Jawsome Japanimation: Final Fantasy

When I originally worked on this post, over a week and a half ago, I had opened up with a comment about how my thumb was aching from too much Street Fighter IV, and that I was too cheap to invest in a Madcatz Fightpad controller.

One week later, the opening already became obsolete, as I ended up buying a controller after all (Blanka model. I really wanted Ryu, but it was all they had, and they were quite scarce at the time, so apples and oranges). So now that I’ve updated this opening accordingly, let’s proceed with the rest of the article.

Last time, I talked about the various animated adaptions of Street Fighter. Today, I’ll be talking about Final Fantasy, and its various animated adaptions.

It’s going to be a short list.

Sadly, the FF series has very little anime adaptions, which is a crying shame considering that it should be a cinch to bring the various worlds and characters to life. It would also fill in a much needed void for more fantasy-based anime. Sure, there’s Lodoss War, Escaflowne, and The Slayers, but after that there isn’t much to write about.

When word hit me that there was indeed a Final Fantasy anime (around the time I started getting into the series with FFVI, called FFIII during the SNES days), I grew anxious to learn more. All I had at the time was a small blurb in EGM (or was it their failed side-mag? I forget) as well as a couple of pictures. The internet wasn’t available at the time, so I was left wondering about this foreign relic for several years; we got the Street Fighter II movie, but this mysterious FF anime looked to stay exclusive to Japan.

At least until Urban Vision (who I think is defunct now) released it as one of their first dubbed VHS tapes. I was quite excited to finally see this thing in action, but I was also keeping the notion that maybe there was a reason it wasn’t released right away….

Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals

Notice how they cover their tracks with that "Based On" part.

Taking place 500 years after Final Fantasy V (which would take even longer to arrive in NA, under the “Final Fantasy Anthology” collection on PS1, and it took even longer than that to play FFV with a good translation), an evil force is stealing the crystals of Planet R (don’t quote me on whether that’s canon) for evil.

It’s up to hot-headed motorcyclist/swordmaster Pretz….

"Hmm, the crystal of the Wind. Fascinating. Fascinating."

And the cute but incredibly naive Summoner Linali to solve this mystery.

"Ooh, she's pretty."

I’ll just get right to the point: This is a very bizarre adaption of Final Fantasy. Much like Street Fighter Alpha: Generations, this is what happens when you hire a director who’s more into the “artsy” side of Japanimation, and is asked to adapt a popular game series that was doing just fine without his “creative liberties”.

The designs for the two main characters are fine, pretty much standard FF fare, but everyone else and the world around them suffers from some weird Dune-esque stylings. You’ve got Chocobos who look like they had all their feathers plucked, hulking goblin creatures with the largest pair of manboobs you’ll ever see outside of Fight Club (at least I hope those are moobs; it’s much more disturbing to think they’re female), alien robots that speak a completely made up language (but whose boss communicates to them in English, sort of like Jabba the Hutt in reverse), and several other oddities.

The actions of the characters and the plot surrounding them is even stranger. Pretz and Linali manage to secure the Wind Crystal, which immediately decides to hide itself inside Linali’s butt.

No, Seriously.

Oh, Japan.

Then there’s the fact that both characters are incredibly suicidal in nature; Pretz plays chicken with someone pointing a gun right at him, while Linali has a tendency to make literal leaps of faith, by jumping from areas that she seriously shouldn’t attempt jumping from.

Now that's improvising.

There’s also the main villain. In addition to his butt ugly underlings, he’s also one of the most impractical looking villains out there, even worse than Ex-Death’s tree form at the end of FFV.

His name is Ra-Devil, and his robot form here is Deathguynos. And I thought Ex-Death was cliche.

His master plans are just as perplexing; Taking the brain from the recently deceased Cid from FFV (because brains don’t rot once the person dies, right?), Ra-Devil plants the brain underneath his robot stomach and increases it five times its normal size, in order to absorb its “knowledge” of the crystals. Once he finally receives the crystals, he undertakes his “God form”, which results in him looking like a plate of leftover lasagna. If it was an homage to Tetsuo’s mutation in Akira, at least the former had a semblance of shape to it; Ra-Devil’s form is basically a bunch of mush that shoots electricity. I should stop making fun of Ex-Death’s final form as a result. I won’t, but I should.

