Season:  1

Number of Episodes:  13

On Air:  October 21st, 1995 - February 3rd, 1996

Back in the early nineties, Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES was the fighting game my brother and I played the most.  However, outside of that game we really didn't follow anything else related to Street Fighter.  We saw the live action movie years later and we didn't even know about the cartoon until we were well into adulthood.  I came across the complete series recently and I decided to give it a shot.  After watching the first season, what I saw was a run of the mill cartoon series from the nineties.

In the cartoon series, Guile leads the Street Fighters, a group of martial arts fighters who are called to help fight evil across the world.  Every good character from the Street Fighter games ends up on the Street Fighter team with Guile and Blanka being in pretty much every episode.  They usually end up fighting M. Bison and all the bad guys from the games.  Each character from the games is in at least one episode with many of them appearing in multiple ones.  Also, each character seemed to retain there special moves in the cartoon with Guile always using his Sonic Boom and Chun-Li using her kicking moves as some examples.

Each episode in the first season is basically a standalone episode and can be watched in any order.  The format is usually a issue comes up, Guile assembles a team, they go to where the problem is happening and win the day.  It's not always that straight forward and some episodes do mix the formula up but for the most part that is how they all play out.  The fighting in each episode was alright and like I said earlier, every character that is featured in an episode who ends up fighting does use their moves from the games. 

Overall, none of the episodes in the first season stood out to me.  If I had to pick a favorite, it probably would have to be episode 12 "Chunnel Vision"  only because it had the deal with Cammy's former team and Cammy became my favorite character in the later games in the series.  Episode 9 "Eye Of The Beholder" would be a close second since it dealt with Blanka trying to become human again and Blanka's struggles with fitting in are one common theme through the first season and really the whole series.  Each episode did try to flesh out the backstories of the characters they featured.  In the end though there was no episode in the first season that made me feel I would go back and watch it on its own down the road anytime soon.

The animation in the first season wasn't bad and pretty much what I expected from a cartoon from the nineties.  The characters looked like there video game counterparts and the backgrounds used in the scenes get the job done.  The voice acting was alright but nothing groundbreaking.  Likewise, the music and sound effects are fine.  The intro was good but not as memorable as some other cartoons from that time.

The first season was not all that bad but it wasn't great either.  Getting to see characters from the games in a animated format where they do more than just fight was neat to see.  The problem with season one is that no episodes really stood out to me.  Maybe if I was a bigger Street Fighter fan I would care more about the series or be more critical of the things it did wrong.  In the end, all I see here is an average cartoon from the nineties that is helped by being powered up by a major gaming franchise.