This week has been stressful so lets take it out on a Fighting Game Anime as we look at all three Fatal Fury feature films.
Fatal Fury
In a world where corruption is easy to do, a big martial arts/business man seeks to gain power by making all the Martial Arts schools in the world redundant, Geese Howard does this through any means necessary including killing the father of Terry and Andy Bogard. Ten years later Terry and Andy compete to see who can learn their late father's secret technique from his mentor and use it to enter the King of Fighters tournament to defeat Geese.
First off I'm not a big fan of calling the main villain Geese, reminds me of an episode of Regular Show.
What stops this first film from being a complete bore is the introduction of anime only character Lily. At the start as a child she was instrumental in the death of Terry and Andy's father but as an adult she later falls for Terry Bogard which sadly costs her, her life which gives a bit more dimension to the usual fighting game story but it sadly slips on it's ass when you consider that Geese is frequently resorting to coward tactics such as shooting and poisoning when Geese himself could easily take down the protagonists which leads to a bit of an anti climax in the end when he's taken down a little too easily. Kind of a waste when it looked like it was doing so well.
Final Verdict: It's trying to accomplish something different that other fighting game anime can't seem to do but misses the point and resorts to lazy story telling to make ends meet.
Fatal Fury 2
A new villain enters the fray with Wolfgang Krauser, an intimidating yet wonderfully camp villain who can really back up his style, more so than other villains of the same type. Meanwhile Terry Bogard finds honest work in a Dockyard but quickly gets stuck babysitting a tag-a-long kid and fighting quick matches against other combatants from the King of Fighters, it doesn't last long when Krauser beats him down so badly that it turns Terry into an alcoholic. Meanwhile Andy and Joe hearing of Terry's defeat, makes a decision to help Terry out, so Joe tries to snap some sense into his friend while Andy along with his Girlfriend Mai Shiranui travel to Germany to confront Krauser. Mai doesn't really do much but watching her interact with Andy shows an honest chemistry between the two. Back with Joe who has a decent go at Krauser but is taken down easily, meanwhile Terry after snapping out of it watching the tag-a-long kid being beat up proves to his brother Andy that he's back to normal and takes on Krauser in the highlight battle of the franchise.
They made a real effort in this one, better animation, better side characters, much better villain and some pretty good fights. The polish was definitely used in the right places and the film does it very well, the tag-a-long kid is a little forced into the film but it's pretty easy to ignore.
Final Verdict: Much better in quality all round and one of the few to do the fighting game anime right.
Fatal Fury the Motion Picture
In our biggest feature the villains are looking for the Armour of Mars, but Laocorn's sister Sulia decides that he's wrong and goes after Terry Bogard for help. Meanwhile the others watch Joe fight a major Thai Boxing match followed closely by a quick fight from Kim Kaphwan. Our heroes Terry, Andy, Joe and Mai travel to many parts of the world trying to obtain pieces of the Armour of Mars before Laocorn's group, stopping at a number of locations including a nightclub if only to watch Mai Shiranui do the sexiest dance in anime history. (Trust me, Ten years ago her dance was a meme) There are throwbacks to the two films including cameos from Laurence Blood and Geese Howard as well, in fact the Motion Picture has the tendency to throw cameos in for no reason.
Sadly our heroes face defeat a number of times as Terry, Mai and Andy all get defeated by Laocorn's associates, Joe just seems to do nothing. Luckily they all take revenge in a number of awesome ways and confront Laocorn for the final battle in what is the stupidest looking battle costume of all time. (I sense a list coming) Sulia takes her own life to stop the Armour from taking control of Laocorn but said Armour takes a mind of it's own and fights Terry in the final battle with many of Terry's power coming out of rage obviously winning, it's kind of a rule in this genre. The movie ends on the cheesiest ending theme of all time.
This kind of falls in between the other films in terms of quality, it maintains the art style of the second film but paces itself poorly and has this expectation that the viewers have played the SNK games to know all the pointless cameos, while I welcome Mai doing more than just swoon over Andy, I kind of wish Joe Higashi did more himself.
Final Verdict: It's okay, it at least tries but like the first film it succumbs to lazy writing and probably should've been a quick ova series to help it pace better.
Franchise Final Verdict: It's clear that the creators tried hard to not make these anime films like it's contemporaries by giving an added dimension to each one but only the second film had the decency not to resort to lazy writing once they added the dimension in. But a quick look at other Fighting Game Anime, Fatal Fury is the best you're ever going to get.
