Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture 7/10

The best fighting game based anime out there. Though that's not saying much.

Since the beginning of time there has been anime. Relegated to Japanese TV or the occasional film, and it was good. Usually.

Then one day in the mid-80's, someone somewhere decided that the Japanese anime market could support anime created for the direct to video market (OVA's) and it was good. Usually.

Then someone decided to make OVA's based on fighting video games. That man has probably committed ritual suicide by now. We don't miss him.

The list is long and miserable. Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Battle Arena Toshinden, Samurai Showdown, Tekken, Virtua Fighter. While most contain fan-service of your favourite female fighter that's not enough to make up for the crappiness. Samurai Showdown is practically unwatchable. The one OAV series I do like though is the Fatal Fury series.

Of the 3 released I like the second one best, but the third, Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture is quite good. The character designs are by Masami Obari who we all know from Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, Gravion and others. His designs are an acquired taste but since he loves the breasteses it's all good. A movie budget is here so the animation looks great and the music is OK too. The JP VAs were average and I will say I've always liked the English dub for this one. This movie was released in 1994.

The story here's pretty simple, our hero Terry Bogard, his friend Joe, his brother Andy and the busty ninja girl Mai decide to help a girl named Sulia(sp?) stop her brother from collecting armour the she figures is screwing with his mind. Many cameos here of characters from the SNK fighting games and some pretty cool looking super moves are shown. Being a big fan of Fatal Fury I really enjoyed this one, the final battle being particularly exciting and well done.

Masami Obari fans, fighting game fans, fan-service fans, pretty good anime fans. You'll all dig this movie.