Ranked #4503

Super Street Fighter IV

Beginning with 2005's "Street Fighter Alpha Generations" and continuing with 2009's "Ties that Bind", it appears that studios have lost interest in making competent, exciting Street Fighter anime. (like 1994's classic "Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie")

Instead, they just want to cash in on the name in the quickest, cheapest way possible. Well, I am relieved to say that Super Street Fighter 4 continues this proud OVA tradition!

It ostensibly follows Guile, Cammy, and Chun-Li as they track down a new character introduced in SSF4, a Korean witch named Juri.

Throughout the 32 minute runtime, it feels like the creators had less than 10 minutes of real content, but needed to stretch it out as long as possible. Countless scenes and bits of dialogue where all three protagonists repeat "it has something to do with her eyes!", irrelevant conversations between Juri and Seth about the "Feng Shui engine", and flashbacks within the OVA to a scene we watched only seven minutes ago are all used to pad length.

Name an area, and this OVA embarrasses.

Character designs? Guile looks like a fat, amorphous blob. I actually took a screenshot at one point, the appearance was so ridiculous. The animation overall? Numerous missing frames, often during the fights themselves, and lots of shoddy, ugly cells outside of the fights.

Things like "story", "characters", and "dialogue" barely even apply here. Instead, we get some cliche evil villain laughs, and Juri being contractually obligated to say the word "play" twice per sentence. There is also apparently a website that tracks mysterious secret organizations in places as remote and obscure as snow-covered mountains in the Himalayas. Apparently, whoever set it up has trillions of microcameras all over the world. No real explanation is even attempted for this.

Juri is the extremely annoying cocky villain. Cammy, Guile, and Chun-Li are all the same bland, faceless hero types.

The dialogue is truly insipid. I thank God the audio was in Japanese, as simply reading it made my eyes bulge, let alone listening to it. Every character appears to be clinically retarded.

The plot holes boggle the mind. After Chun-Li is crushed by Juri, and Guile is also beaten like a drum, he tells Cammy to go after her. Oh wait, this is AFTER Cammy was defeated by Juri from a single punch earlier. Apparently, sending agents to certain death is standard protocol in the idiot universe of this OVA.

"Alright, alright", you're probably wondering, "enough with all that extraneous bullshit. What about the motherfucking fights?!"

Well, they are garbage. There are 3 real matches in this OVA, and all are one-sided squashes, with Juri nary getting so much as a scratch against Chun-Li, Guile, or Cammy. Hell, I think Guile is the only hero who even lands a SINGLE hit against her, although she barely even flinches, and destroys him in the very next moment.

Also, instead of SHOWING us all the action, some of it occurs off-screen, and in other instances, Juri's eye glows menacingly in preparation for an incredible, vicious attack...but then the camera simply cuts away. Some time later, we see that her poor opponent is unconscious or dead. Way to screw the fucking audience, guys.

That being said, these 3 mostly shoddy, anti-climactic fights, with bright colors but shit choreography are still an improvement over the ones in "Ties that Bind" and arguably "Street Fighter Alpha Generations".

Also, this OVA is a mere 32 minutes, well over 13 minutes shorter than either of its two predecessors. If nothing else, the torture doesn't last as long.

And as a token of my gratitude, I am giving this OVA a 2 instead of 1. read more