Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle

This anime is more exciting than the first because it’s now more world wide and ranged with the locations and characters. It allows more variety than the first series which I will elaborate later.

The art is a much improved than the first oav. The designs are more sharper and the colors are brighter. The first oav tended to be a bit more circular with the designs but the designs are still up to date with their game counter parts. Like Terry’s sleeves on his jacket in the first oav and game were rolled up. While in this one, he cut off the sleeves. And ... of course, Andy’s hair color is switched to blonde. But what I really wanted to talk about is Krauser’s design. In the game, he had a moutache and an X on his head. He sort of looked like Rob Zombie in that kind of way. However, he loses the moustache and the x and has a more youthful look to him. It’s not really a bad thing in my eyes. He looks pretty cool and more intimidating and really looks like a young and hungry fighter. I also like his armor. It really adds more to his built and gives him a warrior king look.

For the fan service fan boys, you’ll love Mai. You don’t get to see her naked but I guess you can really enjoy her flashy clothing.

The fights in this anime have tremendously improved since the last oav. They are more elaborate and not really too reliant on the video games moves like reppukens or raging storms. There is more martial arts emphasis to it and they last longer. The movement of some of the fights are also pretty cool and I like the cinematography of some of the fights.

Again, I prefer the English dub. Joe’s voice in the Japanese version is now played by Hiyama Nobuyuki. He is also known as playing Nakazato in Initial D and Shiro from Gundam 08th MS Team. Granted he’s a great voice actor and gives Joe a much more youthful sound to his voice, he still lacks Joe’s carefree personality which is still done by his English voice actor instead. Much of the voice actors from the English and Japanese tracks that are coming from the first anime are still in. For Mai’s voice in the Japanese version she is played by well known veteran Kotono Mitsuishi. She is best known as playing Sailor Moon and Misato from Evangelion. Out of all the Japanese voice actors, I liked her the best. Her English actress is also pretty good and reflects on the personality of the character.

I also liked Krauser’s English and Japanese voice. In the English version, they naturally gave him a German accent. It sounds a little corny but he does sound intimidating. The Japanese voice actor Hirotaka Suzuoki is also a great actor. He is best known as playing Bright in Gundam, Kuno in Ranma, Shiryuu in Saint Seiya and Min Mei’s cousin in Macross. I guess with Japanese acting standards from my observations, I think Suzuoki was excellent as Krauser. He brought out a certain dramatic element to the character which you would probably assume out his Krauser’s personality. With the additions of Suzuoki and Mitsuishi, the Japanese track makes it much more fun to watch if you’re a seiyuu buff. I never really liked Terry’s Japanese voice that much. He really sounded a bit too quiet in comparison to just being mellow like Mark Hildreth.

The music is also a great improvement. Like the background music when Terry and Kim fights is also pretty sweet. It has more of an Oriental sound to it and really matches the intensity to the fight. I also love the ending song Keep on Calling. It’s not really sad like the first ending song but of course, I love how the ending songs in Fatal Fury really reflect the ending and the build up of the stories. The guitar playing is pretty sweet and the lyrics are really catchy.

This oav is a much higher improvement than the first. It excellently focuses on a lot of characters that are introduced and they get a great amount of screen time. The fights are better and everything is better. The story is not necessarily as cliché as the first one but the story in this one has been done before but I like the modern day twist it has. So thanks to the improvement the anime has.

