on VHS, while it did release on DVD, but as of now without English language. The dubbing was done by 3 different sorts. For some characters, they have 2 different voices for the ADV dubbing, while the last dubbing was done via Animaze. An Example of this is Ryu, who was voiced first by Brett Weaver (who did roles like Nabeshin of Excel Saga), then by Tommy Drake (who did the Lord Cat in Pani Poni Dash!) for the second ADV dub, and finally the Animaze dub by Skip Stellrecht (who, under Henry Douglas Grey, voiced Vicious of Cowboy Bebop.)

Street Fighter II V is a loose basing on the game series, but the anime was enough to get fans excited, even pumped, for the games. I give it a 7.0 of 10. While it does not stay true to the games, it does, however, ties loosely to who's the bad guy and good guys are.