Street Fighter II V

The OVA returns in the shape of a series.

Continuing with our tribute to the Street Fighter video-game franchise, we start where we left off in our previous entry: Street Fighter II V AKA Street Fighter II Victory, the remake/folllow-up animated series that came right after the successful OVA from 1994.
 

Directed by Gisaburo Sugii, who also directed Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, the series first aired in Japan in 1995, from April 10 to November 27, on YTV. An English adaptation of the series was produced by Manga Entertainment in 1996 and was originally released on home video in North America and shown on television on SBS in Australia before being released on VHS (and later DVD) by Madman Entertainment. 

The Animé is a loose adaptation of the Super Street Fighter II Turbo videogame, taking several liberties with the established storyline and characters from the games. The show takes place during the present time of 1995 and follows the adventures of the seventeen-year-old martial arts masters Ryu and Ken, as they go through a journey to improve their fighting potential after they both experienced a brutal defeat at the hands of Guile. During the course of the series, Ryu and Ken become acquainted with other Street Fighter characters such as Chun-Li, Fei Long, Sagat, and Dhalsim. Eventually the duo find themselves involved with the criminal syndicate Shadowlaw, led by M. Bison, after defeating one of their subordinate organizations.

Ken & Ryu, united by friendship and martial arts.

...And 90's clothing?.

I was practically raised by Arcade Centers and the Nintendo NES & Super Nintendo in the late 80's & early 90's, like most of you reading this. And like you and me, the world fell in love with Street Fighter II. I love Street Fighter!. I have been a fan for a long time. When this show came out, I was pretty young at the time. Now, thanks to the modern technology of the DVD, I can enjoy them all over again.

It's funny that when you look at something from your childhood, it has a profound difference now than it did then. This comes into play with Street Fighter II V. First, this show is pretty violent. I mean, really violent for a kids television show. it is also very mature, and that may put off some viewers. Some examples would be when Ryu is falsely convicted for drug smuggling. he is beaten by the prison warden who repeatedly screams for Ryu to scream. Viewers 14 and up will realize that he gets some kind of sex thrill out of this, but younger viewers will not. 

Guile & Chun-Li are here too.

And so is Dhalsim.

The story is a major diversion from the actual video game. Ryu gets a letter from Ken to come to America, and he does. During his first night, they both get thrashed by Guile, and so they decide to travel the world in search of new fighting techniques. They first stop in Hong Kong, where they meet Chun Li, who will be their tour guide. After some fights and some escaping and more fighting, Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li discover the evil Shadaloo organization and it's leader, M. Bison.

Okay. Not exactly the video game, but a pretty straight-forward concept.

All the characters you know and love, with a few alterations to their character profiles, and with the exception of a small few, are present. Ryu and Ken battle and defeat them all.

It should be pointed out that while the concept is incredibly simple, the story lines are uniformly well done. Each episode packs enough interest and action to keep you entertained well into the 29th episode. I found myself so enthralled with the Vega vs. Ken episode that I was unable to believe a whole half hour had passed by. But that's where we come to a major complaint.

Fight or be defeated!

Never trust a Spanish guy in a mask.

The opening credits. While the opening cinematic is nice, and you get a great feel of the show and the kick-ass soundtrack in place, it is overly long. As well as the closing credits. Together, I would estimate that they take up around 5 to 6 minutes. Not to gripe, but that is pretty long. Plus, you also have to count in the lengthy "in our last show" and "in our next show" segments.

Another small complaint are the characters. Not to poke fun at Japanese anime, but some of these characters are of different nationalities than just Japanese, so they shouldn't look Japanese. Also, some may have a small complaint about the way each character was handled. this is a small complaint (Such as the lack of an eye patch on a certain fighter. You all know who I'm talking about), and shouldn't detract from the overall quality of the show.

Plotwise, SF II V is pretty much the OVA's plot: M. Bison is looking for a way to either steal the abilities from the best world fighters or to take control over them. In the OVA, Ken is captured and re-programmed to serve under M. Bison's evil organization, while here well, he does the same thing twice: First by turning Chun-Li "evil" and then by doing the same to Ryu (some say the evil Ryu concept seen in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and later games was actually taken from here). Of course, all of these events taken place once the series is halfway through, so you get to see a lot of fighting around the world until our heroes meet the Shadaloo first hand.

