A 3D fighting game series which began in 1997, I’m pretty unfamiliar with most of the cast of Capcom’s Rival Schools. However, as regular readers will know, I’m more than familiar with the Street Fighter games, characters and comics, so I figured that picking up this issue, which was given away as part of the Free Comic Book Day 2025 event worldwide, would be fine.

And I wasn’t lost at all; it’s very newbie friendly, though I suppose it does help to be familiar with Street Fighter at least, to get the most of the two stories it contains.

First up is ‘Deadly Lessons!’ which sees Street Fighter’s monstrous Blanka tricked into helping a group of students from Gedo High take on their rivals. This story also prominently features Dan Hibiki, also a Street Fighter character, who so often serves as comic relief; that is definitely the case here too, and he gets some fantastic moments (as he so often does!). It’s really fun stuff, and once more showcases UDON’s knack for getting the tone of these stories just right, being campy, silly fun with great action scenes and gorgeous artwork.

The second story, ‘A Shot At Freedom’, is even more overtly comedic, and features a nurse from Rival Schools, trying to treat a very reluctant patient who hails from the Street Fighter games.

It’s all genuinely excellent, lighthearted fun, and it definitely whets the appetite for more Rival Schools comics, even though the series itself has been dormant for (somewhat amazingly) around 25 years!

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!