Some of the weirdness pays off, though. One particularly memorable character, Valkus, bears more than a few resemblances character-wise to FFIX’s Steiner. I wouldn’t be surprised if he served as some sort of inspiration to the hot-headed, overly loyal soldier, especially because they also share a love interest with the respective bad girls of both iterations.

Also, that isn't a moustache, those are his nose hairs. That is hard core, man.

I also thought it was amusing how the background characters all resembled one another; I’d like to think that was a jab at Final Fantasy’s soldiers and townspeople all looking alike, just as how the Pokemon series poked fun at the hundreds of Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys of the world.

Truth be told, Legend of the Crystals is pretty entertaining, if you’re willing to forgive the fact that it’s supposed to be an FF anime. The animation is quite nice, there’s quite a few amusing situations here (thanks to the fact that the characters take a batshit insane approach to everything), and the dub is actually one of the best dubbed animes I’ve ever heard. Featuring recogonizble voice actors, mostly from the Tenchi Muyo series (Tenchi, Sasami, Washu), Urban Vision always did a great job with their english efforts, with their delivery and localization exceeding the original Japanese versions.

Also, fun fact: every single english VA from this series is used in Final Fantasy X, mostly as bit parts (Shelinda, Claska, Yunalesca, Luzzu). Another fun fact is that Linali’s Japanese voice played Tifa in Ehrgeiz.

Finally, for those who played through FFV, the original heroes do make a couple of appearances, mostly in flashback, ghostly form.

Looking back, I don't think Galuf was that tall. Or that buff.

Faris even appears with her bare breast exposed in one sequence, probably meant to symbolize how she’s actually a woman underneath her male disguise. Or maybe it was a bizarre, artsy attempt at fanservice. You know, aside from Linali’s glowing panties.

Final Fantasy Unlimited

False advertising, in every way imaginable.

When I had heard that a new FF anime series was being produced, I was overjoyed; even more so because Gonzo was the studio behind it, and at the time their pedigree was quite prestigious (especially with Last Exile, a wonderfully big budget epic that was very close to an FF adaption as copyright allowed).

That joy quickly faded away once the opinions started appearing online. Now to be fair, I haven’t watched this series aside from the first episode from a Newtype USA DVD (RIP), but that was enough to convince me that most of the negativity of Unlimited was spot on. That might sound unfair, and I still may end up watching the series in its entirety one day….but I’d much rather not put myself through it.

I haven't seen a pair of mountains that big since ten seconds ago!

For one thing, Gonzo must have been paid in chocobo feed, because the animation in this show is anything but “big budget”; Characters are drawn in this weird, flat style with absolutely no shadowing, and their appendages (especially their noses) have a habit of vanishing in one frame but reappearing in another. At least Legend of the Crystals had a consistent animation style. FFU’s animation simply looks unfinished.

At least they got one thing right.

As for the characters, they stray very far from the Final Fantasy norm, which might sound like a good thing to some, but that doesn’t make them compelling in any way. The two main kids, Ai and Yu (wonder if the twist involves them having a long lost triplet named Mii?), aren’t very memorable from any other brother and sister character you’ve seen elsewhere, aside from the fact that they seem to love screaming “WONDERLAND” several times per episode.

But hey, Chocobos are actually yellow this time, so that’s a plus. The Cid in this adaption is also a young man, which is also an interesting idea were it not for his rather creepy obsession with his airship (which he calls “Darling” in a less-than-healthy tone).

And then there’s Lisa….

It's a kid's show.

When people critique Tifa’s look in Final Fantasy VII, I’m always on the defensive side; I can’t find myself doing the same for Lisa here. Take a look at some of the show’s artwork (including that image I posted a bit back during Dissidia’s Do’s and Dont’s…you know the one), and it’s more than obvious that her inclusion was meant to lure in the adult crowd. It also doesn’t help that her personality, most of the time, is that of a complete ditz. This later turns out to be a bit of a facade, but I don’t exactly see the point in masquerading as a clueless bimbo to a pair of ten year olds.

She’s also supposed to act as a surrogate mother to Ai and Yu, but I get a much creepier vibe than that….

This shot is used to represent the children's longing for a nurturing mother. Also, boobies.

I've also noticed that in many of these shots, he rarely looks at her eye to eye.

Too easy.

But if you happen to be among the “adult” demograph this show is trying to lure in, I should warn you that the promo art is about as cheesecake as it gets. Since the animation is so sporadic, Lisa’s curves are rarely represented the way the producers probably intended. You won’t find any torn clothes or Gainaxing around here (and the few times the latter occurs, it’s a sad low budget attempt).