Cammy's back but, on whose side is she this time?

Bison is a bad motherfucker.

Being a made for TV Animé the violence, fan service and nudity have been cut down to an extreme minimum compared to the previous year OVA. 

The only Street Fighter II characters missing from this entire series are Dee Jay, E. Honda, T. Hawk and Blanka. The show also had original characters such as Damdo, Detective Dorai, Eden, Kikun, Kokuja, Lo Yang, Ortega, Rinko, Sodom & Gomorrah, Yo Senkai and Zoltar. However, T. Hawk briefly appears in the Japanese intro, hinting that he was considered to appear in the series at some point. In addition, Akuma can be seen in many cameos throughout the entire series.

For those that are not familiar with the Japanese language. Ryu's name is pronounced (Ree-you), not (Rye-you). Also Ryu is a direct translation meaning Dragon in Japanese, thus making Ken's and Ryu's signature move Sho-ryu-ken literally translating Rising Dragon Punch. 

Promo art from the series and the 90's attire the characters would wear.

All in all. Yes, the show is for children, and naturally filled with clichéd antics and cheesy dialogue. But most can take pride in the fact that the franchise is handled so well in this anime show, and not torn through the ground like so many other tie-ins (I'm looking at you Super Mario Bros: the Movie). 

Here's the international opening:

Here's the Japanese opening:

Here's the international ending:

Here's the Japanese ending:

The Manga Video SF II V promo video:

Street Fighter II, The Animated Movie

The videogame that screams 90's!

Can you believe this year marks the 30th anniversary of one of the most beloved & everlasting fighting video-game franchises of all time? That's right! Street Fighter is soon be a three decade wonder! And Capcom is celebrating it by releasing a 30th Anniversary bundle including all 12 original arcade videogames on Steam! That is Street Fighter (1987), Street Fighter II (1992), Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting (1992), Street Fighter II Champion Edition(1992), Super Street Fighter II The New Challengers (1993), Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994), Street Fighter Alpha (1995), Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996), Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998), Street Fighter III New Generation (1997), Street Fighter III 2nd Impact Giant Attack (1997), Street Fighter III Third Strike(1998). In addition, if you pre-order the game before the May the 29th release date, you'll get a free copy of Ultra Street Fighter IV (2014) The official promo video (bottom section of this review) states the gaming experience has been updated to match "perfect arcade gameplay".

If you were a 90's teens, you just fucking loved going to the arcade center with friends and discovering the latest videogames while learning some tricks to be a master of Street Fighter II. Capcom knew what had in their hands and not only came up with 4 sequels of SFII between 1992 and 1994, they also set their minds into making the first completely animated film feature based upon their greatest invention since Ghouls & Ghosts and the Mega-Man saga.

Just like the SSF II intro!

Ryu versus Fei-Long.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, is a 1994 animated film adaptation written by Kenichi Imai, directed by Gisaburō Sugii and animated by Group TAC. The movie, originally released in Japan on August 8, 1994, was adapted into English in dubbed/subtitled format by Manga Entertainment, who later produced the TV series Street Fighter II V, which we will review in a few weeks. 

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was well received among fans of the games, and is generally considered to be far superior to the live-action film which followed it. The action sequences had a very realistic portrayal in comparison to other Street Fighter anime, and action anime in general, due to the assistance of K-1 founder and professional fighter, Kazuyoshi Ishii and Andy Hug. Though the movie's events do not seem to be acknowledged by the main games' storyline, many of the details were included in later games, in particular the Street Fighter Alpha series. 

Ken doesn't like Bison.

Burgers and fries?

All 16 characters from the SSF II game are in the film, however the center stage is clearly on Ryu and Ken, leaving some characters to have little more than cameos which is a bit disappointing for Cammy, who is one of my favorite characters but in the film had very little screen time, sure seeing her take out several body guards and then assassinating a political figure was cool, but i was hoping for more. The film follows Ryu who is a traveling martial artist seeking other worthy fighters and he does get into many fights throughout the film, and his old friend Ken who is a wealthy man who trained with Ryu in Japan when they were younger, however it seems that money bores him and he's eagerly awaiting Ryu's arrival. Chun Li and Guile fans would probably be very happy as well since they have very prominent roles in the film as well, however the hero's of the film would be nothing without a villain. Bison is recruiting powerful fighters around the world for his own evil goals, and currently he has his eye on Ryu and Ken.

