Street Fighter (animation)

"Colonel William Guile, one of the greatest martial artists in the world, travels the global tournament circuit, using it to conceal his top secret mission as leader of an elite group of international crime-fighters, known only by their codename: Street Fighter! The heroic man-beast, Blanka! Hard-kicking fighting machine, Chun-Li! And a team of the most amazing warriors ever seen have joined forces with Guile to combat the criminal empire of Shadaloo and its superhuman leader, Bison! They have their own code of honor: discipline, justice, commitment! And together, they will triumph against the forces of evil. Street Fighter!"

"This is delicious!" "YES! YES!" —M. Bison

In 1995, the USA Network and InVision Entertainment decided to make a kid-friendly Animated Adaptation of Street Fighter. The problem was that they didn't seem to know which Street Fighter to use as the template: the video game Street Fighter II or the American-made movie based (loosely) on Street Fighter II.

As the Opening Narration above explains, Colonel William F. Guile leads a group of Street Fighters against terrorism, mainly the evil forces of Shadaloo led by the nefarious General M. Bison. The majority of the Street Fighter movie's story had taken place in this show and most of the characters who were given full names (William F. Guile, Ryu Hoshi, Carlos "Charlie" Blanka, Chun-Li Xiang, etc.) and new roles (Dr. Dhalsim, computer-savvy Honda, Dee Jay and Balrog) were kept. However, the characters look like they did in the games, Fei Long and Akuma (who were omitted from the actual movie) appear in the show, and everybody's allegiances in the show (except for Zangief) reflect how they were in the games.

The series had its share of problems. Some fans didn't like how the characters retained aspects from the movie - for example, Guile being the main protagonist instead of Ryu. The show also had inconsistent animation and artwork, mostly generic storylines, and weird moments and dialogue that appear in many episodes.

That being said, Street Fighter lasted two seasons for a total of 26 episodes. It had more Street Fighter characters seen throughout its run than any other animated adaptation of Street Fighter, considering the inclusion of the Street Fighter Alpha characters during the second season and an entire episode devoted to Final Fight.

The entire series is available on DVD, and is also available to watch for free on YouTube.

Tropes used in Street Fighter (animation) include:

• Actor Allusion: Akuma, voiced by David Kaye, drops a dramatic "Yesss!".
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the games, Blanka is rather happy-go-lucky and there is no clear explanation for why he looks the way he does. Since his characterization in this series is based on the movie, where he is Guile's friend Charlie mutated into a beast, Blanka is considerably more unhappy about his condition. This isn't helped when other humans hate and fear him, and when he further mutates in Season 2.
• Adaptational Badass: Ken is the one to defeat Akuma in "The World's Greatest Warrior", something Ryu usually does.
• Adaptational Villainy: Zangief, who is among M. Bison's lackeys.
  • In addition to working with the Mad Gear Gang, Sodom is also a member of Shadaloo.
  • Sagat is an outright bad guy who wants to usurp the leadership of Shadaloo from Bison, instead of the morally-conflicted fighter from the games.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Even though Blanka learns how to deal with his mutation several times, he's still shown to be angry and/or angsting about it later on.
  • Even after being called out for being an irresponsible Jerkass, Ken still acts like one. An especially notable example is "The World's Greatest Warrior". Ken receives the most character development in the series when he successfully defeats Akuma and saves the lives of both Ryu and Gouken. However, the following episode is "So, You Want to be in Pictures", in which Ken is seen at the absolute peak of his jerkassness.
• Animated Adaptation: The American series is the source of many YouTube Poops. "YES! YES!"
• Animation Bump:
  • Bison's very detailed in "The Strongest Woman in the World".
  • "Strange Bedfellows" has the best animation of all of Season 1.
  • Every now and again, the animators will occasionally overdo the shadows of a character in certain scenes. However, this normally results in animation that's somehow better than the rest of the show.
• Animesque: Obvious at times due to the fact that the series was animated in Japan. This is especially noticeable whenever Sunrise animated an episode. It's jarring when compared to the more American-looking, error-prone episodes Madhouse did during Season 1.
• Art Shift: Satin Hammer's armor became much more realistic and detailed in Season 2.
• Artifact of Doom: The Kali statue, which Bison uses to heal himself in Season 2. It eventually brainwashes him into wanting to destroy the world instead of taking it over.
• Artistic License Physics: The series has far, far, far too many examples of this to list here, so let's just have a quote from Dhalsim sum it up:

Dhalsim: "Not if I were bound by your immutable laws of physics. Fortunately, I have advanced beyond such simple-minded perceptions and embraced the limitless enlightenment of metaphysics."