But you will find a decent amount of soft tentacle action.

Again, it's a kid's show.

Lisa tries to remind the director that this is a kid's show.

The kids get involved in the bondage action too, but I’ll spare you the shots. Between this, the phallac-shaped monsters of the week, and the very existence of Pist (yes, that’s a character), Final Fantasy Unlimited should at least appeal to the fetish crowd, though I’m not sure that was the director’s intention. Or maybe it is, sure, let them have whatever audience they can get. It wasn’t enough, anyway, because the series was quickly cancelled, leaving the unfinished story to be released as novels and drama CDs (which are, ironically enough, also unfinished due to lackluster sales. Well, they tried).

Frankly, there’s little positive to say about Final Fantasy Unlimited. The animation is crap, the plot revolves around a monster of the week premise, there’s very few actual nods to the series it’s supposed to be adapting, and the supposed “hero” of the show, Kaze, is even more of an unfriendly doucehbag than Cloud or Squall; he shows up at the last minute of every episode to deliver the final blow to the monster, then wanders off. Rinse and repeat until your ratings plummet.

Now I am told that the final couple of episodes are actually well done, and do a strong job of conveying several of the themes that make the FF series so beloved. I still doubt it’s worth suffering through this show, when you could just be replaying your favorite moment from the games. Or watch Legend of the Crystals again; Chocobos aside, it’s closer to an FF adaption as this series ever was.

Last Order: Final Fantasy VII

“An anime adaption of Final Fantasy VII could never happen”, most fans would say.

“Yes, it can”, I’d usually reply. With the right care and budget, Square’s most popular entry in the FF series could come to animated life.

For a brief moment, during the core moment of FFVII’s big revival (that being the Japanese release of Advent Children), Square finally attempted this.

And guess what? They succeeded.

The first official signs of FFVII in animated form came from this promo commercial for Before Crisis, the Turk-centric cellphone game that is, to this day, still a Japanese exclusive (are our cellphones really that far behind Japan’s?). The promo mostly features the original characters made for BC’s story, but it also briefly shows Rufus, Rude, and Reno from the original game.

It’s nicely animated, but it’s not like a short teaser could really prove if FFVII can work in anime form. The real test came shortly afterward, with the release of a bonus half hour OVA, included with the Japanese version of Advent Children. Titled “Last Order: Final Fantasy VII”, it centered around Zack and Cloud during their escape as Hojo’s experiments, as well as flashing back to the Nibelheim Incident, the crucial point that jump starts FFVII’s story for all its characters.

Apparently his swings are so fast, enemies evaporate into dust. Awesome.

An anime adaption of Final Fantasy VII, and it focuses on my favorite moment in the whole game, the Nibelheim flashback? You can certainly bet I was excited. I repressed my desires to see Advent Children early, and decided to wait for the official NA release, but I didn’t wait long to download Last Order, especially since it was apparent Square USA wasn’t going to include it.

On closer inspection, he resembles FFVI's Sabin quite a bit. Coincidence?

This OVA did not disappoint; the events from the original game were told pretty much perfectly (minus a few changes that aren’t worth bitching about, including a quite interesting one that will be mentioned below), it gave us a look into what kind of bad-ass Zack was (he was only given about six minutes of screen-time in the original, yet that was enough to establish a big fanbase), and the animation was quite wonderful, doing an excellent job of flawlessly translating Nomura’s designs for this adaption.

All I did was google my name, and....sniff....

There was also a great amount of detail on the facial expressions, something that I feel that anime still has an edge over CG. Tifa, for instance, is especially lovely, even when filled with sadness or anger. And Sephiroth…

Oh, shit.

Sephiroth is just scary in this feature. When he’s ready to stab Tifa, the look of delight he gives off is chilling, and neatly coincides with his smirk in the original game, after he dispatches that other person during the famous event from the first disc. For people who debated whether or not Sephiroth felt any emotion whenever he massacres people, this should tell you: Yes, and he enjoyed it too.

The anime has a bit more violence and brutality than what was seen in the original game or Advent Children (at least the original cut), especially during Seph’s encounters with Zack and then Cloud. Cloud gets stabbed twice instead of just once, which makes his adrenaline rush all the more poignant (but also adds a bit of confusion, where in this version, Sephiroth willingly jumps to his doom). Strangely enough, though, Tifa doesn’t have a scratch on her after being attacked by Sephiroth. Between this and the bloodless death of that other character, I wonder if Square has some sort of policy where their female leads can’t be seen critically wounded.