Of course the plot isn't what the fans want to see, it was almost nonexistent in the games, no sir, its the fights! There are plenty and they all pack a punch(pun intended), the film begins with a fight between Ryu and Sagat done very stylishly in a grass field, it looks very low lit at first but its the roaring lightning that suddenly flashes and lights up the fight, it truly has to be seen. Apparently one of the most acclaimed fights in the film is the Chun Li vs Vega fight, which is absolutely brilliant. A helpless Chun Li in her PJ's is attacked in her apartment by the psychotic Vega, this fight is easily the bloodiest though it never gets to extreme, the finale of the fight is just fantastic and very satisfying. The last twenty or so minutes of the film is just non stop action, Ryu vs Ken then Ryu and Ken vs Bison, I won't go into details to avoid spoiling anything but the film couldn't have ended any better. The best part is, that's not all, there are still about half a dozen more fights in the film, and I have to say I really enjoyed the flashback scenes showing Ryu and Ken's training together, that really adds more depth to their friendship.

Promo art.

Cammy is a cold blooded fighter!

Visually the film is a wonder to behold, the animation is detailed and is very smooth and crisp, clearly a lot of time went into this. The film is also notorious for having the fight scenes professionally choreographed to give them a realistic feel and it shows since every movement really feels like the characters do put their entire bodies into it, there really is a sense of movement and power behind ever punch. The soundtrack is a mixed bag, when it is actual scored music it is great full of guitars and other instruments that seem to be heavily inspired by Grunge and/or Alternative Rock, the cup of tea from which most of us were drinking (and some still do) during the early 90's. I mention this because, it may make the film feel dated or odd at times but, if you are a rock fan or just don't care, that is only a minor thing in a film that was very well crafted from beginning to end. 

The alternative/grunge-oriented musical score for the English version was composed by Cory Lerios and John D'Andrea of Baywatch fame. Songs featured in the movie include "Blind" by Korn; "Them Bones" by Alice in Chains; "Israel's Son" by Silverchair; "Hallucinations (Dream World Mix)" by In the Nursery; "Evil Dancer" by Black/Note; "Ultra" by KMFDM; "Cuz I'm Like Dat" by Smokin Suckaz Wit Logic; and "Mantra" by Intermix.

Capcom was so happy with the love they were getting from fans around the world, that they released an interactive movie game based on the film, simply titled Street Fighter II Movie for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1995. The game involves the player taking the role of Shadowlaw's Monitor Cyborgs, who would simply observe the events of the movie to collect move data from fighters. The game's fight sequences features an interface similar to Super Street Fighter II Turbo, where the Cyborg has to fight Ryu. Cyborg's special moves include the Hadoken, the Shoryuken and the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, as well as Ken's Super Combo from Super Street Fighter II Turbo, the Shoryureppa. There are some extra scenes not present in the movie and three possible endings, depending on the result of the Cyborg's fight with Ryu. 

In addition, a manga adaptation of the film was authored by Takayuki Sakai and serialized in the monthly CoroCoro Comic in 1994, later collected in a single tankōbon. An English adaptation of this manga was published Viz Communications as a six-issue comic book in 1996. 

Chun Li won't be harassed by a mean Spanish fighter.

You mess with my pajama, you mess with me!

Now let's take a look at some interesting Trivia related to this great OVA from the 90's:

• The method the movie uses to introduce the title (Ryu performing the Hadoken onto the screen) is exactly the same as the intro to Super Street Fighter II.

• Akuma makes a cameo appearance in the movie, sitting against a wall in Calcutta shortly before the assassination attempt. However, fullscreen versions cut him out.

• In the Japanese version before the battle between Chun-Li and Vega, the former is shown completely nude (her T & A explicitly seen) while taking a shower in her apartment, which was later added back in the uncut DVD version.

