Posted: 09/12/2011

Street Fighter: The New Challengers Motion Comic

(2011)

by Ruben R. Rosario

Now available on DVD from Pacific Entertainment and Eagle One Media.

Unlike their prior attempt at a motion comic, Eagle One Media and Studio 414 do a phenomenal job with Street Fighter: The New Challengers. This collection of motion comics collects issues 7 through 14 of Udon Studio’s famous adaptation of the classic series from Capcom.

Ryu is traveling around the world with a new student, the spunky school girl Sakura, in order to hone his skills as a fighter; Cammy is desperately trying find out about her past and their ties to the Shadaloo organization; and Chun-Li continues to try to find out more about the Shadaloo in order to stop their reign across the world. This volume packs a punch and presents the original source material in a bad ass way that all Street Fighter fans will love.

The volume prior to this one, Street Fighter: Round One Fight, didn’t have much motion in it. Sure, the efforts placed into it were very good, but it never felt like a true motion comic. This volume is full of top notch motion and effects that make all of the fights come to live as vividly as they’re portrayed in Udon Studio’s comic book series. One of the biggest highlights in the motion comic is the major fight with Chun Li, Fei-Long and Gen fighting a bunch of Shadaloo’s Bee soldiers. Just as before, the voice acting can be bad for some characters and fantastic for others. The music and the effects are well done to encapsulate the true definition of what a motion comic should be. The extras included on Street Fighter: The New Challengers is an image gallery, just like the previous volume.

Street Fighter: The New Challengers is a really well made motion comic and worthy of praise. While it’s a very new version of an old medium, motion comics are a centralized vision of the imagination of a comic book reader come to life. Again, there are a few flaws in some of the voice acting talents but it’s only a scratch compared to the full on impact of Street Fighter: The New Challengers.

Ruben R. Rosario is a graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Audio for Visual Media. He works as a freelance location sound mixer, boom operator, sound designer, and writer in his native Chicago. He’s an avid collector of films, comics, and anime.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com