Anyway, regarding the most major change in this OVA….

If this really happened, the events of the first game would have changed dramatically.

In this version, Tifa actually regains consciousness to witness young Cloud coming to her rescue. The dialog during this moment is actually taken from the original game, during Disc 2’s reunion of the two while they fell in the Lifestream. This certainly isn’t canon, since it was vitally important that Tifa would not know that Cloud really was there during the events of Nibelheim, but regardless, it’s a cute moment between the two. It was probably added to lighten the depressing moments to follow, but it’s still an appreciated touch of fanservice for fans of this coupling, and should erase any doubts about their relationship.

Episode: Denzel

Dragoon in the making?

Naturally, I was eager for more FFVII animation, and my desire came somewhat true with the announcement that Advent Children: Complete would include another OVA feature. Titled “Episode: Denzel”, this feature is an adaption of the “Case of Denzel” short story that was part of the “On the Way to a Smile” series of novellas. It’s also being animated by A-1 pictures instead of Madhouse, a company I’m not familiar with, but one that I’m hoping can get the job done (they’re also doing the Valkyria Chronicles TV series, which is looking quite promising so far).

Unfortunately, I don’t share the same excitement that I did with Last Order. The reason is because Denzel’s story doesn’t feature any of the FFVII cast (though Cloud and Tifa may make an appearance at the very end), and focuses entirely on Denzel wandering the ruins of Midgar, emo’ing around until he’s eventually picked up by Cloud.

It’s especially unfortunate, because I really, really wanted “Case of Tifa” to be adapted instead. Not only is the entire cast featured, but it’s a wonderful story for fans of the original game, and has lots of dramatic, personal moments that would have been very interesting to see in animated form (including a drunk Cloud). Maybe that’s still a possibility, but until then, if you wanted to learn Denzel’s origins, but didn’t want to read a bunch of text on someone’s fansite, this anime is the way to go.

Final Fantasy in Other Media:

Considering how popular the series is, it shouldn’t be a suprise that the FF games have been referenced more than once in other animes, mangas, or TV shows.

Yuffie could only dream of having curves like that.

The manga series Genshiken features a small homage, where two of the main characters head to a cosplay convention dressed as Tifa and Yuffie, respectively. The Tifa cosplayer is embarrassed at all the attention she’s getting, as she’s quite a dead-on looker for the character. I’m not too familiar with this series, so I’m uncertain if this scene made its way to the anime adaption. Regardless, it’s a funny moment, although both girls are a bit more curvaceous than they were originally designed.

Sirs and Ladies, I'm afraid your attire is not suitable to attend this party.

Another manga, Descendants of Darkness (which I know even less about) features most of teh FFVII cast making an appearance in the background.

Whatever.

The author behind Love Hina is an unapologetic FF fan, putting in more than a few references and cameos in the manga. There’s also that rather infamous doujin by the same artist, featuring Aerith, Yuffie, and a corded telephone. I’ll just leave it at that….

Personally, I only see a vague resemblance, but whatever.

There’s also Digimon (which was a pretty decent Pokemon ripoff back in the day, but has now gathered a very disturbing group of fans), which has been theorized for years of using FF as an homage for its characters. One character, Mimi, has been considered an homage to Aerith.

I don't see the point in the boxing gloves. You'd think thorny hands would be deadly enough. Again, whatever.

A much more obvious source of inspiration is Mimi’s digimon, Togemon. Not only does it almost practically resembles FF’s beloved (hated?) cactus creature Cactuar, it even has an attack named “10,000 needles”.

Pokemon? I'd rather kill a man! Vwee hee hee hee!

And while not cited as often, I personally always saw a bit of a connection between Myotismon and Kefka. Remove the vampire mask and add some facepaint, and they’re pretty much twins.

And of course, there’s official manga adaptions related to Final Fantasy, including manga series based on Crystal Chronicles, Final Fantasy XI, and of course Kingdom Hearts, but it would take too long in this post to mention. Maybe if I’m fortunate enough to find some scanlations, I can discuss them in more detail in the future.

On the television front, there’s Robot Chicken’s FFVII Parody, which is very amusing and does a great job of capturing the quirks of the original game (midi music, weird NPC glitches, a spotty translation).