• The Indian political leader, Jahan, who is killed by Shadaloo, appears to have been modeled after Gandhi.

• When Ken is driving on the highway, and is about to go head on with a semi-truck, the Capcom logo can be seen on its side.

• While the name of Ryu and Ken's master is never spoken on-screen, it appears printed as "Goutetsu" when Ryu's and Ken's profiles are compared on a monitor. In the games' continuity, Gouken is Ryu and Ken's master, while Goutetsu was actually Gouken and Akuma's teacher.

 

Washing off that fighting dirt.

• During the English credits, Cammy's and Dee Jay's names are spelled "Cammie" and "DJ" respectively.

• At the end of the credits to the Japanese version, a small announcement about the live action Street Fighter movie is shown, with a "Spring 1995" release for Japan. Edward Pressman, one of the film's producers, is alluded to in the English dub, mentioned as Shadowlaw's true leader and political figurehead, though there is no such mention in the original Japanese version.

• During his fight against E. Honda, Balrog's face is drawn differently, with his eyes constantly pointed in different directions among other details.

• Guile's clothing colors change at many random points in the film, even where it doesn't make any sense for them to have done so, such as between camera angles in the same scene.

• Thunder Hawk is voiced by Steven Blum, who would later go on to voice Ken in Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation. Though Street Fighter II V and Street Fighter Alpha are not in the same continuity as Street Fighter II, a handful of voice actors from the English dub reprised their roles in both adaptations due to the film's huge popularity overseas

Chun Li's buttocks.

Overall, if you are a fan of the game you will love this film, its very true to the source material and really adds layers to many of the characters, and its cool just to see your favorite fighters in animated form talking and doing their trademark moves in a different medium, this is a must see!

Here's the OVA trailer:

The updated OVA trailer for the Blu-Ray release:

The 30th Anniversary trailer for the re-release of the franchise:

Street Fighter (the original arcade game)

Yes, Ryu looks a bit different.

Ever since December is thought to be the ultimate festivities month, I spent some time away from our humble blog, not because I was hiding like some of those ridiculous preppers out there who were looking forward for the end of the world(!),You know,  I just had too much business to take care of in my real boring life.

Checking the stats from my blog I can definitely tell, that I should continue to review porn parodies, but since December is family rated month I thought I could review a classic videogame instead. So enter Street Fighter (ストリートファイタ) a 1987 average arcade game developed by the now world famous Capcom gaming company. Street Fighter was the first competitive fighting game produced by the company and the inaugural game in the Street Fighter series. While it did not achieve the same worldwide popularity as its sequel Street Fighter II when it was first released, the original Street Fighter introduced some of the conventions made standard in later games, such as the six button controls and the use of command based special techniques.

Gameplay

The player competes in a series of one-on-one matches against a series of computer-controlled opponents or in a single match against another player, a groundbreaking gameplay idea in those days anyways.  Each match consists of three rounds in which the player must defeat an opponent in less than 30 seconds. If a match ends before a fighter is knocked out, then the fighter with the greater amount of energy left will be declared the round's winner. The player must win two rounds in order to defeat the opponent and proceed to the next battle. If the third round ends in a tie, then the computer-controlled opponent will win by default or both players will lose. During the single-player mode, the player can continue after losing and fight against the opponent they lost the match to. Likewise, a second player can interrupt a single-player match and challenge the first player to a new match.

Ryu dyed his hair red in the first instalment of the SF saga.

Unique  six button pad

In the deluxe version of the arcade game, the player's controls consist of a standard eight-way joystick, and two large, unique mechatronic pads for punches and kicks that returned an analog value depending on how hard the player actuated the control. An alternate version was released that replaces the two punching pads with an array of six attack buttons, three punch buttons and three kick buttons of different speed and strength (Light, Medium and Heavy), another groundbreaking idea back then. 

