Movie:
Street Fighter II V is an animated series that takes place before the events in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie and serves as a prequel to the recently released Street Fighter Alpha movie. The series begins with Ryu, who still lives with his master in Japan, receiving a letter from Ken, his old sparring partner, who has since returned to America. Ken invites Ryu to visit him and of course, they get into several fights. However, they're not trained in street fighting, as they soon discover after they are thrashed by Guile. They then decide to travel the world and observe/fight other street fighters to learn the techniques. Two volumes, of seven episodes each, have already been released which detail the beginnings of their journeys; Volume 3 likewise presents the next seven episodes, 15-21. For those unfamiliar with the Street Fighter universe, it's based on the popular video and arcade games of the same name from Capcom.

These seven episodes begin in Barcelona with Ken and Chun Li's gaining entrance to a martial arts match. There, Vega challenges Ken, and Bison, unnoticed, schemes. After the match, he captures both Chun Li and Ken, and demands one billion dollars ransom from Ken's parents. Guile and Nash are sent to rescue them, while Ryu faces Bison for his own reasons.

Episode list:
#15 – "Clash of the Titans."
#16 – "The Unveiled Ruler."
#17 – "The Despot's Commander."
#18 – "The Beautiful Assassin."
#19 – "Special Orders to the Iron Men."
#20 – "Unknown Explosive Force."
#21 – "Compulsion Towards Vengeance."

While I really enjoyed Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie and Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter II V is a bit too slow in places for my tastes. Most of the fights between characters are terrific, as is the character development of Ken and Ryu. However, the pacing during a few of the episodes is lethargic; the viewer has to get through needless exposition before, during, and after the main fights that often has nothing to do with the main story and is rather uninteresting. Thankfully, this is fairly infrequent. The animation, while not top-notch by today's anime, is decent for a television series that's a few years old, though several animations during fights are recycled.

Picture:
Street Fighter II V is presented in 1.33:1 full frame, as it was originally presented on TV. The picture often displays grain, which gives an overly soft appearance and is rather distracting as the series progresses. Colors are, for the most part, fairly vibrant with accurate flesh tones and decent blacks.

Sound:
Street Fighter II V is presented in Dolby Stereo 2.0 in English and Japanese with optional English subtitles. The stereo track performs just as one would expect from a TV animated series; its serviceable and gets the job done, but it won't turn any heads. The English dub is clean and crisp with no distortion, though the voice actors aren't the best and leave a lot to be desired. The music does sound quite good though. Also, its worth noting that in America and Japan, several of the villains are named differently; for example, the USA's Vega is Japan's Balrog. The subtitles use the Japanese character names, for the most part, while the dubbing uses the American names. I'd imagine it would be rather confusing trying to figure out who's who if you listen to the Japanese track and read the subtitles if you had only played the video games, and didn't know about the name changes.

Extras:
Extras include the Street Fighter Alpha trailer, a remixed version of the Street Fighter II V theme song, a Manga preview trailer showcasing Patlabor & Devil Man, among others, and the Manga DVD text Catalog, which features a short blurb about their anime DVD titles.

Summary:
Fans of the first two volumes of Street Fighter II V will certainly want to check out this new volume; those who haven't should start there first before proceeding to volume 3. Fans of either Street Fighter animated movie or the video game should at least give this series a try; it's rather enjoyable, despite a few slow spots. Recommended.