Street Fighter II (S5E15)

Hadouken! Sonic Boom! Anime?

Welcome to Final Forum's Dragon Ball-oween Spooktacular!

In this episode, Jelli and Bekinney break down the 1994 film, Street Fighter II aka Street Fighter II The Animated Movie aka Street Fighter II The Anime. It's part of our October/Halloween Festivities where we're taking a break from breaking down Akira Toriyama's worldwide manga and anime phenomenon and delving into times our franchise's creators have "put on a costume" and worked on other shows and movies. In this case, we're talking about the original voice of Bulma, Hiromi Tsuru (as well as the voices of Mr. Satan, Android 8, and more). 

In this episode:

• Jelli and Bekinney welcome you to October
• We discuss why we chose to look at Street Fighter II
• Production facts and history behind 1994's Street Fighter II, including its place alongside the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme film
• Brief discussion of Gisoburo Sugii, the director, whose credits include Touch, Journey to the West, and The Tale of Genji.
• Tetsuya Komuro, one of Japan's most popular (and infamous) musicians.
• Kazuyoshi Ishii, founder of K1, and his contributions to the film
• Group TAC's work on the movie
• The Street Fighter franchise including its debut cabinet in 1987 and its inspiration from the game Kung Fu Master (aka Spartan X) and a reminder that this game was inspired by the Bruce Lee film Game of Death which inspired Toriyama to create Muscle Tower
• The odd pneumatic system of the original Street Fighter game
• Street Fighter II's 1991 debut
• How the characters M. Bison, Balrog, and Vega have different names in the Japanese vs American versions of the game due to the boxer Mike Tyson
• Voices for Nappa, Turtle, Ox King, Colonel Yellow, Cymbal, Drum, Mr. Satan, Tao Paipai, Burter, and Tien being featured in characters like E Honda, T Hawk (Thunder Hawk), Seno, and Ken
• Hiromi Tsuru's life and career
• Tsuru's thoughts on Bulma's character both initially and over the years
• Tsuru and Masako Nozawa's friendship
• The unfortunate circumstances around Hiromi Tsuru's passing
• The film's release history and editing/censorship over time
• Similarities between this film and the Dragon Ball franchise
• Our thoughts on the Street Fighter franchise
• Our history with fighting games
• Evo Moment #37 or Daigo Parry
• Our thoughts on the new Street Fighter movie from 2026
• ...and more, including some general pop culture, trivia, and editorializing, as usual 

Join us as we continue to uncover the cultural meanings, publication facts, inspirations and more behind the wildly popular Dragon Ball franchise....or in this case, the Street Fighter franchise....for our special Dragon Ball-o-Ween event!

 

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