Now, this trip down memory lane might seem out of place in a review, but (in addition to being self indulgent,) there's actually a point buried within my ramblings: while I now look back and acknowledge that this probably isn't a great anime, it's tricky for me to judge it properly through the rose tinted veil of nostalgia. So with that in mind, time to move on to the meat of the review.
"Street Fighter II V", unlike "Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie", is not a faithful adaptation to the storyline established in the games. In fact, it takes an approach not too dis-similar to that other "Street Fighter" movie, you know, that awful live action one featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. No, I don't mean that "Street Fighter II V" features Jean-Claude Van Damme (not as far as I know anyway). Nor Kylie Minogue. The two are similar in their treatment of Ryu and Ken - in both they're portrayed as a couple of brats running around causing trouble. Unlike that Van Damme movie though, the two of them (and not Guile) are still the main characters, and the series follows them on their journey to become stronger fighters, and gradually maturing in the process.
Being a purist at heart, I wasn't initally keen on the story deviating so far from the one in the game, but I warmed to it - it ends up as a more sophisticated story than the original, which was only intended to be an excuse to have a brawl. The show's treatment of Street Fighter side characters is also a pleasant break from tradition: instead of just throwing them in cameo scenes, they get a lot more focus and are properly worked into the main story, giving them a greater sense of depth. The roles of these characters deviate somewhat from the original but not without certain similarities: here, Sagat is a former Muay Thai champ wrongfully imprisoned after refusing to cooperate with a crime syndicate; Cammy is a former MI6 agent turned mercenary assassin; Akuma is... well, he still only appears in cameos. Presumably, they couldn't find a role badass enough to suit a guy with flaming red hair and glowing, demonic red eyes. Most of the role alterations in "Street Fighter II V" work out pretty well, but inevitably there are some stinkers - Balrog's pretty damn lame, for one... he can't even fight!
Character design wise, there are some puzzling changes - why does Ken have ginger hair, for example - and overall it's a bit of a mixed bag. Ryu and Ken aren't particularly interesting, but at least they get some development. Chun Li is annoyingly like a typical anime school girl, and Bison's psychotic personality is criminally over done - he must have spent over an hour of screen time doing his villainous laugh (which also creases his face up like a hundred year old coffin dodger) and another hour strangling people (to the point where I wanted to strange HIM). He features more towards the later part of the series, and as you probably guessed from my description just now, his scenes kinda dragged.
The problem isn't just with him though - while "Street Figher II V" was never what anyone would call fast paced, it slows down terribly towards the end. The episodes are filled up mostly by the characters dicking around, such as Bison laughing, Ken having recurring nightmares, Bison laughing some more, etc. The amount of reused animation and general meandering completely kills off any tension the anime is trying to build up in the climax. It seems likely that by then, the series was desperately trying to stretch its shoe string budget and the over extended story to cover the whole 29 episodes... god knows why they needed so many when the material could barely cover 20.
Some of the fights themselves can be quite good when they're not being prolonged/recycled too much. There are some thrilling moments and the anime makes good use of tricks such as colour inversion to heighten the drama of the fights. One major complaint I have is that the special moves from the games are used sparingly, some of them not at all, and some of the ones that are used are toned down to give the fights a more down to earth feel. It's all very good watching Ryu and Ken learning their hadoukens and dragon punches and whatnot, but the problem is, when you're watching an anime based off a fighting game and you don't see the characters pulling off their signature moves with a certain amount of regularlity, then something feels severely lacking. Perhaps this makes "Street Figher II V" more accessible to those who unfamiliar with the game, but it's a bit of a let down to those who are. After all, why else would I be watching this show? For the story??
It's hard to judge the audio department of "Street Fighter II V" fairly because I watched it in dub and the dub is very cheesey. Though it's possible that the original Japanese performances are better, at least some of the cheesiness is contributed by terrible script. In terms of music, the series has a few nice tracks, the most memorable of which is often played when Ryu is gathering up his hadou (some sort of spirit energy) - you know it's good when it can make these half hour training sessions tolerable. For the most part, the background music is handled well, though there were some very dodgy tracks that stuck out.
"Street Fighter II V" tries to find middle ground between satisfying fans of the game and those who know very little about it, and ends up not doing too well at either. But hey, though it has its share of problems, at least it doesn't suck sh*t like the Van Damme movie. Though I guess that's not saying much...
