Street Fighter in other media -- The good stuff

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie isn't very good if you're judging it by the usual standards for movie critiquing. The plot is vapid and predictable and too many characters are introduced only to be dropped entirely mere minutes later. However, it's still very enjoyable because, for Street Fighter II fans, it's the biggest 100 minute piece of fan service imaginable.

The main appeal of the movie lies in not only seeing all of our favorite characters in anime form, but with the fact that it actually portrays the characters accurately, unlike Street Fighter: The Movie that released around six months before this. It was the movie we clung to and used to explain to people that the characters you saw in the live-action feature weren't the real characters, but these were the closest to the real thing. Though shortly afterward we realized it was a fans only ordeal, even despite the movie having some of the best fighting scenes ever seen in an anime. But it was still a comfort zone made popular by fans who had just witnessed the franchise violated on the big screen. Well, until the live action movie attained cult hit status in the last few years.

Meanwhile, Street Fighter II V was pretty successful for somewhat different reasons. It was a 29 episode TV anime series that, in a way, completely ignores the game's established canon; though it does establish one eventually that bears a number of similarities to the storyline of Street Fighter II. Sure, while it shares some of the same aforementioned problems that the anime movie has (with the addition of some low budget animation), it's all mindless-yet-entertaining fun.

Following the success of those two is Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie, which is actually a combination of two OVA episodes made into a 90 minute feature for US audiences. It's no surprise that Capcom wanted to capitalize on the success of the previous anime iterations. You can tell that they tried to break from the formula a little, but Alpha unfortunately lacks a few of the elements that made the Street Fighter II anime memorable.

Not to say it isn't still fun to watch. It definitely is, as it tries to do something different with its plot, this time centering on Ryu and his supposedly long lost brother, Shun. Instead, it just ends up an awkward mess with the characters ending up the same way they started, the exception being Ruy who's a little better off at the end of the conflict. Also, the main villain has nowhere near the same level of charisma any of the game's villains have. It also manages to exacerbate the problem of introducing characters and subsequently dropping them by leaving them on-screen for seconds at a time instead of minutes. The fighting scenes also lack the sense of finesse that helped make the other anime fun to watch. It's still an enjoyable movie (or OVA, whichever), but it also barely manages to make a significant mention in the other post.

Lastly, it wasn't until recently that a good Street Fighter comic series surfaced. To avoid the messy ordeal (figuratively and literally) that happened with Malibu comics, Capcom decided to handle production and distribution of a new comic series themselves. They also hired UDON, a group of artists whose work is influenced by the aesthetics of Asian animation and comics, to do the artwork for the series. UDON also recently did the designs for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

These comics are basically everything you'd expect from a Street Fighter comic. The level of entertainment and fan service manages to dissuade any fans reading it from lambasting it because of its predictability. It follows the philosophy established by the Street Fighter II anime, in that its main itinerary involves creating a fun product with engaging characters. It's nothing particularly deep, but do you really need that in Street Fighter. Of course not.

There's a pretty even amount of good and bad Street Fighter material in other media. Overall, that's a good thing, considering that usually when a franchise expands into other forms of media, it will net disastrous results. With the reinvigoration of excitement in the franchise, there will undoubtedly be more comics and animation in the near future. Well, along with that movie.