Street Fighter Alpha Generations

This is another anime film (sort of, it’s American) based on the Street Fighter alpha video games, once again it is unrelated any of the events in the other films.

This movie starts off by telling us the story of Gouki (whose name should be Akuma, really) as he starts to use the Dark Hadou in his training.

Forbidden by his master, things get tense around the dojo and inevitably Akuma (sorry, Gouki – but I’m gonna call him Akuma as I guess I’m a bit of a purist) kills his master Goutetsu.

This leaves Gouken to take over the dojo, and he inevitabley becomes the master of Ryu and Ken.

Ryu comes to pay respects to his old master, with Ken not far behind. Once he arrives he meets and old man and gets into a fight, losing and giving up. The two share some conversation at his house over dinner, and he meets the man’s adoptive grand daughter.

Shortly afterwards, Ryu’s biggest fan Sakara arrives, whom Ryu has never met. Sakara is urged to challenge Ryu in a fight so she can ‘test’ herself. Calling Ryu a true warrior, she means to see how she goes against a true warrior – losing decisively.

Ryu, not long after Ken arrives, but Ryu, heads off into the woods to find Akuma. The two face off and Ryu struggles with temptation to use the Dark Hadou (a mysterious powerful energy). Of course many things are revealed and unfold as we learn a little about Ryu’s past and get a deep look into the whole background of Ryu’s masters and his family.

Not bad!

It’s not the greatest anime you’ve seen, but I appreciated it.

Ryu is quite interesting in this movie as he claims to himself he is not strong, and not a fighter, wondering why he must fight Akuma. His match with Sakura shows him what it means to be a fighter and martial artist – to keep going and fight with everything despite knowing that you have little against a more powerful opponent. I found this be a true ‘martial arts’ theme as every true martial artist oftens asks himself why he feels he must dedicate so much of his life to the arts.

It seems that Ryu’s training is dedicated to fighting Akuma, who he see’s as the ultimate opponent – the most powerful whilst also a man who has brought great shame to his lineage. The contrast is intersting as you have Ryu, a man trying to avoid the evil power of the Hadou, facing a man who is consumed by it. Seeing these two different personalities that are quite distinctly different tell their stories and face off was pretty cool.

The story itself is short and doesn’t dig much deeper than that though, however I feel it offers a nice little piece of tribute the Street Fighter franchise.

The Animation and Action

This film was a little more true to the martial arts technique, but still relied on special effects and animation for the ‘Hadou’ movements involving energy blasts.

The fights are well animated and slick, showing off some well planned moves and counters as we see Ryu training or fighting. They relied less on flashy, cartoony movements in this film, and that made me pretty happy. Keeping a decent pace and emotional motivated behind each fighter made the fights reasonably entertaining ot watch.

The Verdict?

Another nice Street Fighter Anime. It’s short but sweet, offering nice enough action with a cool story. Another must for anime and Street Fighter fans!