Street Fighter II V


Street Fighter II V is an anime series produced by Group TAC, loosely based on the 1994 fighting game Super [Street Fighter II Turbo]. The series is directed by Gisaburo Sugii, who also directed Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, and aired in Japan from 10 April to 27 November 1995 on YTV.

Premise

The series stars Ryu and Ken, teenage martial artists who embark on a journey to improve their skills after experiencing brutal defeat at the hands of Guile. Along the way, they become acquainted with other Street Fighter characters, such as tour guide Chun-Li, martial arts movie-star Fei Long, Muay Thai champion Sagat, and Indian monk Dhalsim. Eventually, they find themselves in the crosshairs of the criminal syndicate Shadowlaw and their leader, the enigmatic M. Bison, after defeating Ashura, one of their subordinate organizations.
Among the agents of Shadowlaw are Russian bear wrestler and hired muscle Zangief, seductive British assassin Cammy, who is unaware of her employer's connection to Shadowlaw, and Interpol double agent Balrog. The Spanish nobleman Vega also appears as an antagonist, although he is not connected with Shadowlaw.
Unlike Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, which stayed close to the original game's storyline, Street Fighter II V takes several liberties with its source material. It features redesigned versions of most of the game's characters, whose appearances, backstories, and personalities deviated greatly from their traditional depictions. While the show was set in 1995, the present year of its original airing, the ages of the characters were altered to make most of the cast younger than they were in the games. For example, Ryu's year of birth was changed from 1964 to 1977. Out of the seventeen characters featured in Super Street Fighter II Turbo,the latest game in the series at the time, only Blanka, Dee Jay, E. Honda, and T. Hawk do not appear in the show.
Akuma makes several cameo appearances during crowd scenes, but is not actively involved in the story.

Characters

Music

Japanese
  • Opening Themes
  1. "Kaze Fuiteru" by Yuki Kuroda
  2. "Ima, ashita no tame ni" by Shuji Honda
  • Ending Themes
  1. "Cry" by Yuki Kuroda
  2. "Lonely Baby" by Shuji Honda
The American and Australian release of the Manga/Animaze English dub uses untitled instrumental theme music by Mike Egan composed specifically for the dub. The ADV Films version kept the original Japanese intro and outro themes.

Development

The work on the anime was influenced by Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

Home video releases

Two English adaptations of the series were produced. The first one was by the dubbing group Animaze and Manga Entertainment in 1996, and was released in Australia and North America as a series of VHS tapes in 1997–1998. Each tape included three episodes, and was released in both a dubbed version and a subtitled version. The US CLV Laserdisc was released between March and June 1998 on 10 discs. In 1997, ADV Films produced a second English dub exclusively for the UK market, also released on VHS. The Animaze/Manga dub had a DVD release on 29 April 2003 in a four disc set in North America and was then released on DVD in Australia.
In Japan, the anime was released via DVD box set on July 15, 2009.