Special secret moves

The player uses the joystick to move towards or away from an opponent, as well to jump, crouch and defend against an opponent's attacks. By using the attack buttons/pads in combination with the joystick, the player can perform a variety of attacks from a standing, jumping or crouching positions. There's also three special techniques which can only be performed by inputting a specific series of joystick and button inputs. These techniques are the once called "Psycho Fire" (Universally known today as the 波動拳 Hadōken, "Surge Fist"), the "Dragon Punch" (昇龍拳 Shoryūken, "Rising Dragon Fist") and the "Hurricane Kick" (竜巻旋風脚 Tatsumaki Senpū Kyaku, "Tornado Whirlwind Kick"). Unlike the subsequent Street Fighter sequels and other later fighting games, the specific commands for these special moves are not given in the arcade game's instruction card, which instead encouraged the player to discover these techniques on their own.

The fireball originally known as "Psycho Fire"

Gallery of heroes & rogues

The first player takes control of a Japanese martial artist named Ryu, who competes in an international martial arts tournament to prove his strength. The second player takes control of Ryu's former training partner and rival Ken, who challenges Ryu in the game's 2-player matches. Normally the player takes control of Ryu in the single-player mode, however, if the player controlling Ken defeats Ryu in a 2-player match, then the winning player will play the remainder of the game as Ken. The difference between the two characters are aesthetic, as both of them have the same basic moves and special techniques. At this point, you didn't have the chance of choosing your character freely, so it will take a little longer for the Street Fighter franchise to allow you to play with different characters.

The single-player mode consists of a series of battles against ten opponents from five different nations. At the beginning of the game, the player can choose the country where their first match will take place: the available choices are Japan or the US, as well as China or England (depending on the game's configuration). The player will then proceed to fight against two fighters from the chosen country before proceeding to the next country. In addition to the regular battles, there also two types of bonus games which player can play for additional points: a brick-breaking bonus game and a table breaking bonus game. After defeating the initial eight characters, the player will travel to Thailand to fight against the final two opponents.

Enter Geki the ninja assasin.

The first eight computer-controlled opponents are: from Japan, Retsu, an expelled Shorinji Kempo instructor and Geki, a claw-wielding descendant of a ninja; from the United States, Joe, an underground full-contact karate champion and Mike, a former heavyweight boxer who once killed an opponent in the ring; from China, Lee, an expert in Chinese boxing and Gen, an elderly professional killer who has developed his own assassination art; and from England, Birdie, a tall bouncer who uses a combination of wrestling and boxing techniques and Eagle, a well-dressed bodyguard of a wealthy family who uses Kali sticks. After the first eight challengers are defeated, the player is taken to Thailand for the final two adversaries: Adon, a deadly Muay Thai master, and his mentor Sagat, the reputed "Emperor of Muay Thai" and the game's final opponent.

In case you are wondering what is Street Fighter's story about, I would simply say it is merely about a martial arts tournament where every character aims to become the number one fighter worldwide and that's it. There are neither background stories for each character, nor vendetta style stories for the two playable characters (Ryu & Ken) I guess back then the story mode concept wasn't even a concept in arcade gaming or developers didn't care about that either.

Bonus game!

Development

Street Fighter was produced and directed by Takashi Nishiyama (who is credited as "Piston Takashi" in the game) and planned by Hiroshi Matsumoto (credited as "Finish Hiroshi"), who both previously worked on the overhead beat 'em up Avengers. The two men would leave Capcom after the production of the game and were employed by SNK, developing most of their fighting game series (including Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting). The duo would later work for Dimps and work on Street Fighter IV with Capcom. Keiji Inafune, best known for his artwork in Capcom's Mega Man franchise, got his start at the company by designing and illustrating the character portraits in Street Fighter. Nishiyama drew several inspirations for developing the original gameplay of Street Fighter from martial art styles he was practicing at the time.

Ryu V/S Ken

Connoisseur gameplay experience

Playing Street Fighter today would be a certified mess or at least some pain in the arse. However, if you happen to be an old school connoisseur like yours truly, you can definitely have fun with this 80's arcade fighting game. I can still remember the first time I got my hands into it at one of the many arcade centers I used to go in the 80's. The game wasn't an instant hit, I didn't see crowded rows of people eagerly waiting for their chance to play Street Fighter. In fact, I think it was an average game that most of the people from those days didn't quite well understand, I mean the game was hard, you had a lot of difficulties trying to get the special moves, while the CPU enemy didn't seem to have trouble at all smashing you with their own special moves. Even now, if you get to play it through the MAME 32 emulator you'll see how difficult it is to get the character to do what you actually want him to do in no time, so I guess that's why nobody really became an instant fan of the game, you know, with a limited coins budget you gotta make sure you can spend more than 10 minutes in front of the arcade machine. 

