Anime is everywhere. We see it in animated movies with styles inspired by anime like “Spider-Verse” and “Forgotten Island.” Live-action movies take inspiration from anime’s expressive and emotional action sequences, too — there’s a direct line to Michael B. Jordan’s “Creed III” from “Naruto” and “Hajime no Ippo.” Movies like “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” straight up use animated visuals to emphasize certain moments. But even among all of those, it is rare for a live-action story to lean on anime-style moments for that live-action movie’s core narrative.
“Street Fighter” doesn’t have that skill issue.
Though the adaptation of Capcom’s hugely popular and influential video game series captures the over-the-top action and tone from the games, as well as its one-liners, it doesn’t use animation as just a cool effect. Instead, we get an entire storyline told through animation — a series of flashbacks showing the story of Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) growing up together, as well as their fallout when Ryo accidentally unleashes a demonic entity named Akuma.
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It’s by far the biggest highlight of “Street Fighter,” with Titmouse Animation producing the animated sequences with a look that evokes gritty, hand-drawn, hyper-violent anime from the 1990s like “Angel Cop” and “Ninja Scroll.” Most importantly, these animated scenes don’t just look like an unrelated video cutscene or a commercial, completely disregarding the visual language of the rest of the film. Instead, they look like a proper anime series set in the world of the film and featuring its cast.
The animators at Titmouse capture the directorial style that Kitao Sakurai employs in the rest of “Street Fighter,” the way he moves the camera and captures the action. For Titmouse, a studio known for a lot of action shows, it’s nevertheless a particular visual style they haven’t explored much, going deeper into the anime influences while still capturing a more Western filmmaking style.
Indeed, as Titmouse co-founder Chris Prynoski told IndieWire, the team purposely wanted to make the animated scenes representative of the rest of the film.
“There was an attempt to hit the likeness, but not so hard like you do in a western style where it looks too realistic and almost uncanny,” Prynoski said. “It was definitely the overriding principle of the concept to really make it feel like ‘90s anime and be inspired by the original games, so art director Khang Le was on the ground with animation supervisor Young Heller, working with Kitao and making sure they were capturing Kitao’s vision for the live-action. But also, we got a lot of agency in making the scenes as authentic as possible in the medium of animation.”
Indeed, seeing Ryu and Ken training and slowly growing apart is the heart of “Street Fighter,” which builds up to their big confrontation at the end of the film. These flashback sequences are what deliver the film’s most emotional story, while also offering some of the coolest action visuals — like Ryu’s first Hadouken or his fight against Sagat at the first World Warrior tournament.
It’s a testament to the animation team at Titmouse that the scenes feel like both an essential aspect of the film, without which “Street Fighter” would fall apart, while also serving as a stunning standalone short story inserted throughout the rest of the film. It’s a fascinating approach, one that makes the use of animation feel like more than just an aesthetic choice, but a narrative decision that sets this movie apart from other video game adaptations.
According to Prynoski, it wasn’t always the plan to tell a series of flashbacks through animation. Instead, the original idea was for a single animated sequence. “Young Heller brought these amazing storyboards to our pitch meetings,” Prynoski said. “And I think that was the first time that Kitao really saw the potential of what could really be done with the animation, and as we were working on it, he just asked for more and more, which we were happy and willing to do. It evolved and became more of a presence in the movie than I think anyone thought it would be originally.”
Though Titmouse is mostly known for their TV output (“The Legend of Vox Machina,” “Star Trek: Lower Decks”) they’ve also done some work on features before, like the 2D animated sequence in “M3GAN 2.0.” This is different, however. “Street Fighter” features several 2D animated sequences, at a scope and level of production the studio doesn’t get to flex often with the limitations of TV.
The result is a calling card for the studio and for the prospect of what a fully animated “Street Fighter” project could look like. Prynoski praised the collaboration with the rest of the production, which gave Titmouse “Enough time and enough budget to really execute and make something that we’re really proud of, and hopefully something we’ll do more of.”
“Street Fighter” is now in theaters.