• A-Team Firing: Lots of it.
• The Atoner: After M. Bison forced him to experiment on Blanka, Dhalsim completely shunned technology and retreated into the Himalayas, eventually settling down at a Tibetan monastery.
• Badbutt: Due to broadcast standards, Vega is almost never shown actually using his claw on anyone; he merely threatens to harm or kill people with it, only to be distracted or interrupted before he gets the chance. When he finally does get to use his claw against Blanka in "Face of Fury", it ends up getting broken thanks to the latter's further mutation.
• Bad Boss: M. Bison will occasionally show signs of this. Zangief is usually his favorite target.
• Becoming the Mask: T. Hawk temporary becomes this in "Desert Thunder". Turns out he got too deep while working undercover.
• Beam Spam: Guile. When all else fails, he'll just constantly throw Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks. Case in point: Guile and Sagat's method of ambushing M. Bison in the series finale "Cammy Tell Me True".
• Big Bad: M. Bison is the main villain of the series and is involved in several of the characters' backstories.
• Big Good: Escher for the Street Fighters.
• Big No: All over the place. One of the more notable examples is when Guile screams this and shakes his fists like an angry toddler when a brainwashed Cammy retreats with Bison and kisses him.
• Big Yes: M. Bison says this so often that it's practically a Verbal Tic.
  • *DONK* "Yesh!"
• Bittersweet Ending: Season 2 ends with M. Bison's apparent death and the world saved from a potential nuclear holocaust, but Cammy has no idea what to do anymore.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Both M. Bison and Akuma have black sclera with white pupils.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: M. Bison does this in "Dark Heart" when he leaves Ryu and Ken in a death trap so he can redirect the Millennial Comet towards North America. This gives them enough time to escape and help Guile, Blanka and Dhalsim foil Bison's plans.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Bison is able to brainwash both Guile and Cammy on separate occasions.
• Break the Cutie: Cammy isn't the same once she breaks out of her brainwashing and finds out that M. Bison had her parents murdered.
• Break Them by Talking: Bison nearly does this to Chun-Li in "The Strongest Woman in the World" when he calls her weak for not having her revenge against him when she had the chance. Guile reassures Chun-Li that she made the right decision, her father would be proud of her, and she truly is the strongest woman in the world.
• Broad Strokes: The series implies that the events of the movie occurred, but not exactly as depicted there. "Keeping the Peace" shows a flashback of Guile being court-martialed for going AWOL and invading Shadaloo City against the A.N. higher-ups' orders, which happens in the movie. However, the sole fact that Dee Jay and Balrog are now working on opposite sides, among other inconsistencies (one of them in the same flashback: Captain Sawada is a key figure in getting Guile court-martialed, while in the movie, he supported the raid on Shadaloo), makes it impossible for the movie to completely fit into the show's continuity.
  • Not to mention, Blanka, Dhalsim and Vega were all heavily implied to have died at the end of the movie, but show up alive and well here.
• Broken Pedestal: Sagat for Kip in "No Way Out".
• Bullying a Dragon: Yes, Middle Easterners, go ahead and throw rocks at the big green monster with electrical powers!
• But for Me It Was Tuesday:

Bison: (to Chun-Li) "Yes, yes, I killed your father! What is it with you women anyway? I killed my father too and you don't hear me whining about it!"

