Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind deculture!

Burn it with fire!

Wow, I haven’t seen an anime so full of fail since Heroman. Before I begin the hate…

Summary

Taking place just before the events of SF IV, the anime shows famous martial artists around the world being kidnapped. These fighters are experimented upon by an organisation known as S.I.N. whose CEO Seth is looking to harness the power of Ryu’s Satsui no Hadou (the assassins intent or some bullshit). Ryu is shown as training, trying to get this power under control, and not end up like Akuma. Meanwhile Guile, Cammy and Chun-Li are trying to figure out the reasons behind the kidnappings. Eventually everybody, including a worried Sakura, gathers at Ken’s place seeing as him and Ryu are BFF. The following events occur: Crimson Viper pwns Cammy, Ken’s wife gets sort of kidnapped, who later reveals she’s pregnant. Sakura and Chun-Li beatup some men. Ryu fights Seth and destroys him, but only after getting beaten to death.

Thoughts

Disregarding the fact that the story was poorly told and the fact that it was ultra generic, much of the rest of the anime sucked balls as well. The animation is credited to Gonzo every place I see online, but the opening credits showed Studio 4C as the producers. Either way, the character design and the overall animation was utterly vanilla. Completely opposite to the hyper-stylistic animation presented in Street Fighter IV promos and videos. OK, I’m not saying to have the whole OVA in water colour brushed art, but come on! I’m sure this would have looked so much more better if Madhouse or Bones or Production I.G. had done it. Shit, even Kyoto animation or Sunrise would’ve been miles ahead of this crap.

Bad looks aside, the anime came with dubs, providing a typical example of why American (and British!) voice overs completely miss the park in portraying the emotions the Japanese director desired. Which wouldn’t have made much of a difference at the end of the day since everything about this anime was generic and cliché. I’ve seen this story many times before, done much better than this. Evil guy pulling the strings in the background to get the good guy’s power? I would’ve forgiven the story, but honestly, every aspect of this OVA was pathetic.

Just never ever watch it. Even as a huge SFIV fan, this OVA adds nothing new to the basic story. In fact, if anything, you’ll end up thinking less of your favourite characters after watching this OVA, if they were unfortunate enough to be in it.