They would air both the Street Fighter Cartoon and Street Fighter II V anime growing up, and as big of a fan of Street Fighter I absolutely hated the cartoon and would even avoid it. I could also not get enough of the anime. When I watched it all complete for the first time on youtube many years ago I found an appreciation for it and rewatching it again, it’s the best cartoon we could’ve gotten with what they had to work with.
Imagine having to make a cartoon based on the movie that has nothing to do with the actrual games, and also have it be in a basic kids cartoon format. With that context the team did an excellent job in making this feel like Street Fighter. This is indeed a sequel to the movie and picks up from the cliffhanger that Bison is still alive. It clearly shows the first episode title Adventure begins and here we already see a shift in focus for Ryu and Ken are important. Guile is still clearly the leader of the group of street fighters since he’s now no longer in Allied Nations military but still a main character.
The only odd part for continuity is deejay being good and balrog bad but I’m sure we can think of something that happened in between. The animate dseries actually blends the movie with the games really well and helps bring the character be more like what they’re supposed to be. They actually wear their costumes and now do their special moves. They even go further to give more background and explain the differences in the movie as in the case with Dhalsim.
I like the character designs, they’re not bad and can look excellent at times. Animation can either be really sloppy or really good, it varies between episodes. Acting is another thing that can also range from episode to episode, from terrible to good sometimes. GI Joe Guile is so cringy that you can’t hate him. Ryu and Ken keep their goofy motif but improve through character arcs. I do miss Zangief not being goofy. Chun Li works rather well as a reporter here, and I love Scantily Clad Bikini Cammy being flirty.
Characters now wear their actual costumes, and do their trademark attacks.
Animation can either be sloppy or really damn good. i like some of the characrer designs,they’re not bad at all. how they act is another thing, and it can range from episode to episode. I love flirty cammy scantily clad bikinni, GI Joe John cena Guile is so bad is good, ryu ken being the goofy guys at first doesn’t work. I miss zanguif not being thegoofy guy from the movie. chun li works rather well and is a reporter.
The show expands on the Street Fighter lore by introducing tons of stuff from not only the mainline games but even spin-offs and obscure entries. Delta red is here, we have episodes based on Final Fight!, even adapting the first game. The Alpha series gets tons of love, perhaps they just needed places to take ideas from. They even pay homage to the SFII Anmated Movie.
The first season is the most like the movie and going on about honor, intergiry and they are the Street Fighter team. Most episodes are just Bison acting like a goofy 90s villain having his plots be stopped. They fight usually unknowns in pro wrestling rings usually in some parts of the episodes, to have the name make sense I guess. They introduce fei long who was missing from the movie, and Sawada makes a come back. They use the sf theme very well in the show. Discipline, justice commitment the words we live by aren’t easy, a quote by Blanka, and guile gives him a thumbs up. You can’t help but love it.
Season 2 is when Guile not in every episode, and now the game influences are now stronger than the movies. We get original characters like Hammer and it shows they could create characters even if not particularly interesting ones. Blanka has also gotten two episodes where htey create mutants, he also mutates here though he becomes stronger he looks mostly the same only darker shades and black eyes he does look more awesome. Cammy gets brainwashed to follow Bison, we get more alpha characters. An Akuma, Ken & Ryu match where Ryu loses and ken ends up being the winner. It has some deep acts like MK soul sucking. We also get SF 1 Birdie! Final Fight 2/3 characters which even Capcom forgets they exist. Honda/Balrog as comptuer hackers is hilarious.
Some episdoes just have lazy 90s plots, they explain how chi is how they make thier energy balls. I also have to say animators were happy to give fanservice with the characters. It’s a weird American style mixed with anime. There’s also more continuity between episodes or atleast referencing one older ones that you’d expect.
In general you can tell they loved the franchise, so many odd choices are left overs from the movie, and such a weird gi joe show that somehow works. The last episode can be seena as a finale and coudl’ve also had another season.. The GI Joe toyline which also adapted the games having game color variants likely beneffited from the cartoon, it also had playsets and vehicles which could be seen as from this show. It took a couple of more years for GI Joe and Street Fighter to get an actual comic crossover, but it did happen.