M. Bison and Shadowlaw have emerged from hiding and they
have Ken and Chun Li as hostages. Though
Ryu is determined to rescue them, the best and most dangerous Shadowlaw has to
offer stand in his way. And when the
shadowy organization targets Chun Li’s father, Dorai, it’s clear that it’s all
hands on deck time. Ryu and Ken have
made plenty of friends during their travels and theyre coming to help them
out. Though on separate assignments,
Guile, Nash and Fei Long might be the only chance Ken and Chun Li have of
rescue. And what happens when Ryu
confronts Bison on his own?
Well this was both interesting and disappointing. I expected this weeks set of episodes to be a
bit more…I don’t know, faster paced.
With the emergence of Shadowlaw and M.Bison, the direction of Street
Fighter II V has changed. Showing this
change was this weeks biggest success along with the arrival of what’s probably
the last of the SFII fighter roster.
This doesn’t excuse the fact that this weeks set also felt like we were
in a holding pattern, waiting for things to get moved into position. Might this mean it’ll be non stop action from
this point forward? Let’s get through
this weeks episodes first.
The intensity level certainly has gotten dialed up with
Bison in the picture. Though Chun Li was
able to get some good licks in (while looking amazing in her dress, though id
did get sadly ruined), she eventually fell to an out of control Bison choking
her out. We then got to see the truly
horrific extent of Shadowlaw’s operations.
The demonstration of the new control chip by forcing a prisoner to smash
his head against the wall was arguably the darkest moment of Street Fighter II
V thus far. Following close behind that
was Cammy’s imaginary take down of Dorai, followed by the actual take
down. I’m starting to see why this show
never found a place on Toonami’s afternoon programming. Still, by the end of this weeks set, Ryu,
Ken and Chun Li were all in Bison’s clutches and Dorai was barely clinging to
life…yikes.
This meant that with the main cast off of the board, it
was time for the new players to step up to the challenge. One who was certainly more than up to
stealing the spotlight was Cammy. This
series didn’t mind showing off the beautiful assassin in all of her glory from
her assassin costume to rocking a swimsuit by the pool. Even when things were taking an overly long
“lull” period (more on that later), when those scenes involved Cammy, I didn’t
mind at all. Then we had the arrival of
loveable oaf Zangeif and his five minutes of entertainment trying to capture
Ryu. He was successful but Zangeif’s
comedic timing brought some much needed levity to the proceedings. Lastly, we saw the return of some old
favorites. While Guile isn’t doing much
at the moment, it’s still good to see him heading towards a reunion with Ken
and Ryu. But arguably my favorite moment
of this set of episodes was Fei Long’s breakdown when he heard the false report
that Dorai had been killed. Seeing this
powerful martial artist fall to his knees in tears brought a level of emotion I
don’t think I ever expected from a Street Fighter Anime and it worked. Props to the creators for giving Fei Long
such a great moment for his character.
I’m sure he’ll be quite relieved when he hears Dorai will be ok.
Like I said earlier, however, the biggest problem with
this weeks Street Fighter episodes was the overly long “lull scenes”. By this I mean moment where the show grinded
to a halt because the only progress being made was moving characters from one
scene to the next without massive progression.
There were a couple of good fights but they were few and far between and
didn’t last long. Instead we’re treated
to about 50% Ryu and Ken both out of commission and an added 25% Ken continuing
to flashback to Chun Li’s defeat at Bison’s hands. Ken basically had Ryu’s role last week but
instead of working out on a beach, he just stayed strapped to a table the
entire time. Street Fighter II V should
have kicked into higher gear this week but instead it’s busy maneuvering
characters around. It was borderline
boring and several scenes were entirely skippable because you’re watching the
same footage of Ken’s nightmare or Ryu doing the same slow Hadouken handmotions
again. More needed to happen but we’re
just stuck in the set up phase.
I hate feeling disappointed with Street Fighter II V as
we get ready to head into the final stretch.
Shadowlaw’s dangerous power has been proven and it’s safe to say our
core trio (Ryu, Ken and Chun Li) are in serious trouble. But this week kind of failed to justify to me
why this series is 29 episodes long. If
you took out 80% of this weeks footage, you could knock it down to a typical
26. I feel like this set’s failures will
knock the final score down by a point.
But there’s always hope that what comes next, or maybe in two weeks at
the finale, will justify the snails pace Street Fighter II V took this week and
deliver an ending worthy of this franchise’s legacy. See ya next Monday for a hopefully much
better build up to the final episodes of Street Fighter II V.
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