The Street Fighter franchise has created a multitude of media over the years, with some iterations being more well-received than others. With five main anime under its belt, a TV series, and two live-action movies, you’d think fans of the franchise had seen just about everything. But as they say, the Internet is forever, and it didn’t take too long for someone to finally show us something we’d never seen before. At least if you lived outside of Japan in the mid-90s.
Several months ago, a YouTuber known only as SFII Yomigaeru Fujiwara-kyō uploaded a 27-minute film titled Street Fighter II—Return to the Fujiwara Capital: The Fighters Who Leapt Through Time. While most might have looked at this and considered it a parody or a fan film, this light novel-length titled film is actually a legitimate piece of Street Fighter and Capcom history.
As the caption for the film explains, it was originally made for an exhibition in Nara, Japan, in 1995, which was meant to honor Japan’s first capital city, Fujiwara. As such, the film revolved around Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, and Honda being sent back in time to ancient Fujiwara, and learning about the city’s important civic and political history. The film was available for purchase as a VHS during the exhibition but was lost to time until it was added as a bonus extra for Capcom’s Street Fighter 15th anniversary DVD. However, since it wasn’t translated into English, it remained inaccessible to Western audiences, until now.
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As for now, the film is still available on YouTube, with full (unofficial) English captions, along with extras from the 15th anniversary DVD that show off the character sheets made during production.
While it does seem like the film would just be a dry, historical piece that just happened to have video game characters in it, it actually makes for a mildly entertaining OVA. There’s some mild physical comedy with Honda, Ryu and Ken actually manage to get along with one another, and Chun-Li still manages to be the brains of the operation. It’s always nice to see a little bit of video game, anime, and regular history, and it’ll no doubt get fans hyped for the future of Street Fighter anime.
Source: Kotaku
