Capcom’s Street Fighter II was a groundbreaking arcade fighting game; it’s fair to say that it changed the trajectory of an entire segment of video games, almost singlehandedly saving arcades from decline when it arrived back in 1991. The competitive scene that’s built up around the Street Fighter series of games, which was kick-started by Street Fighter II, continues to grow and remains a healthy subsector of the video game scene even now.

So it really is a cultural phenomenon to this day; the game’s diverse cast of colourful fighters being recognised by many even if they don’t have a huge, ongoing interest in video games.

The guys at Udon Studios are clearly big fans, with their anime/manga-styled, hyper-kinetic artwork bearing the hallmarks of the action-packed fighting game even before they got their hands on the Street Fighter license in 2003.

This volume collects issues #0-6, and opens with series figurehead Ryu finding his master Gouken murdered. Travelling to the US to meet his friend and training partner, Ken, they both seek to avenge their master’s death.

Meanwhile, the crime syndicate known as Shadaloo is being investigated by Interpol agent Chun-Li, as they kidnapped her father; US soldier Guile is also investigating the organisation, after the disappearance of his friend Charlie. When they discover that Ryu may be able to lead them to M. Bison, the sinister head of Shadaloo, they both try to find him in Japan.

Other characters that’ll be familiar to players of the video game drift in and out of the narrative; British Secret Agent Cammy appears in an earlier guise as a mind-controlled assassin working for Bison, and Bison’s more familiar underlings, Sagat and Vega, who are both Street Fighter II boss characters, also feature quite prominently.

Honestly, the narrative is all over the place. It’s messy, it’s soapy, it’s daft and the dialogue feels like it could be straight out of a poorly translated anime.

Despite, perhaps even because of, this, it’s all part of the charm; it really does feel like an anime adaptation of the video game source material. I could definitely do without the overly sexualised depictions of some of the female characters though; this feels like a dated, unnecessary aspect of the visuals that adds little, other than awkward attempts at titillation and objectification, to the comic.

That aside, the art is absolutely spectacular. The action scenes are undeniably thrilling and it genuinely retains the incredible kinetic style of the video games it’s based on, with fantastic use of familiar moves and catchphrases from the games too.

More casual fans of the video game series are likely to be a bit lost with some of the characters that appear here, but on the whole it’s reasonably friendly to readers less well versed in the Street Fighter saga.

The art alone makes Street Fighter worth checking out; the phenomenal visuals are amazing, despite the odd change in art style in a few of the bonus stories included. There are threads and cliffhangers left dangling to be picked up on in the next volume; despite the issues with an overstuffed narrative, which is told in a very cheesy, pretty campy manner, I must admit I was thoroughly entertained all the way through this volume.

You can buy Street Fighter Classic: Volume 1 from Amazon here.

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