• Call Back:
  • The plot of "Chunnel Vision" receives one in "Cammy and the Bachelor".
  • "The World's Greatest Warrior" has one for "Strange Bedfellows" when Akuma mentions that he fought both Guile and M. Bison.
  • Fei Long's rivalry with Wo Fat and the Triads in "The Hand That Feeds You" is referenced in "So, You Want to be in Pictures" via a flashback.
  • The events of "Eye of the Beholder" and "New Kind of Evil" is referenced in "Face of Fury".
• Calling Your Attacks: Several characters do whenever they unleash their special moves. Guile is the most noticeable example.
• The Cameo: Some Alpha characters make cameo appearances in "The Medium is the Message". Several Final Fight characters also appear in the episode.
• Canon Foreigner: Escher, Lucinda, Mei-Lei, Satin Hammer, Sachi (Ryu's cousin), Wo Fat and La Lupa. Cammy's former teammates from MI5 (Burke, Rory and Celia) are technically from the games, but the original game versions had different names and character designs.
• Catch Phrase: "Discipline, justice, commitment!" is used on a fairly regular basis, not just in the intro either.
  • Guile has "Sonic BOOOOOOOM!"
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Dee Jay is completely absent in Season 2, outside of a passing mention in "Second to None".
  • Balrog, one of the Four Heavenly Kings in the games, only makes a single appearance in the entire series.
• Composite Character: Blanka and Charlie were merged into one character, just like in the movie. A flashback in "The Medium is the Message" shows a pre-mutation Blanka looking just like Charlie did in Street Fighter Alpha, but with a color scheme closer to Blanka (black hair with a green vest and brown pants). He reverts back to his human form for a while in "Eye of the Beholder."
• Continuity Cameo
  • "The Medium is the Message" features almost all the new characters from the first Street Fighter Alpha (which was being released for home consoles at the time) as competitors in an underground tournament. Birdie, Adon, Rose and Guy are all featured in this episode, along with weird renditions of Sodom (who is not wearing his mask) and Dan (in a green gi instead of his usual pink and with a different hair style). Most of the cast from the original Final Fight (along with Carlos and Maki from Final Fight 2) appear in crowd shots as well.
  • Guile's opponent in "Keeping the Peace" is Bred from Final Fight.
  • In "New Kind of Evil", Blanka's opponent is Mike Haggar in his Saturday Night Slam Masters incarnation.
• Continuity Nod: Despite a few inconsistencies with the source material, there are points in the show that follows the continuity of the games:
  • Chun-Li's father was killed by M. Bison.
  • Sagat getting his scar from Ryu's Shoryuken.
  • Dhalsim abandoning science for yoga.
  • Ryu and Ken's techniques being based on an assassination martial art.
  • Vega's vanity and his Berserk Button of having his face touched.
  • Rose's rivalry with Bison. During their confrontation, Bison mentions that he senses a "bond" between them.
  • Ken is rich.
  • Sakura's Hero Worship towards Ryu.
  • Cammy being brainwashed by Bison.
• Convection, Schmonvection: In "Strange Bedfellows", Bison and Guile get awfully close to the lava pits without getting burned to a crisp.
• Crazy Prepared: Sagat built an escape mechanism into his firing squad wall just in case he himself ever got to be on its receiving end. Seems he was rather Genre Savvy about being Hoist by His Own Petard.
• Crossover: One episode revolves around Ryu and Ken helping Cody and Guy rescue Jessica. This happened during Season 2 when Street Fighter Alpha 2 had just been released on home consoles, which had Guy, Rolento and Sodom as playable fighters. As such, Season 2 had several episodes focusing on Alpha characters instead of the one-scene cameos from Season 1. Too bad the show ended before we could get a Dan episode...
  • Meta example with "The Warrior King". The titular character would go on to appear in three other shows in USA Network's Action Extreme Team block. The shows are Savage Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and Wing Commander Academy. He was voiced by Michael Dorn in almost all of his appearances.
• Cultural Translation: In two ways. First off, Guile is clearly intended to be the primary character of the series. This goes to the point that he overshadowed Ryu and Ken themselves. Secondly, Ken (the American half of the duo) was the one who received most of the spotlight in comparison to Ryu (the Japanese half). For example, Ken was the only character who actually defeated Akuma in single combat and became "The World's Greatest Warrior" for his success.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Guile tends to knock down most opponents with one Sonic Boom, including Sagat and Zangief, both more physically imposing than him.
• Cutting the Knot: Guile disarming a bomb. With a Sonic Boom.
• Dating Catwoman: T. Hawk and Satin Hammer.
• Deadpan Snarker: Guile loves his sarcasm.
• Demoted to Extra: Escher appears considerably less often in Season 2.
• Deranged Animation: M. Bison's numerous facial expressions in "The Warrior King" are some of the most over-the-top in the series.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Guile, who explicitly states that "Guns are for wimps!".
  • Ironic, considering that Guile had absolutely no qualms about using guns in the movie.
• Does Not Like Men: With the exception of T. Hawk, this is implied to be the case for Satin Hammer.
• Doomsday Device: In "Cammy Tell Me True", under the influence of a priceless statue Cammy stole for him in a previous episode, Bison decides not to Take Over the World, but instead destroy it by activating all the nuclear missiles on Earth. The statue had planted this in his mind since "The Flame and the Rose".
• Easter Egg: An unintentional one is contained in "Face of Fury", with a frame of Blanka heads hidden during the climax.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In the appropriately titled episode "Strange Bedfellows", Guile and Bison are left with no choice but to form a temporary alliance to battle Akuma.
    • I Owe You My Life: At the end, in an extremely Out-of-Character Moment, Bison spares Guile's life as payback for saving him earlier.
  • In "Cammy Tell Me True," the heroes and Sagat team up to stop Bison. Cammy also joins the fray after her brainwashing wears off.
• Evil Laugh: Plenty.
• Evil Tastes Good:
  • For Bison, watching Guile get his ass kicked by one of his mutant soldiers in "The Medium is the Message".

