Street Fighter: The Later Years

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For many years, people wondered what happened to characters from Street Fighter II after many of them failed to reappear in Street Fighter III. That question was answered by Street Fighter IV, a sequel to II but a prequel to III. The End.

...

What? You want more? Fine. Before IV in 2008, there was Street Fighter: The Later Years in 2006. Created by College Humor, The Later Years simultaneously acts as a Where Are They Now? Epilogue for the 12 original World Warriors from II and reuniting them to form another tournament. The story starts when Zangief, now reduced to cleaning up arcades, enters a cab with Dhalsim as its driver. From there, it shows that most of the fighters are past their prime, living sucky lives and taking on horrible and/or overly-demanding day jobs. All except Ryu (who is a successful fighter hocking his style on TV) and to an extent Blanka.

But things are not what they seem as some of the fighters are being paid by Capcom CEO, Donovan Corbett to ruin the tournament and kill the remaining competitors.

Running from 2006-2008, The Later Years (even if it takes place ten years after II) isn't what you call, "totally faithful". But it's all played for laughs and because of this, it's Better Than It Sounds. Apparently a sequel is being planned called Street Fighter Reunion, which will introduce more of the characters.

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The series provides the following tropes:

• Acting for Two: Actor Kevin Yamada plays both E. Honda and Ryu.
• Affectionate Parody
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Chun-Li whose boyfriend is Blanka, before he decides to kill her.
• A Winner Is You: The absolute irony that a series based on a video game ends like this.
• Bad Bad Acting: Vega and his co-stars "John" and "Dora."
• Blatant Lies

Bison: (being choked by Chun-Li) Your father is alive. Chun-Li: He is? Bison: No, he isn't, I just needed to catch my breath.

• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Blanka who seeks revenge for how he was treated in the last tournament.
• Big Damn Heroes: Zangief, Dhalsim and (of course) Ryu and Ken.
• Broken Pedestal: Ryu, who went from a wandering traveler and mild Blood Knight to a corporate shill offering to sell his knowledge of his fighting skill "on three video cassettes". It turns out that was a slimmed-down E. Honda working for Corbett. The real Ryu rejected Corbett's offer and was imprisoned for it.
• Bald of Evil: Corbett, Sagat.
• Buffy-Speak: Ken.
• Bus Crash: E. Honda, who suffered alcohol poisoning while in a drinking contest with Vega. Until it is revealed that he was alive and Hidden in Plain Sight.
• Camp Gay: Mr. Weingert, Ken's boss at Capcom.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Guile, frequently.
• Canon Foreigner: Tons, but the most important one is Donovan Corbett, head of Capcom.
• Dodgy Toupee: Ken's golden locks, it's meant to be funny, but this troper isn't sure if it was meant to be his real hair or a toupee in-universe.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ken tells Chun-Li that he can't "Hadouken" anymore and he gets made fun of for it by Blanka and Ryu. Later he saves Chun-Li from Blanka by doing a Hadouken.
• Don't Look At Me: What Zangief says when he overhears a gamer at the arcade he works at call him "a bitch".
• Easily Forgiven: M. Bison with everyone, even Chun-Li eventually.
• Evil Plan: Donovan Corbett wanted to capitalize on Ryu's Hadouken technique teaching it to children. When Ryu refused, Corbett drugged and imprisoned him inside Capcom. He then paid E. Honda and gave him liposuction to impersonate Ryu and learn the secrets of the Hadouken. Vega was in-turn paid by E. Honda to kill a fat Asian man to cover his disappearance. Blanka and Sagat were also brought in to kill the remaining Street Fighters to prevent copyright infringement and stop the tournament, which he sees as a threat to his plans.
• Evil Redhead: Blanka.
• Extremity Extremist: Balrog of course, here he doesn't know what a kick is.
• Eyepatch of Power: Subverted with Sagat, he can see well enough to know where people are, but he has a hard time pouring alcohol in a glass.
• Fan Service: Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick.
• Fridge Logic: The only person Dhalsim and Zangief consider to train them is Bison, the homicidal dictator. It works out overall, but still.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Vega and his wife.
• Heel Face Turn: Vega.
• Hilarious Outtakes
• Hopeless Suitor: Ken to Chun-Li.
• Improbable Weapon User: Bison and Chun-Li sword fighting with plungers.
• Jerkass: Blanka, Ryu (E. Honda), Corbett and most of the people the Street Fighters interact with.
• Killed Off for Real: E. Honda, Sagat and possibly Blanka.
• Lampshade Hanging
• Latex Perfection: E. Honda, who without a latex mask (but with a lot of liposuction), replaces Ryu.
• Lock and Load Montage: Episode 7.
• Magical Security Cam: The one Balrog and his co-worker use to spy on the fight between Chun-Li and Bison...in the back of her dry cleaners, from an undisclosed office building.
• Martial Arts Headband: Ryu, Ken and E. Honda
• Mirror Match: Discussed by Dhalsim:

