Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

Lets start with the Good stuff. 1)The animation. This anime, along with a number of anime movies in the late 80s to 90s break free from the stereotype of anime utilizing more animation short cuts and lower frame rate than western animation. The frame rate here is exceedingly smooth, it almost looks rotoscoped. Characters aren't stiff and are always in motion with expression in the faces and body posture portrayed very nicely in the art.

2)The art. One would think that with a higher frame rate and smooth animation, the detail of the art would suffer. This is not the case here. The artwork is beautiful and finely detailled. Shadows and blacks are heavy lending to very nice gritty look and feel for the show. And the painted backgrounds are works of art on their own. The character designs are true to the game and pleasing to the eye, though some like Guile and Balrog tend to border on unrealistic.

3)The fights. Beautifully choreographed and realistically played out, the fights are the main attraction here. Every punch from wind up to the hit to the follow through is thoroughly animated. Close ups and long shots are used appropriately to give a very dynamic viewing experience. Characters act and react to their opponents like how real fighters would and unlike other fighting anime like Dragonball, special powers are not thrown around. In fact, special powers are very rarely used in this movie and only as a last resort. Most of the time, we have 1 on 1 duels that look better than some big budget kung fu movies.

The Bad 1)The story Weak and clichéd, the story in this movie teeters between juvenile and logic failing. A power hungry dictator capturing the world's greatest fighters to turn them into his own army, seeks out one particular fighter just cos his "power level" is higher than the others. This just reeks of typical shonen anime like Dragonball or Naruto. The story plays out very straight forward with no hint of intrigue or build up, and hearkens back to the cheesy spy movies of the 60s with evil crime empires and giant sky ships.

2)The characters Aside from Ryu, most of the characters are 1 dimensional stereotypes of different cultures or races. Perhaps that comes from trying to cram in too many characters into one movie, something many game adaptations suffer from. The motives of the other characters are never explained or only briefly touched on and they are never developed as the movie progresses. Even Ryu gets little development. The there are appearances by Zangeif, Blanka, Sagat etc who seem to be just there to make the game fans happy. They lend nothing too important to the plot, especially Zangeif and Blanka whose appearance is totally non-essential to the story and could have been cut out, that time and money used to actually further the plot.

3)The scripting and dialogue Cheesy lines and over the top speeches abound in this movie. Thankfully, unlike other anime, characters don't talk to each other and spew lengthy monologues in the middle of fights. Honestly, i preferred the English version to the Japanese version. The Japanese version is a lot more over the top wheras the English version has more realistic, subdued acting and some lines are changed to make them less cheesy. Plus it is more believable to have the majority of the characters which are non-Japanese, speak English. Not to mention that the animators never bothered to properly sync the lip movement to the Japanese dialogue in the first place.

Overall 7/10 A greatly enjoyable movie that captures the spirit of the games and likely to please fan and newcomer alike. Aside from the simplistic story and cookie cutter characters, the animation and fight choreography definitely sets the bench mark for fighting genre anime.