Sagat, the final boss.

 
After my not so entertaining experience playing it, the game was replaced and nobody got the chance to play it ever. Of course, that is until Street Fighter II, a game that set the standard bar of gaming way high above the clouds, in fact the original Street Fighter game became a lot more popular after everyone was into Street Fighter II.

And that's it for today fellas! hope you have a wonderful christmas dinner! next time we'll meet again to review one of the most hilarious porn parodies of them all: Sex Fighter 2!.

Stay tuned and enjoy this Street Fighter gameplay video for those were the days sake!

 

Street Fighter

Cool movie poster of an uncool movie.

The exploitation genre was and is still to date, defined as creating a marketable product related to whatever is a  trend interesting enough to finally deliver a film. If in the late 60's up to the late 80's the marketable product was nude girls and plenty of sex scenes, in the 90's, and I mean in the early 90's the exploitation genre moved to unexplored territories: Making movies based on best selling video games. Since many films had had their conversion to the home video game format with quite a decent success, it was about time someone became the trend setter of the new exploitation path of video games movies. Several attempts were made before the movie makers finally gave up for a decent amount of years.

In 1993 we saw how they killed the Super Mario Bros. franchise with a movie that was so bad, that hurt me so bad, since I'm a Mario fan that I just wouldn't find enough strength as to make a review of such a nightmare come true. 

"With Van Damme we can go no wrong"

The reason for watching the movie.

"Oh Guile you're so strong, come and bone me"

Did I say she's awesome?

Honestly, I don't know what producers were thinking when their set their minds into making a Street Fighter movie. The now legendary Capcom game in his early stages (Street Fighter I, Street Fighter II) didn't have a storyline, most of the characters were scarcely described as being in the tournament just for proving they were the strongest or just because they had fun fighting and, I can seriously tell you at least Super Mario Bros. had their storyline, simple but decent enough.

So the guys in charge of the movie checked the Street Fighter games, I guess they settled for making a film based on the Super Street Fighter II characters, the latest game in the saga in those days. 

So how do we make a story out of 17 different characters? Piece of Cake! We have this war going somewhere India or Thailand, this war is run by the Shadaloo crime organization led by Mr. Bison whose crazy idea is to own the world and run it with his partners in crime but, oh wait! there's a hero! Colonel  William F. Guile (Jean Claude Van Damme) and he's not alone! he's got the U.N. forces with him to crush Bison's madness. With that plot you have a reason for Guile, Cammy, Thunderhawk, a new guy named Sawada and that's it.

The videogame kicked ass.

So did Kylie Minogue, she should have been nude!

Chun Li's Whirlwind kick?

The rest of the characters are in the film for random reasons, mostly to help the good guys or to help the bad guys, nothing to explain in deeper terms.

The production budget was very high, high enough to pay martial arts star Jean Claude Van Dammne, acting star Raul Julia (unfortunately he passed away after the filming) and the Australian pop star singer Kylie Minogue, the rest of the cast was mostly unknown people, stuntmen & stuntwomen.

Now, Street Fighter not only sucks for having little or nothing to do with the game, but also for the wasted time in dialogues and subplots, hey! it is Street Fighter a movie about a fighting tournament! so, yeah the martial arts stars do get to do very little in the fighting business during the movie. On the other hand, the special effects are good, the props are similar to the original video game and the best of it all the movie videogame! which was starred by the same actors in the movie.

Vega.

Ken & Ryu?

Mr. Bison.

The final Battle.

Hulk, erp! I mean Blanka.

Grand Finale.

Another extra good thing is that after this movie was released Capcom decided to save their Street Fighter beloved game by creating the Street Fighter Alpha saga (Zero in Japan) This saga would explain in depth story for each character and would relate their personal stories to a bigger plot so, after all Capcom saved the day and this film is now part of the neverending list of B Movies that, for bizarre reasons have become cult items.

Here's the movie trailer: 

Tomorrow a real movie based on a videogame Mortal Kombat.