Anime Meta-Review
Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf
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Title Info
- seen: 1 of 1
- type: OAV
- grade: flawed
- genre: magic_war
- Other elements of this title:
- This title has been commercially released in Australia.
- made: unknown
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
More fighting game inspired anime. In this example we get to see how martial artists are the most patient people in existence. This is because when two kids watch their martial arts master father get stabbed and pummeled to death they swear revenge. However their revenge, as suggested by their fathers mentor, involves the following steps. Don't tell the police, as they've all been paid off. Take 10 years to train yourselves into martial arts masters. Return here and i'll teach you the secret move that is the only way to get revenge. True enough ten years later they are martial arts masters, with one being cool and laidback and the other violent. They must fight each other for the right to inherit the technique, and then seek their delayed revenge. Along the way there is also a romantic sub-plot and a bit of tragedy to add depth to the story.
Although not that much depth, as this is pretty simplistic and obvious stuff. Indeed there is not any one thing that is flawed as much as the whole production is just so resolutely average. The whole revenge angle is illogical (just buy a handgun already), the story elements are all really obvious way before they happen and the `final technique' once revealed is really silly. It is just so true to the genre. The cardboard cut-out characters, the `friendship of fighters', the bragging and tough guy elements, the good-hearted hero...urgh. And this is not helped by the dialog or story events, which are very, very basic indeed. It actually is watchable, but it is not even remotely interesting.
Of course this could be redeemed by hot martial arts action. Well, sorry to disappoint, but it is painfully obvious that the money does not stretch that far. Every possible tactic is used to reduce the actual amount of fighting. And when the fighting starts it immediately drops to still frames or energy blasts to reduce complexity. There are a handful of actual action animations, but they are pretty basic. Indeed the overall level of the production is really average, way below what should be expected from an OAV. And then there are the voices. Some people call this one of the worst dubs in existence, which it isn't, but it is still pretty bad. The attempts to put accent and character into the voices is just way to unsubtle. The corny accents combine with the bad dialogue to provide some very cringe-worthy moments. Add in some `rocking' music and you have something that really has very little reason to be experienced.
I've got to admit to getting a sick pleasure out of reading the THEM's cool review of this title. They didn't hate it, but found very little to like or interest them. Their description of the combat, and its failings, are hilarious and sadly accurate. Suprisingly Akemi's AnimeWorld was fairly kind in this review calling it average and leaving it at that.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:18 WST 2009