"This is DELICIOUS!"

• • Satin Hammer is also prone to stating her view on the tastiness of whatever is currently happening.
• Executive Meddling: Ken does this in "So, You Want to be in Pictures" when he becomes the producer of Fei Long's movie after he secured funding for it.
• False-Flag Operation: The plot of "Keeping the Peace". General Mendoza plants a bomb in his own mine so that when it explodes, people will become sympathetic to his plight, causing the A.N. to join his side. It's up to Guile, Chun-Li, T. Hawk and Sawada to stop him.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: Specifically Bison and his followers all have lasers instead of real guns.
• Flat Character: How most of the characters are handled. For example, Zangief is nothing more than a Dumb Muscle for Bison.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In "The Hand That Feeds You", Guile's tattoos can be seen for a few seconds in one scene. This is the only time his tattoos are shown in the series.
  • In the beginning of "Chunnel Vision," a man is reading a newspaper. When paused, the following headlines can be read: "Street Fighter III Released!", "Final Fight 3 Released!", "Darkstalkers 3 Released for Home Systems", and "Android Brought to Life".. A similar newspaper can be seen in "Keeping the Peace".
  • In "Cammy and the Bachelor", Cammy's MI5 file is briefly shown.
  • "So, You Want to be in Pictures":
    • One of the clapboards for Fei Long's movie has "McNeil" listed as the second unit director. This is a reference to Scott McNeil, Ken's voice actor.
    • A newspaper can briefly be seen. When paused, it has several headlines, one of which talks about Ken saving Fei Long, while another states that "InVISION OPENS STUDIO". The latter headline is a reference to InVision Entertainment, the production company of this series.
    • When Ken and his father reconcile, the words "Street Fighter" are briefly shown when the scene cuts to the airport.
• Follow the Leader: The premise resembles G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero more than it does Street Fighter.
• Goofy Print Underwear: In "Eye of the Beholder", it's revealed that Blanka wears lightning-print boxers.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Despite the games' language being deliberately Japanese, Chun-Li being Chinese, and this series' language being English, they had decided to keep her winquote untranslated. It gets inconsistent when her Kikouken is initially referred to as "Fireball":

Chun-Li: "Yatta! I am the strongest woman in the world!"

• Heel Face Turn: Sagat in the final episode, as he doesn't want the planet to be destroyed by Bison.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Cammy Tell Me True", Bison's Psycho Power rages out of control, and he can't stop himself from discharging an ever-strengthening magnetic field. This causes the metal computer console he landed on top of to suck him inside before exploding.
• Idiot Ball: Bison grabs it at the end of "Chunnel Vision" when he throws his ransom money at E. Honda just before he escapes.
• Immortality Seeker: Vega works for Shadaloo because M. Bison promised to give him eternal youth and beauty.
• The Immune: In "The Adventure Begins", it's revealed that Blanka's blood contains antibodies that are able to fight off an otherwise-deadly virus. It's used to create a vaccine that saves Ryu, who had caught the virus from an infected pig.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: When it's not A-Team Firing, nobody can hit anyone with bullets or lasers. Ever.
• In-Series Nickname: "Cindy" for Lucinda.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: Based on the opening theme of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, naturally.
• Ironic Echo: Cammy does this when she declines Guile's offer to rejoin the Street Fighters following Bison's defeat. She echoes the same words she told Guile when he got back together with Lucinda:

"A person can't live in the past, Colonel. The past is filled with pain."

