Their adventures take them to a variety of picturesque settings beginning with Hong Kong, where they meet Chun Li and kung fu movie star Fei Long, and Thailand, where Ryu learns the art of Muay Thai from kickboxer Sagat (who's a villain in all the other versions). The boys continue on to India where they study under the mystic Dhalsim who teaches them to unleash the energy wave known as "hadow-ko," in which the user draws power from natural forces around him. The final third of the series finds Ken and Guile at war with the evil terrorist leader Lord Vega (a renamed Bison) who controls both Ryu and Chun Li with implanted cyber chips.

There is an abundance of martial arts combat and attention to different styles. The fights carry significant dramatic weight and are staged with great care and accurate stances and given plenty of screen time. Many moves from the game appear in the series, including the celebrated "Hado-Ryu-Ken," which is deployed by Ken in his climactic battle with the cyber-controlled Ryu. In each case, the moves have both narrative importance and emotional value. Because of the budgetary limits of television, the battles lack the detailed presentation of the animated feature, although the short cuts employed, including frequent close-ups and a masterful use of vocal and sound effects and music, demonstrate imagination and innovative design.

The overall emotional intensity of the series allows for moments of violence that would never be tolerated in an American show. The more serious duels are particularly brutal and leave the participants, especially the young heroes, bloodied and bruised. The combat here is neither easy nor pretty. Like many Japanese animated TV programs, the program is aimed at adolescent and older viewers.

Street Fighter II, The TV Series. © Manga Entertainment.

The lessons of the Japanese approach to Street Fighter have not been lost on the producers of the American series. The second season of Street Fighter, which premiered on September 21, 1996, offers a striking contrast with the first season. Both the character and graphic design are much more detailed, in the Japanese manner, and much more attractively planned out. Produced by InVision Entertainment, a new company formed by Michael Hack, who had been a producer at Graz, and Daniel S. Kletzky, whose ELA acts as Capcom's licensing agency, the new shows offers more dramatic stories and greater fidelity to the video game. As part of the tie-in with the game, new episodes will incorporate characters from the new Street Fighter Alpha 2 video game. The first to emerge is Rose, a female mystic and purveyor of "soul power," who enlists Ken and Blanka to help her take on Bison in The Flame and the Rose.

One new episode is worth singling out for its pronounced similarity in style and theme to Street Fighter II V. The World's Greatest Warrior features Ken and Ryu coming to the aid of their Japanese master, Gouken, after he's attacked by his evil brother Akuma and robbed of his qi, his inner life force, in a plot twist taken directly from the video game. This is the first time in the US series that Ken and Ryu are allowed to stand on their own and the experience proves a grueling test for them. The episode's Japanese setting, the increased emphasis on martial arts, and the need for maturity on the part of the two young protagonists all reflect the welcome influence of the Japanese show.

With this year's best-selling US home video release by Sony Music Video of the Japanese feature version, dubbed in English and marketed as Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie; the marked improvement of the American TV series; and the impending video release in the US of Street Fighter II V by Manga Entertainment, American fans of either Street Fighter and/or quality action animation have much to celebrate

Brian Camp is Program Manager at CUNY-TV, the City University of New York cable TV station. He has written about Japanese animation for Outre Magazine and The Motion Picture Guide and has also written for Film Comment, Film Library Quarterly, Sightlines and the New York Daily News.