A few years after he's completed training with Master Gouken, Ryu, age 17, lives in Japan on the remote Mikunai Island with an old logger and his granddaughter. An airmail letter arrives for Ryu from Ken Masters, his best friend whom he hasn't seen since training. It contains money, a plane ticket and an enigmatic message that simply reads, "Come to America -Ken." Ryu leaves his island home for San Francisco where Ken lives in style, his family home a massive mansion replete with an exact replica of the dojo in which the two friends spent years of gruelling training. Then the two head out on the town to look for some trouble at the Mount Fuji Bar…and they find it in the form of some Air Force flyboys.

Flyboy Guile makes his entrance in this episode by knocking Ryu's ego down a few notches, sending the Japanese youth to rehabilitate and rest in bed. Ken gets up bright and early the next day, still smarting from Guile's comments and his easy mastery over Ryu, and works out in his dojo preparing for a rumble with Guile himself. Ken seeks out Guile with the help of Dorothy, a military babe who tries to warn him off from fighting the tough army sergeant. Ken ignores this, of course, and dives into the fight with his hung over opponent, underestimating the dirty tactics of a true street fighter - tactics that intrigue rather than dissuade the brash American. Now Ken's reason for asking Ryu to come to America becomes clear: It's been too easy for Ken to beat the soft fighters in sanctioned competitions. He wants Ryu to travel the world with him to learn the tactics of the street fight.

In Hong Kong they seek out a lawless zone called Kowloon Palace that's been fenced off from the rest of the city. Ken arranges a helicopter tour for which the tour guide ends up being a young Chun Li, age 15 who insists on accompanying them into Kowloon. After a bit of searching through the burned-out, darkened remains of buildings, they follow some gamblers to the Devil's Battle Cave. Ryu leaps into the ring and beats a steady stream of combatants including Daldoh, the undefeated champion. This enrages the master of Kowloon Palace who issues a death warrant for the three newcomers.

Trapped without a helicopter to fly them out, the trio makes a run for the perimeter fence but soon come to face the Black Snake Gang, an assemblage of fighters that prove no match for Ken and Ryu. Next up, the Demented Hockey gang, pure psychos on skates. Again, no problem. At the fence, however, the Kowloon master waits with some hired muscle, the twin brothers Sodom and Gomorrah.

Chun Li takes them to a movie set where the famed martial artist Fei Long argues with a director over the wussiness of the stunt men. Chun Li offers the services of Ken and Ryu as tougher match-ups for Fei Long's martial prowess. The boys bicker over who gets to fight the movie star, but Fei Long picks Ken and the two engage in an epic confrontation. Several priceless artifacts sacrifice themselves to the battle, but in a fierce endgame Ken does his first shoryuken. Fei Long gets a swollen face.

Bored during one of Ken's shopping sprees, Ryu offers assistance to a sweating, shivering old man who insists he just needs some privacy. Outside the old man begins to meditate, drawing forth from his hands a ball of light, which he swallows. The old man gets up, looking completely well again, and invites a stunned Ryu to his home for an explanation. The old man introduces himself as Young the Tea and helps Ryu make his first attempt at forming hadou ko, a spirtual energy that will serve as the basis for Ryu's future use of the hadouken attack.

Chun Li's father, chief of police Dorai, makes a drug bust on a large drug shipment belonging to the Ashura gang, who in retaliation plan on using the chief's daughter as bait for a mortal trap. Ken, Ryu and Chun Li thwart the planned attack and learn of the Ashura gang's plans to exterminate the chief. But Ashura has also sent Muay Thai assassins to deal with Dorai at his dojo.

Once again, "Street Fighter" bucks the trend by making a good animated series out of an action video game. Set during Ken and Ryu's late teen years, the series develops an interesting historical backdrop to their video game present, answering how they learned different fighting styles, powers and abilities and where they made their enemies and alliances.

The series gets off to a shaky start with a cheesy, buddy flick flavor, resulting in severe continuity problems and sparse action sequences. At times the narrative could easily resemble a yaoi series (or else some friendships are deep enough to rival the greatest loves). Either way, the story sags with sentimentality.

And continuity discrepancies with the video game weaken the immediate appeal of the two central characters. Ken wears a mop of red hair and is the son of a Japanese mother. Director Gisaburo Sugii also uses Ken's wealth as a bland explanation of how Ryu and he start their travels.

And, in a stroke of character incredulity, Ken's parents fawn over Ryu although they've only met him for a few minutes (at a dinner where he stuffed his face, no less), and they don't mind flitting the bill for a globetrotting excursion to find the world's most dangerous fighters.

Luckily the pace picks up in the third episode with the arrival of a young Chun Li and the real start to their journey. Here art director Junichiro Nishikawa gets a chance to compose some excellent background scenes- the dark, post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the Kowloon Palace is the first really stunning location in this series and the quality of animation only gets better from here on out.

Once Ken and Ryu, in repeated efforts to protect their new friends, become entangled in the seedy world of drug lords and thugs, the threadbare plot thickens with intrigue. It's still an action series, bereft of Oscar worthy performances or heart wrenching drama, but the story's complexity keeps interest piqued and provides a substantial foundation on which to highlight the fight scenes.

Of course it's the fighting that really defines this series. Sugaii stylizes combat using stills and slow motion sequences with precise artistic flair, exercising good judgment on how much violence to expose. He has directed children's films like "Night on the Galactic Railroad" and so skillfully walks the fine line between what's acceptable and unacceptable for kids to watch.

Yoshihiko Umakoshi's character art works in concert with Sugaii's fight scenes. Painfully realistic, swollen jaws and bloody faces depict the results of violence without the director having to indulge in graphic rumbling. And Umakoshi renders "good guys" and "bad guys" in marked contrast - villains can be spotted a mile off. Nine feet tall, 450 pounds? Bad guy. Squinting eyes, piggish facial features, sneering mouth? Bad guy. Sporting a mohawk? Definitely a bad guy...although how the military fly boy in episode one manages to get away with wearing one around the base raises a few questions.

Action packed, visually appealing and only plot-impaired at the very beginning, the high speed antics in this first volume of "Street Fighter II V" makes the characters likable and whets a hunger for more, more, more.