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. Three volumes, of seven episodes each, have already been released which detail the beginnings of their journeys; Volume 4 presents the last eight episodes in the series, #22-#29. 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 eight episodes chronicle the end of Ryu and Ken's quest to be the greatest fighters in the world, though to do so, they must overcome the machinations of Bison, who pits them against each other. And if they survive that, they must face off against Bison, a seemingly unbeatable foe who runs the criminal organization Shadow Law.

Episode list:
#22 – "Rising Dragon, Into the Sky."
#23 – "The Icy Light of their Eyes."
#24 – "Nightmare Reunion."
#25 – "Fight to the Finish (Round 1)."
#26 – "Fight to the Finish (Round 2)."
#27 – "Fight to the Finish (Round 3)."
#28 – "Fight to the Finish (Round 4)."
#29 – "Fight to the Finish (Final Round)."

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 me. 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, 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 three volumes of Street Fighter II V will certainly want to check out this new volume, as it's the conclusion; those who haven't should start at the beginning first. 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.