Chronicling the adventures of Ken and Ryu around the world, Street Fighter II V is a very good 29 episode series that explains the origins of Ken and Ryu’s attacks and their past, as they meet up with many well-known SF characters.

SF II V starts off simply enough. Ken and Ryu get their behinds royally kicked by Guile, so they decide to go around the world to find strong warriors, so they can get strong and beat tougher opponents. As they meet and beat familiar characters like Chun-Li, Cammy and Dhalsim, just to name a few, the plot unfolds a secret plan by Bison that includes drug trafficking among other things.

First off, I loved this series yet I was a bit disappointed too. The thing you probably want to know about is the fights, right? Are they good? Well, for the most part no. They just don’t compare with the excellent fights in the Street Fighter II movie. It’s too bad too, because if this series had better fights, I would’ve loved it, but alas, I only like it a lot.

The fights had the potential to be good, but maybe there was a problem with the budget or something, but there are a lot of still frames used in the middle of fights, which completely kills any hint of any fast paced action there could’ve been. Also, some frames of animation are reused. Chun-Li does a flip kick and then does the same exact one two minutes later. I mean, common! Honestly, it’s the still frames that kill the fights. We might have Cammy and Lei Fong fight, and these two characters use speed over power. Now, I would like to see a fast, heart stopping fight, that makes my palms sweat and really, my heart started to beat fast, due to the exciting fast action, then all the sudden we get this dramatic still frame, that just kills the pace of the fight, which is too bad. On the other hand, some of the fights are excellent. Vega (Barlog in Japan) and Ken, have a very bloody, but awesome fight. Chun-Li has a few nice fights, as well as an excellent Ken and Ryu vs. Bison (Vega is Japan) fight.

Most of the moves are pretty accurate. Chun-Li’s flip kicks are right on and Cammy’s spinning drills work nicely. Even Ryu has a faithful hurricane kick, which is only performed ONCE in the whole series. Lame…..

Another complaint I have about this series is that it can get dramatic and really drawn out. For example, Ryu charges up his fireball which takes him about 5 minutes to do. I’m not lying. It’s cool the first time, but when I have to see Ryu charge up his fireball every episode, it gets really irritating and I find myself looking for the Fast Forward button. Another, example would be Ken trying to get out of his chains, that he is held prisoner in. It lasts for about 4 episodes. Really, we know he’s gonna get out of them, so why prolong it?

So, I got all the bad things outta the way, let’s discuss the good things. The character designs are good. They look completely different from the games. I suppose this is due to the fact that they are really young in this series, but it works. Chun-Li doesn’t look like Chun-Li, but there is a subtle hint of Chun-Li in the character design. It’s good and it’s a refreshing change from the boring character designs that we see all the time in SF. But the ages are very wrong. Chun-Li is fifteen in this series, why does she look 22? Why do Ken and Ryu look 25 even though they are 17?

The opening theme is really cool and most of the music fits nicely. The Japanese voices fit nicely too. Ryu’s voice is high, but not too high, just high enough for a 17 year old. Chun-Li sounds good, without being irritating.

The art and animation is pretty good. It wasn’t top quality, but it works. The story is excellent, considering that this series is based on a fighting game. It’s really good!

If you like fighting anime, you’ll most likely like this. I don’t like fighting anime stuff too much, but I found myself entertained and really enjoying this series. Maybe, it was the fact that I got to find out about Ken and Ryu’s past, the cool character designs or the good story. It’s too bad that the fights are really weak though. If you want strong fights, look at the Street Fighter II movie instead. If you want a good plot, with a few pretty good fights, then check out Street Fighter II V.