The anime, for its part, manages to put forth a fairly entertaining story-- Terry and Andy Bogard are just kids when they witness their adoptive dad, Jeff, get murdered by a fellow martial artist who wants the secrets of their dad's teacher, Master Tung. Tung is still a capable martial artist, but too old to take on Jeff's killers by himself, so he spirits the boys away and resolves to see that they train hard for 10 years. Why? Because Tung wisely sees his murderous former student, Geese Howard, as a threat, and wants the kids to be able to prevent him from gaining any real power when they've grown up and can take him on. The fact that he killed their dad works pretty well as an additional motivating factor, of course.
Thus, we rejoin Terry and Andy years later-- Terry having grown up fighting hard in the U.S., and Andy having trained in Japan. They're brought back together by a fighting tournament staged by the one and only Geese Howard, who is pretty obviously just trying to draw them out so he can learn Master Tung's best technique, a martial arts move that summons chi from the earth itself. Terry gets involved with a Lily, a local girl who turns out to be tangled in with Howard's gang, and he and his brother are soon joined by Joe Higashi, a sneering Japanese muy thai champ with a chip on his shoulder the size of a Cadillac. Of course, they all get along famously.
I can't go into too much detail, but Terry ends up learning the techniques he needs and progressing to an enemy that makes Geese seem weak by comparison in the 2nd OVA. Part 2 is also notable because of the introduction of Mai Shiranui, the scantily-clad, outrageously-curvy darling of fighting game fanboys everywhere. And then, of course, everyone fights.
In Street Fighter II, it was a matter of Brooding Guy and Cocky Guy vs. the Sneering Supervillain. The Fatal Fury characters aren't philosopher-kings, but they aren't particularly simple, either-- Terry is aggressive and a positive thinker, but his life is in such constant turmoil that he's weighed down by his problems most of the time, even becoming a homeless drunk after a fight goes bad. Andy is more confident, but also stupider, as expemplified in his foolhardy attacks on Geese and Krauser. And Joe... well, Joe is what Dan Hibiki would be like if he had talent. Even Geese has his personal demons, as we learn at the beginning of the 2nd OVA.
Fatal Fury avoids a lot of potential pitfalls in fighting game anime shows because it avoids focusing on all of the characters; everyone gets face time, but some of the fighters are only on for a few seconds. Instead, we get a well-paced, exciting revenge fantasy with a cast of fleshed-out, likeable characters. The story is still essentially a big, loud comic book-- which suits Ocean's dubbing techniques tremendously, for a change-- but it's fun to watch.
The only black mark is the character design-- Masami Obari's characters are sleek and muscular, but so streamlined and pointed that they look strange at times. There's also a minor problem in episode 2-- the usual throwaway kid character. Fortunately, he doesn't show up to spoil things too often.
What Fatal Fury benefits from most is simply director Masami Obari's fight sequences-- he's always been one of the best anime fight choreographers, and with OVA-quality animation, he just shines-- the characters' brawls are flashy and entertaining, which is really the most important part of fighting game anime. And since the plot is reasonably fun and the characters are actually likeable, Fatal Fury: Double Impact is a surprisingly satisfying viewing experience.
Grade: B