Now THIS is more like it! Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle is arguably the best video game/anime adaptation I've ever seen, at least of the fighting game perspective. What makes this one better than most fighting game offerings is that unlike Tekken and FF: Motion Picture, this stays very true to it's source. Wolfgang Krauser is bored, hears of Terry and various other strong opponents and holds a tournament.
A few things are tweaked in this OVA for the sake of creating a plot, such as the introduction of the Tony character. Inserting Tony is far more forgivable than saddling Terry with Lily ... in Legend of the Hungry Wolf, and while he's a bit annoying, he's a more useful addition that serves as a driving point to get Terry back on his feet after badly losing his first battle with Krauser. So it's kind of like Rocky in that regard, which is cool. This shows a more realistic vulnerable side of Terry that fans of the franchise can identify with.
The characters are better utilized as well. Andy is a more well-rounded character, and watching him interact with Mai Shiranui is always a treat. Joe Higashi has played three different roles in the Fatal Fury anime trilogy, but didn't get as much time to shine in this one in terms of debuting his moves from the video game. And unlike the first OVA, where fighters from the actual roster make cameos without dialouge (Like Hwa Hai and Michael Max getting their asses kicked. Who would know who these guys were if you're watching this and haven't played the game?), warriors are introduced and partake in a fight, like Kim Kaphwan, Jubei Yamada, and to a lesser, yet comedic extent, Lawerence Blood and Axel Hawk. These characters worked great in their roles and you feel a bit rewarded in the end. Krauser himself is fantastic in his dual-sided personality. He's a seemingly gentle aristocrat one moment, but won't hesitate to kill his opponent. There's some weird backstory altering to connect him to Geese, but it can be forgiven. I even liked Hopper and Ripper, Geese's black-suited thugs from the first OVA, making cameos.
Also much improved is the action. The fights are pretty darn cool, making great use of special attacks from the game like Andy's Hak Don, and one of my personal favorites, the Power Geyser, and don't feel to forced. Even Tony's little scrap against the Fatal Fury cos-players in the beginning is entertaining.
[IN CLOSING] This is the best it gets when it comes to making a competent anime about a fighting game and is one of my favortie anime ever. It's got a simple, yet plausible story to follow, the action is solid, and the cast is used respectively. It's not perfect, but I can overlook it's minor errors. Also, if you own or can find the English dubbed version, you gotta hear these four goons attempting to mug Terry. This is impressively bad English voice acting at it's best and it's too bad VIZ stopped going to the Ocean Group veterans as often as they used to.

STORY: 7
ART: 8
SOUND: 7
CHARACTER: 8
OVERALL: 8

PROS: Great action, near perfect game adaptation
CONS: What plan was Geese talking about?

Fatal Fury 2 surpasses its predecessor Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf in every way imaginable; but this wasn't a very difficult task to accomplish at all, since the original was so terribly flawed to begin with.

Fatal Fury 2 really isn't that bad of a fighting anime. For one thing, it has nothing to do with tournaments and it takes a bit of time to actually tell a story. The pacing is very good as the story follows Terry's descent into a washed up fighter. There's quite a bit of background delivered on him through flashbacks, which is meant to play into him regaining ... his confidence. This at all wouldn't be possible if not for the addition of Tony, whom actually serves as a useful character. During this time, several fights are squeezed in but I wouldn't consider any of them breathtaking; should Fatal Fury 2 be compared to Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, then each of these battles would be barely mediocre at best. In truth, Ryu vs. Fei Long from SFII blows everything away in this without the use of a light show.

Despite being the main character. Terry is actually overshadowed by Wolfgang Krauser; he is a pretty good villain. Personally, I consider him to be the best of the main villains out of the three movies. Krauser is also given an ample amount of background which helps keep the movie pretty interesting. The first meeting with Krauser is awesome, and anyone can be fooled into thinking they're about to be watching a truly great anime.

Now this is where I'm going to straight sink this movie because this is where it's suppose to excel. The problems for me lies in the poorly animated battles for the most part. The fight scenes have choreography that is barely on an average level and as if this wasn't bad enough; they either consist of 10 seconds of unseen action, one blow victories, stills, or very little martial arts, with the characters trademark moves being the only attacks used. This is something a fan of the game may find to be very entertaining, but for those searching for a good martial arts anime. This is the definition of mediocrity and I have to call it like I see it.

Terry's battles with Krauser happen to be the best by far, but when compared to everything else there really wasn't much competition anyway, and even these battles only manage to get by. The last battle suffered from very inconsistent artwork, sloppy animation, and re-used cels quite a bit. The ending is rather good, but their was very little by way of good martial arts action.

The artwork has only one thing going for it and that's the character designs. The characters are pretty faithful to the video game with Krauser being the only exception. This really isn't a bad thing though, because the writers intentions were to portray Krauser as being ten years younger than in the video game; but the artwork declines in quality which can be very noticeable to anyone. Thankfully, the movie has a good soundtrack that mainly works for the battles making them seem better than what they really are.

This movie could have been worse yet it could have been better as well. The plot was there, but when it comes down to a martial arts anime then the action must standout. There is very little here screaming "look at me!". Over the years a majority of Fatal Fury fans and casuals have eaten this one up, and has even went so far as to consider it great anime. Well, we all have our opinion, and that's all I can say about that.

I recommend this to fans of the game, casual fans, and just those whom are very easy to please. To others, there are far better action titles to choose from.

Highs: Better action and animation better characters than last OVA

Lows: Fight scenes really aren't much, bad animation, mediocre artwork