• Jerkass: These American adaptations have a thing for turning Ken into a colossal douchebag.
• Just a Kid: In "Second to None", when Sakura says that she wants to go with Guile and Ryu to Shadaloo in order to rescue her sensei (who is not Dan Hibiki, by the way), Guile tells her that it's far too dangerous for a "kid" like her. She responds by throwing him to the floor and says that she's survived the worst Shadaloo has to offer.
• Large Ham:
  • Bison. Richard Newman was obviously having way too much fun with this role. Coincidentally, this ends up making him the most well-acted character in the show.
  • Ditto with David Kaye as Akuma, and he's in two episodes maximum.
• Lethal Lava Land: The island that Akuma leads Guile and Bison to in "Strange Bedfellows" is full of active volcanoes that look about ready to erupt.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • Many of the Street Fighters wear the same thing all the time, even in places where it would be seen as unprofessional or impractical. Averted by Chun-Li, however, who wears a pink robe in her hotel room in "Getting to Guile", and a business casual lavender skirt when she works as a reporter.
    • This is also averted in "The Warrior King", when she wears a formal dress to a ball. She wants to get out of it and into her Street Fighter uniform as quickly as possible, though, because she has a hard time fighting in the dress.
  • This is most prominent with Fei Long, who goes shirtless everywhere.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: To the point that characters from the Alpha series (most notably Sakura and Rose) and Final Fight, as noted, appeared.
• Look Behind You!: In the beginning of "Chunnel Vision", Bison is busy fighting MI5 when one of them shouts to look behind him. Bison scoffs, thinking it's a lame attempt at a distraction. He almost gets hit by a train.
• Made of Iron:
  • If "Desert Thunder" is to be believed, Escher. He takes a shot from a misfired laser superweapon in the arm and head, and suffers no ill effects despite said laser's island-destroying power.
  • Literally in the case of an iron gate in "No Way Out", which takes a lot of punishment from Sagat's platoon before they finally get it out of the way with tanks.
• Magic Countdown:
  • In "Keeping the Peace", Guile and Sawada gets into a fight when the latter tries to disarm a bomb. During the fight, the countdown suddenly slows down.
  • In "Cammy Tell Me True", as the countdown to the apocalypse happens, it's incredibly slow, even when it speeds up.
• Manipulative Editing: Bison and Balrog do this in "The Medium is the Message" by making it look like that the Street Fighters have defiled a sacred Hindu temple.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison At All: Bison gets captured by MI5 in "Chunnel Vision", but it turns out to be a ruse that allows his agents to hold all of England hostage until he is freed. Bison then forces the British government to hand over a £1,000,000,000 ransom, all while relaxing in his cell and sipping tea.
• Mind Screw: In "Getting to Guile", Guile keeps having surreal nightmares about people turning into monsters and his fellow Street Fighters turning on him. This is justified, since M. Bison was actually screwing around with his mind.
• A Minor Kidroduction: In "Getting to Guile," the Torture Technician sets the memory-scanning/brainwashing device too far back, resulting in a scene of a young Guile defending a kid from bullies, only to be chased himself and forced to hide in some bushes.
• The Mole: Cammy is secretly Bison's sleeper agent, and goes back to working for him after he reactivates her old programming using his Psycho Power.
• Moral Dissonance: Despite boasting about "Discipline, Justice and Commitment", Guile very often attacks his opponents from behind.
• Motor Mouth: In "The Hammer Strikes", everyone sounds like this at times, especially Sawada.
• Mundane Utility: Bison uses his Psycho Power to do everything from going down a subway tunnel on a handcart to dialing an old rotary telephone.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In "Desert Thunder", some of the controls for the superweapon Satin Hammer commandeers are a joystick and six buttons.
  • In "The Medium is the Message", the crate that contains Bison's mutant fighters has the Capcom logo on it.
• Never Say "Die": Characters often substitute it with "destroy", but there are rare exceptions.
• No Pronunciation Guide: Ryu, again being called "Rye-You".
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Cammy in "Cammy Tell Me True". After learning the truth about her brainwashing, she decides not to rejoin the Street Fighters.