There’s also the anime series Welcome To The NHK, which features a two-parter where Sato discovers an MMORPG that is more than an obvious parody of Final Fantasy XI, right down to the opening movie.

The cameos only increase as Sato falls in love with a Mithra-inspired character, and starts having a really disturbing (and sadly, quite accurate) obsession with the online world.

Of course, any MMORPG veteren should be well aware of how this online romance will turn out.

And finally, there’s Captain N’s final episode, which places Kevin and friends into the world of Final Fantasy.

I’ve never actually seen this episode, but it’s somewhat ironic that FF ends up as the final adventure for this Nintendo-sponsored series. I won’t go and say that Square’s shift to the Playstation was the primary downfall of the Nintendo 64….but I bet it didn’t help, either.

Anyway, as far as adaptions go, I suppose they got the gist of the first game down, since it did have a prince, a witch, and an evil warlock. But as far as any resemblance to characters, it doesn’t exist. Captain N has always been guilty of taking liberties with famous videogame characters (just look at Mega Man, aka “Bobby Hill in Green Spandex”), but it doesn’t help that the show’s budget pretty much tanked by the third season.

And that concludes things. Well, there’s also a Two and a Half Men episode where Charlie Sheen’s fat-ass nephew is dying to rent the “newest Final Fantasy” (which turns out to be FFX, although once he starts playing it, the music turns out to be the battle BGM from FFII, PS1 edition), but I can’t find a clip online, and I don’t feel like putting too much effort searching for it.

So instead, I’ll leave you with this.

* Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystal images taken from Hardcore Gaming 101

* Manga cameo images taken from FF Compendium

Jawsome Japanimation: Street Fighter

It’s about time I dedicated something fun to this blog again, which is why I feel now’s the best time to introduce a new category: Jawsome Japanimation.

I did mention in my About page that I may talk about anime, and I’m making good on that. It’s a safe bet, after all, that if you’re into videogames, you may also be into anime. Heck, one of the main reasons I got into gaming during the beginning NES days was because of the cool artwork, whether it was anime-inspired or westernized; It looked cool, and it played cool.

With Street Fighter IV soon to be available to everyone (and damn those who managed to secure a copy before the official street date. damn you all), I’ve decided to dedicate a pre-launch post talking about the various anime adaptions created to honor the world’s most popular fighting series.

To spare my sanity and your attention span, I will only be covering Japanese anime adaptions of Street Fighter. There’s a ton of comics, cartoons, and a certain movie that has each done their part to further ridicule a series where bear-wrestling Russians fight highschool girls with no mercy (and in two weeks, Smallville’s Lana will step up to ruin Chun Li’s image the same way Van Damme did for Guile), and I won’t be covering all of them in one post.

Okay, fine, here’s everyone’s favorite part from the movie.

Once you’ve decided whether to go home, or go with him, read on.

Oh, but a word of warning: There’s quite a bit of partial nudity in this post (double warning: it’s not all pleasant), so consider this kind of not safe for work. Moving on.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie:

They knew how to market them back then.

In the 90’s, GameFan magazine were quite the masters of generating hype, often filling their pages with large screenshots and artwork along with large rants about a certain product’s awesomeness. Particularly memorable examples include their constant reports on Final Fantasy VII (which eventually earned a score of “100++” from their reviewers) and Evangelion (A++). Because one plus just isn’t enough.

They were also the first ones to break the news of Street Fighter II’s anime adaption, and didn’t skimp on their journalistic standards; they described the fight scenes moving at “over 100 frames per second”, and this was long before fps terms became routine in forum trolling.

They also made this movie all the more appetizing by telling us we couldn’t have it, mentioning that Capcom had no immediate plans to bring this to the US. Quite convenient, since their magazine also featured advertisements from an importing service that frequently advertised the same games and anime they covered, along with their outrageous prices; the Street Fighter II movie was available for purchase (without subtitles, to boot) for a good $80. And that’s not covering their shipping fees. I’ve fallen victim to them on more than one occasion, but that’s an embarrassing story for another time.

In any event, GameFan was fortunately wrong on this one, because several months later the anime was brought over here in two VHS versions, PG-13 and “Uncut”.

And this is just during the first five minutes.

Having limited funds, I had to resort to the PG-13 cut, available for rent at Blockbuster (and later copied thanks to this handy double-VCR hookup my Grandmother set up long ago). That was irrelevant, as only less than five minutes of violence were cut out; there was still plenty of punching, kicking, and hadouken’ing left in, and man was it glorious.

