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.

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The ova have beautiful and fluidly detailed animation you would not expect from a 20 plus mins short ova episode. The fights are cool and exciting to watch. Clearly showing the producers had made the most and the best out of the short episode. And also clearly it's down fall is that it lack enough story development for the short episode itself.

Story: 7
There isn't much story in it, as the episode is quite short, it mainly focus on the powers of Juri and her ability overwhelm others with her new combat weapon the evil eye. If anyone who likes to watch female villain who can take hits and overwhelm, I would recommend this episode.
At least this episode is a great way to new viewers interested in it's other series and franchise.

Art: 9
The art is very detailed and beautifully drawn, and cool to watch, it allows one to understand the effort the animators put into animating the episode.

Sound/Music: 8
Good and exciting to listen

Character: 8
The story revolves mainly about the female villain Juri, A Korean who had overwhelming martial art skills supported by her evil eye that can overwhelm the three other protagonists Cammy, Chun-Li and Guile.
There isn't much development in other characters itself nor was there an intention or a need to since it is an ova.
So for people who does not know about the characters, they can just take them as three other soldiers fighting the female villains, as that seems to be the point for it, as they are mainly involved in the story as an opponent for Juri the main villain for this episode.

Enjoyment: 9
Aside, from enjoying how detailed and well animated the animation is, I find the battles exciting, the battle is fluid with great execution, flow, sequence and pacing, Something I would not expect to enjoy from a short episode.
But I did enjoy the most out of it.

Overall: 8

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I've reviewed multiple anime based off of the Street Fighter games. I've done films based off of Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Alpha. This time around, we're looking at a 2010 Gonzo anime based off of Street Fighter IV. Which is an interesting studio choice given that they haven't done any other Street Fighter anime.

Story:

We open with a mechanical eye being implanted in Juri Han by the criminal organisation, S.I.N because Capcom is bad at names. Juri is sent to test the weapon by fighting a bunch of dudes who are on the run from S.I.N and capturing Vega's squad of mind wiped bodyguards. While doing her tasks, she finds herself up against the trio of Chun Li, Guile and Cammy.

There's not much here in terms of story. The OVA mainly exists to give Juri some back story and go into details about her powerful fake eye. The biggest problem with it is simply that it's not that interesting. Juri does something for her stupidly named organisation, the heroic characters interfere, she beats their asses because her eye makes her OP. It's basically a really dull plot that serves as a vehicle to justify the action sequences. Although that may well be the main reason some people would want to watch an anime based off of a fighting game, in all fairness.

Characters:

While I credit this as the only Street Fighter anime I've seen without Ryu as the focus, they don't exactly do anything interesting with Juri, Chun Li, Guile or Cammy. I'm not saying any of them are bad characters in the games, but in this they're portrayed as very bland.

Art:

I will give the OVA some credit here. The artwork looks pretty nice. The issue that comes up with the action sequences is just that they're far too one-sided. Juri just beats everything's ass in this OVA without trying all that hard. It's kind of like watching Dragonball before Goku gets involved in the battle and the antagonist just beats the shit out of everybody else.

Sound:

The actors are pretty good. Orikasa Fumiko, Kitamura Eri, Sawashiro Miyuki and Yasumoto Hiroki all perform their roles nicely. I imagine if this was a longer thing with actual character development, they'd make for a really strong cast. The music is decent.

Areas of Improvement:

1. Go into some actual details about how Juri's eye works. The whole purpose of this OVA seems to be to provide details about Juri, but all we know about the eye is that it's basically a magic eye that makes her stronger. At least give us a cursory explanation using some technobabble.

2. Give us at least one close battle in the OVA. It's not really interesting to watch one-sided fights. I don't mind if Juri always wins in the end, but at least give us one match where she's actually pressed.

3. Give the OVA something of an arc. This really would benefit a lot from some kind of story with a beginning, middle and ending. Even if it's an open ending to segue into the game. As is, it's just Juri going on a couple missions and beating the shit out of some better known characters.

Final Thoughts:

Super Street Fighter IV isn't a bad OVA. It has some nice artwork from Gonzo. They got strong actors. It's just a very uncompelling piece without anything to really recommend it. Even the action sequences, which should be the main draw, are just too one-sided to be interesting. As such, my final rating is a 4/10.

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