Cammy: "Everything is lies! EVERYTHING IS LIES!!!"

• Obfuscating Stupidity: Chun-Li pretends that she doesn't know how to play snooker in "Keeping the Peace".
• Oblivious to Love: Subverted. Guile is well aware that Cammy has a crush on him due to the not-so-subtle hints that she has given him. He does not share these same feelings, however, due to the fact that he is still being in love with his ex-girlfriend Lucinda. Despite this, Cammy still hits on Guile until she is brainwashed by M. Bison in "Cammy and the Bachelor".
• Off-Model: Everybody, at least once.
  • Guile has eyebrows. This is justified, however, as it makes his expressions easier to read.
    • Also, his eyebrows goes back-and-forth between being blond and black.
  • Ken flips back-and-forth between being a blonde and a redhead throughout the series.
  • One particular moment is when Dee Jay appears to shrink. He got out of an elevator by running out of it, and then he turned to his left while still running. Some guy was shooting at him. But by running towards the left, he was supposed to become "closer" to the camera. Instead, it's as if the distance wasn't even changed; if anything, he was actually getting smaller. And that's how he avoided being shot. Plus they spelled "MAXIMUM" wrong on his trousers.
  • In "Keeping the Peace", a sniper take aim at Sawada. Guile pushes him out of the way. The sniper misses, but the shot appears to hit Guile's shoulder anyway, with no lasting effects.
  • "Desert Thunder": At one point a superweapon that Satin Hammer commandeers misfires thanks to Guile and one of her shots goes wide and heads in Escher's direction. It looks as if it was supposed to miss Escher according to the script, but seems to hit him in the arm and the head. It doesn't affect him in any way, despite said superweapon being powerful enough to obliterate an entire island.
  • Sometimes characters are drawn with the wrong emotions, or look like they were. For example, in "Second to None", Ken is in the hospital and Escher is supposed to be comforting him, but the way he was drawn makes him look menacing as hell.
  • Bison, Akuma and Guile all have different facial designs in "Strange Bedfellows".
    • Bison's cape also can't decide if it's flapping in the breeze or not, and often alternates between shots.
    • In that same episode, Sagat puts his feet up on Bison's desk to reveal he has two right ones.
  • In "The Warrior King", Bison has eight different facial designs.
  • In "Second to None", Sakura's sensei is briefly seen getting shattered like glass by Sagat's Tiger Shot. He shows up just fine when he reappears in a later scene.
  • When Chun-Li sees Bison in "Cammy Tell Me True", she does a flying kick. However, when she gets close to him, she suddenly throws a punch and then a kick. Furthermore, when he gets ready to do a Psycho Crusher, he stands several feet from her.
  • Sagat's iconic chest scar is absent throughout most of his appearances in Season 2.
  • In "The Medium is the Message", Sodom is drawn without his trademark menpō.
• Oh Crap: The epic look on Bison's face when he realizes that Chun-Li's about to deliver a Lightning Kick to him in "The Warrior King".
• Opening Narration: As noted in the page quote.
• Out-of-Character Moment:
  • Ken, while he's fighting Akuma. While it's OOC in comparison to his normal douchiness in this series, it's ironically closer to his actual in-game persona.
  • As previously mentioned, Bison saving Guile's life. It's actually subverted, as he quickly provides a rather in-character explanation:

Bison: "Self-preservation narrowly won out over the pleasure of watching you burn."

• Percussive Maintenance:
  • At one point, Guile throws a Sonic Boom at a time bomb to disarm it.
  • In "Cammy Tell Me True," both Guile and Sagat try wrecking Bison's computer terminal after trying to stop the missile launch the normal way just speeds up the countdown.
• Plot Hole: T. Hawk and his power of flight in "Desert Thunder". In his next appearance, he has no such ability.
• Poirot Speak: Zangief dips into this.
• Psycho Electro: In addition to his usual Psycho Power, Bison can also manipulate magnetic fields and, consequently, metal objects.
• Reality Ensues: In the movie, Guile disobeying his superiors would have gotten him court-martialed in real-life. The series has this happen as part of his backstory, resulting in him forming his own undercover team of heroes.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Bison's eyes tend to glow red when he's angry or about to unleash his Psycho Power.
• The Rest Shall Pass: "Bison is mine!" (or some variant thereof) is said by numerous characters throughout the series, but usually by Guile.
• Running Gag:
  • The various unorthodox methods in which Guile is called in to see Escher.
  • Guile, Ryu and Ken remarking that the latter two "should've stayed in Bangkok" in "Dark Heart".
• Sadistic Choice: In "Eye of the Beholder", Vega makes Blanka choose between the formula that will make him human again or Mei-Lei, his love interest. Blanka chooses the latter.
• Say My Name:

"BISON!!!" (random flames spontaneously appear behind Guile) "DHALSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!!"

• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: This is Ryu's reaction after he gets slimed by a pig while he and Ken are looking for a hidden temple in "The Adventure Begins".
• Self-Made Orphan: Bison, as he reveals to Chun-Li in battle after she angrily reminds him that he killed her father:

"I killed my father too and you don't hear me whining about it!" (...and for him, it was just another ordinary Tuesday.)

• Shallow Love Interest: Mei-Lei, the girl Blanka falls in love with in "Eye of the Beholder", doesn't really have much going for her in terms of personality.
• Shirtless Scene: Due to getting injured in "Cammy and the Bachelor", Bison spends his next couple of appearances with no shirt on.
• Sigil Spam: The "SF" emblem that Escher uses to summon Guile to missions can pretty much be anywhere or anything. Among the creative ways it's used, the letters can even be spelled with sandwiches on a dish as seen in "The Strongest Woman in the World".
• Soft Water: In "Desert Thunder", Guile, Blanka, and one of Satin Hammer's Mooks land safely in a fountain, despite jumping off the roof of a Las Vegas casino.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • A brassy, upbeat, heroic fanfare (actually "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor") can be heard during several inappropriate moments throughout the series. It can be heard during the following scenes:
    • Most notably, it's heard during Bison's famous "YES! YES!" scene, even though he's the Big Bad and might've finally triumphed over the heroes.
    • In "Getting to Guile" when the house Guile and Bison go into turns into a monster during Guile's nightmare.
    • In "So, You Want to be in Pictures" when Ken nearly falls to his death.
    • In "The Warrior King" when the jet Guile, Ryu, and Ken is in flies into a windstorm that Bison created with the Orb of Power. It causes them to eject out of the jet.
    • In "Final Fight", a much shorter build-up of the fanfare can be heard when Belger fires a laser gun at Cody, Guy, and Jessica while they are hiding behind a table:

"It's only a matter of time until you're all FRIED!"

• • Guile's Big No mentioned above features a brassy stinger that wouldn't sound out of place on The A-Team.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Belger in "Final Fight".
• Squee: Sachi and Midori do this in "The Hand That Feeds You" when they realize that they have indeed met Fei Long in person.
• Stock Footage: In "Dark Heart", whenever Dhalsim uses his Yoga Fire, the same footage is shown. It's incredibly obvious.
• Story Arc: Season 2 got a couple of them: Cammy's Face Heel Turn after M. Bison reactivates her old programming, and Blanka's struggle to contain his strength and anger after accidentally getting sprayed with a mega-dose of mutagen ooze.
• Tarot Troubles: In "The Flame and the Rose", Rose has nightmares of a fiery Armageddon and uses tarot cards to determine the cause. She draws The Fool, The Devil, and The Tower. She assumes the first two to be Ken and Blanka and kidnaps them, forcing them to fight each other to the death in order to keep the world safe. Naturally, the last of the three is Bison, the source of the fire in her nightmares. After realizing that she was wrong about Ken and Blanka, she recruits them to go after Bison. In the end, she determines either Bison or herself is all three for varying reasons related to their foolishness.
• Terrifying Rescuer: In "Eye of the Beholder", Blanka rescues the Japanese Prime Minister from a group of assassins. Upon seeing his savior, the Prime Minister yells "Kaibutsu! Kaibutsu!" and flees in terror. This becomes part of Blanka's ongoing identity struggle caused by his forced mutation.
• Thick Line Animation: "Eye of the Beholder" goes for more of a comic book-style look for the characters; as a result, the outlines are thicker than normal.
• Third Person Person: Blanka starts speaking like this for no reason when fighting Zangief (who also speaks the same way) in the episode "The Flame and the Rose".
• Those Two Guys: Ryu and Ken, with Ryu playing the Straight Man to Ken's The Fool.
• Troll: In "Final Fight", after Ken teases Cody about Jessica falling for himself.