Every character from Super Street Fighter II Turbo makes an appearance in this movie, and nearly all of them are memorable moments. We’ve got Fei Long taking on Ryu in a crowded betting arena, E Honda fighting Dhalsim in Calcutta, Blanka going against Zangief in Las Vegas….the movie skimped out on plot in order to show off one fight after another. Just like a good Kung-Fu movie should.

But probably the one fight everyone will remember the most is the encounter between Chun Li and Vega. The former is attacked in her apartment just after a lengthy shower…..

Sigh, I suppose I have to stop and talk about the shower scene. One of the earliest and finest displays of fanservice transitioning from video game to animated form, young males across the world were treated to a full on shower sequence, where quarter-munchers everywhere were treated to a clear, extended look at Chun Li’s wet, dripping assets.

This is all you're going to see here.

Provided you had the right cut of the movie, at least. The PG-13 version only gives you a small bit of back-boob action, while the “Uncut” tape wasn’t entirely uncut at all, which kept in a shot of her rear but left out the “breast” part (sorry). Aside from importing tapes (and later, the internet), the shower sequence was never shown in its entirety in the US until Manga released a new “definitely uncut” edition of the movie on DVD, also featuring the original Japanese dialog and score.

Back to what I was saying, the Chun Li/Vega fight is the most memorable in the movie due to its unwavering brutality and all around ass-kicking awesomeness. Clothes are torn, boobies are sliced, furniture is tossed around, and beautiful faces are ruined in one of the most entertaining fights ever created for film.

You won't find a greater marriage of fanservice and brutality. Except maybe Bikinni Zombie Slayers.

Of particular note is the differences in audio between the English and Japanese versions; The former featured a rocking song from KMFDM to really pump up the hormone levels, while the Japanese original featured a slower, romantic-like song, giving the sequence a more artsty feel, like a violent ballet between the two fighters. It’s quite eerie, and gives off a different feel from the screaming death metal of the US track. Your preferences may vary.

The majority of fights in this movie follow suit in their brutality and realism, and that’s thanks in part to the surpervision of actual accomplished martial arts fighters. Capcom doesn’t just use violence to lure in fans, though, as we are also treated to landmark moments such as the original battle between Ryu and Sagat (the one moment where it’s vital to watch it uncensored), his training days with Ken, and even the origin of his trademark headband.

I don’t really want to say much more about the film, as I’m hoping the majority of you have each experienced it for yourself. If you haven’t, do so as quickly as you can. Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was one of the earliest attempts of a Japanese Animated Videogame Adaptiom (hey, that’s an acronym for JAVA. Maybe I should trademark that), but it’s also to this day the most successful. This isn’t just one of the best Anime films ever made, it’s also one of the best Martial Arts movies ever made, worthy of standing alongside Enter the Dragon and Drunken Master.

Street Fighter II V:

Spikey hair? I have instant dislike of this alternate take!

Shortly following the success of the animated movie, a 29 episode TV series was released and quickly brought over by Manga Entertainment. Funny enough, the original animated movie was released in America after the dreadful live movie, and this anime series followed suit shortly after the equally dreadful cartoon series from USA Network. Could Capcom be trying to cover their muddy tracks?

Anyway, this series is notable (and often hated) for creating an alternate take on the SF lore, showing Ryu, Ken and several other characters during their early days. Ryu is just a 17 year old country bumpkin who just recently mastered his martial arts style, but hasn’t perfected it. He gets an invitation from Ken to meet him in America, followed by a round trip across the world in order to meet new challenges to test their fighting skills.

The series is often bashed by fans for depicting Ryu as a naive, almost doofus-like teenager who arrogantly picks fights just for fun. It also suffers from a limited budget, often repeating the same frames of animation several times per episode (especially noticeable whenever someone is making a mad dash toward the camera).

But personally speaking, this series is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I believe it’s well aware of its cheesy premise, and intentionally runs with it. We’ve got drunken army soldiers, the hockey team from hell, drug smugglers with chainsaw hands, and psychotic Spanish bullfighters serving as opponents for young Ryu and Ken. And if you think it’s a bit arrogant of them to just drive around starting fights, you may enjoy their immediate knockdown from their high horse when a certain Army Sergeant schools these kids on the lessons of street fighting.

"I could kick your ass all night!"

As someone who was getting into martial arts during the time of watching this, SFIIV also served as a male fantasy: Who wouldn’t love traveling the world with their improbably rich best friend to beat down assholes in steel cage matches? You even get a super hot Chinese tour guide along the way.

Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, But she ain't messin' with no broke...

The series was also amusing for its random product placements. We’ve got Ken drinking Avian water, Chun Li shopping at Georgio Armani, and then there’s Ryu’s shoes….

Gotta be the shoes.

And like the animated movie, there’s plenty of brutally realistic fights, and the animation usually keeps up with the deadly speed and blows (but still repeat frames edgewise). A particularly gruesome encounter is between Ken and Vega.

Holy Shit.

Serving to pay back Vega for giving Chun Li a roofie kiss during her sleep, Ken steps into a steel cage match with the master of steel cage matches. He gets a solid blow to Vega’s face, which he prides over.

Holy Shit!

He doesn’t like having his beautiful face scarred.

Ahhhhhh, Holy Shiiiiiiiiiit!!!!

Unfortunately, the series takes an unfortunate wrong turn after this fight, dedicating the next half of its length to focus on Bison and his plans for world domination.

The Chin of Doom

For a series that took a lighthearted approach to fighting across the globe, things get way too serious and way too slow at this point. Bison abducts Ken, Chun Li, and Ryu, and we’re left with several dragging episodes with no fighting and a lot of repeating scenes.

My God, that chin will destory us all!

Ryu practices wavy hand motions, Ken screams “See Ya Sen!!!” a hundred times, and Bison laughs maniacally ten minutes per episodes. He also talks to an eagle head statue, which is the source of his Psycho power. Even the Kali statue from the USA cartoon made more sense than that.

Still, it’s quite interesting to see the beginning points of canon material here. This series was made before Street Fighter Alpha, and while Capcom has given most of the credit to the first movie as inspiration, a few elements must have been taken from V as well. For instance, here’s the first look at Charlie Nash, Guile’s best buddy and future Alpha character.

The glasses are about the only thing they have in common.

The plot to turn fighters into mindless servants may also have given way to Bison’s DOLL soldiers. Unfortunately, Cammy’s role in V is quite maligned, to the point that there’s almost no resemblance whatsoever. Hired as an assassin to take out Chun Li’s father, Cammy’s story is basically the opposite of her role in the games; instead of starting out as Bison’s mindless assassin and later working with MI-6, the Cammy in SFIIV is a former MI-6 agent who later became an assassin. Also, she appears much older, which is counfounding since this is supposed to take place before the original games.

She also hasn't learned to wear her assassin clothes underneath her normal ones.

She’s also got this thing where she prays to a cross before pulling out a hidden wire to strangle her opponents. That’s even further removed from Cammy. What the hell.

But worse off is Chun Li, who was a cute, spunky character in the first half of the series, but is later reduced to a damsel in distress after being abducted by Bison.

Sometimes, fanfiction writes itself.

This isn’t the first time Chun Li had to take down some asshole while barely keeping her clothes on, but in this instance she’s not only facing someone way out of her league, but she’s continuously shamed during the whole ordeal. As Bison’s douchebag assistant is filming her shameful appearance, Bison makes due with comments like “whore” and more ten minute laughing.

"A tip of my hat to your natural....talents."

To be fair, Bison is always entertaining as a magnificent bastard, the one thing that every iteration of Stret Fighter has managed to have in common, but it goes a little overboard here. The coup de grace is Chun Li’s final role as a mindless warrior, wearing a slave-like version of her trademark Chinese dress.

Sometimes, fanfiction writes itself.

This wouldn’t be so bad if she was given a chance at payback after breaking free of the mind control, but that doesn’t happen. Ryu and Ken finally break free after ten episodes of captivity, and promptly dispatch Bison. Roll the credits.

As painfully slow as the second half is, I still recommend most of Street Fighter II V as a fun afternoon serial. Just try to look past the homoerotic undertones.

Sometimes, fanfiction writes....oh, God...

Believe it or not, the above image isn’t nearly as horrifying to watch compared to Ken’s pink shirt in the final episode, as well as the original Japanese intro.

I’ll take the Americanized version any day.

Street Fighter Alpha OVA:

A cast of many, but only 45 minutes to squeeze them in.

Following the success of the Alpha series, another anime was released to commerate Street Fighter’s 10th anniversary. Unlike with V, this new adaption was met with a lot of excitement, as it meant the first anime debut of popular characters like Akuma and Sakura.