Ryu: "Why do you do that sort of thing?" Ken: "'Cause it's fun! (laughs)"

• Unexplained Recovery: Despite the fact that Sodom apparently perished when Bison's hovercraft crashed into a building in "Cammy and the Bachelor", he's alive and well in "Final Fight".
• Villain Has a Point: In "The Strongest Woman in the Woman", Bison, while holding the detonator for the explosives inside a nuclear power plant, tells Chun-Li that getting her revenge against him will lead to the nuclear power plant being destroyed and countless people being killed in the ensuing fallout. This convinces her to let him escape so that innocent lives won't be destroyed.
• Villain Teleportation:
  • Akuma is very found of Teleport Spam in "Strange Bedfellows".
  • Bison teleports behind Guile several times in "Cammy Tell Me True".
• Villainous BSOD: Cammy has one after learning that M. Bison murdered her parents.
• Vocal Dissonance: The feral boy in the episode "The Beast Within", who has the voice of a 10-year-old despite having the body of a teenager.
• Wag the Director: In addition to his meddling as a producer, Ken does this to Fei Long as well in "So, You Want to be in Pictures", since he's one of the latter's co-stars.
• We Need a Distraction: In "The Flame and the Rose," Rose offers to distract Bison on the astral plane while Ken and Blanka break into his hideout and get rid of his Kali statue.
• Wham! Episode: Two of them early in the second season.
  • "Cammy and the Bachelor" has Cammy being awakened as Bison's sleeper agent and helping him escape, shaking up the status quo and leading Guile and the Street Fighters on a season-long quest to bring her back to her senses.
  • "New Kind of Evil" has Blanka being accidentally subjected to a mega-dose of mutagen ooze, causing him to become even more feral and dangerous.
• Wham! Line: In "The Hand That Feeds You", Fei Long and his movie director, Raymond Wang, have this exchange when the former finds out that the latter is involved in a drug ring:

Fei Long: "Ray! So it is true. You're involved in all this evil!" Raymond Wang: "Correction - we're involved. Without this money, none of your films would ever have been made!" Fei Long: "You financed my career with blood money?!"

• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • In "Getting to Guile," Chun-Li wins a private fighting tournament in exchange for information from its organizer, El Fideo. Before she can meet with him, she's summoned for Street Fighter duty. At the same time, Ryu and Ken are hired by El Fideo to search for a treasure map and they're attacked by his thugs in a dark alleyway. They're rescued by Chun-Li and Dee Jay, and the map is never turned in. A short moment later, Blanka joins them after getting a message from Chun-Li. Dee Jay asks how Blanka managed to find them, but no explanation for how all of them met up is given by the end of the episode, nor anything about the information Chun-Li won the rights to and never claimed.
  • Balrog never appears after his first appearance. Where did he go? Never explained!
• What the Hell, Hero?: Fei Long chews out Ken in "So, You Want to be in Pictures" for allowing his fame to get in the way of his training, making him a sloppy and unreliable mess during filming. To elaborate, he and Ken were filming a scene where Ken's character was meant to die. However, thanks to getting more funds for the film from his dad (and being handed creative control for the film), Ken rewrote the scene to have him get up triumphantly, amongst other things.

"And you... you're a LOSER!"

• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Bison attempts to do this to Zangief in "Demon Island" after his plan is thwarted by the Street Fighters. He eventually just settles on throwing Zangief into the water instead.
• You Killed My Father: The focus of the plot in "The Strongest Woman in the World" (Bison killed Chun-Li's father). This receives a callback in "Cammy Tell Me True" during a exchange between Bison and Chun-Li. It goes double for Cammy here, as she found out in the same episode that Bison murdered her parents. Hence Bison's "What is it with you women anyway?" line when Chun-Li confronts him: Cammy had thrown her "you killed my parents" line in his face earlier.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In "The Hammer Strikes", when T. Hawk refuses to use a nuclear warhead on the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Satin Hammer pulls out a laser rifle. When he calls her bluff, she shoots him in the arm.