That hype quickly turned into late 90’s internet nerd rage, as both characters are only given minimal screen time and no fight scenes, in favor of establishing original character Shun, a young boy claiming to be Ryu’s younger brother (and quickly disbelieved by everyone).

Sakura gets a decent amount of screen time along with a few cute moments (copying her Alpha victory pose where her shoe comes flying off, along with playing as Ibuki in a tiny handheld version of SF3), but this OVA takes place before she gets into martial arts, instead focusing on the beginnings of her obsession with Ryu.

Don't get too outraged; this is only a half-second frame. Still funny though.

Akuma, who at this point has risen to Wolverine levels of popularity among Arcade players (to the point that the two eventually clash during X-Men vs Street Fighter), gets even less screen time, only showing a couple of times to goad Ryu into unleashing the dark side of his Hadou.

Commence the shitting of pants.

Despite that, it’s still an entertaining feature, and the animation is simply wonderful, perfectly capturing the more stylized look of the Alpha series. Purists complained at the exaggerated fights in this feature, and admittedly it does go a little over the top (Ryu dodges bullets at point blank), but the Alpha series was always meant to be that way.

The real point of exaggeration is the OVA’s original enemy character, who is an even bigger cheater than SF3’s Gil. The undead, unflinching cyborg is the equivalent of Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis, and it takes a ridiculous amount of special moves and dark hadou to bring him down.

Better hope they don't make him a DLC character.

Street Fighter Alpha: Generations

I've got a bad feeling about this.

The last OVA made (at least until now) came out of nowhere, not commemorating anything with Street Fighter and released without much fanfare. On the surface it appeared promising, as it was advertised to be a full feature brawl between Ryu and Akuma, something fans have been wanting to see after the shameless teasing of the previous OVA.

One look at the animation style, however, is enough to tell you that something ain’t right with this adaption.

Er....What?

The director of this feature was the same one behind Robot Carnival, a movie I haven’t seen, but one I can immediately tell has no resemblance to Street Fighter whatsoever. Simply put, they wanted to take a new direction with this OVA, making it more artsy and moving, and less about mindless fighting.

Because, you know, it’s not like fans wanted a huge face-off between Ryu and Akuma, right? We can do with some soul searching instead, right?

The beginning bit that shows Akuma as a normal, not red-eyed or vein-popping fighter was mildly interesting, but it all goes downhill from there. Ryu takes a trip to the woods to get some spiritual guidance (or as I put it, hiding from Akuma because he’s scared straight), and meets up with a mysterious old man who gives him mysterious old man guidance.

He’s also one of the scariest goddamn old men I’ve ever seen.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

As for characters, aside from Ryu and Akuma (and a last minute appearance by Ken that serves no purpose whatsover), the only other character to show up is Sakura, who begs Ryu for a match to help her with her training. She also begs him not to hold back.

He doesn’t.

There's a reason Senseis don't beat the living shit out of their students.

Afterwards, Sakura takes a relaxing dip in an indoor hot tub, where her breasts magically expand on cue.

My God, Asuka was right.

Make no mistake, the animation is an absolute mess. When the characters aren’t grossly represented as pale Asians, they take on these bizarre, contorting expressions when fighting. Akuma looks like something out of Berserk (ironic but not intentional, considering the author was the one who worked on the original SF designs) as a hulking, overly muscular demon. His actual fight with Ryu is also painfully clunky, where he swings his arms around like Zangief, and Ryu throws fireballs with flower petals attached to them.

If only there was some way to fill my chest up with liquid. Some kind of....breast implant. Hmm.

About the only semi interesting moment is the final revelation that implies Akuma as being Ryu’s father. This would only be relevant if Capcom decided to make it canon. I wonder if they even took a look at this mess of an OVA in the first place.
Street Fighter IV: The Ties that Bind:

It looks good, so it's already better than Generations.

Packaged with the Collector’s Edition of Street Fighter IV is a new 60 minute OVA that bridges the gap between Street Fighter II and IV (and in case you forgot, IV takes place before III), focusing on characters like Chun Li, Sakura, Ryu, and the new fighters like C. Viper and Rufus. It’s been shown in bits and pieces during the various game trailers, and it looks pretty darn good. It also features, FINALLY, a Ryu/Akuma encounter that actually looks straight out of the game.

I’ll be offering my thoughts on this new OVA once I receive the CE package (hopefully, within the hour of this post), but it should make for an entertaining bonus for a long overdue sequel. Fight On.