Dhalsim: Every once in a while I pull out the old SNES, and I beat the shit out of myself. It makes me feel better somehow.

• The Mole: Vega.
• Mundane Utility: Blanka uses his electric powers to do mundane tasks for the electric company. On the plus side he makes $6,000 a month.
• No Pronunciation Guide: Lampshaded:

Zangief: Rai-you? All these years, I've been calling him Ri-yu.

• Not So Evil Cripple: Bison.
• Odango: Obviously Chun-Li, one variation has her wear chopsticks as part of her training gear.
• Preemptive Declaration: Defied and lampshaded.

Chun-Li: I can get those bloodstains out of your shirt. M. Bison: What bloodstains? (Beat) M. Bison: ...oh. I get it.

• Psycho Electro: Blanka.
• The Reveal: At the end of episodes 6, we learn that Ryu is actually E. Honda posing as Ryu and real Ryu has been trapped, hidden in Capcom.
• Romantic False Lead: Blanka to Chun-Li.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Guile.
• Shotoclone: Ryu and Ken and now E. Honda.
• Shout-Out: The first episode has a College Humor Vanity Plate similar to the one Capcom did in the SNES era. Going as far as using the same song.
  • Bison, says no one cares about Street Fighter any more because people just want to crash cars and eat hookers.
  • Zangief at one point calls M. Bison Michael, a reference to the confusing Dub Name Change where Balrog is named M. Bison (i.e. Mike Bison) in Japan as a homage to boxer Mike Tyson.
  • Dhalsim saying We're on a Mission From God.
  • The fighter punching out the other a la the intro of Street Fighter II.
  • Bison referencing Street Fighter II with Why don't you try a harder difficulty level next time!".
  • The song rolling at the end credits is also the same credits song for Street Fighter II.
  • The That 70s Show like opening in episode 5.
  • Guile's Don't taze me bro!
  • The string of fighting game references below:

Ryu: Honda's men are no longer Street Fighters, they see this as a Mortal Kombat and they have the Killer Instinct. If you do not help your friends, this may be their Final Fight...ClayFighter.

• Sir Swearsalot: Guile, ridiculously so.
• Still Got It: After years of inactivity, Dhalsim, who though he lost his powers, was shown by Zangief that he could still use his stretch powers.
• Take That:

Infomercial Narrator: Available wherever video tapes are sold. So.... Sam Goody? Bison: We're (the Street Fighters) as defunct as the USSR. E. Honda: Kill any fat Asian man you want. I just can't have them looking for E. Honda. Vega: How fat are we talking? Queen Latifah fat or John Travolta fat? Kirstie Alley fat? Old Ricki Lake fat? New Ricki Lake fat?

• Third Person Person: Sagat.
• Training Montage: In episode 5.
• Ugly Guy Hot Girlfriend: Blanka and Chun-Li.
• Verbal Tic: The F word for Guile.
• Villain Exit Stage Left: Corbett is out of the picture after the revelation of him being responsible for Ryu's imprisonment and E.Honda posing as Ryu.
• You Killed My Father: Bison.

Dhalsim: I don't know Bison, [Chun-Li]'s not going to be happy to see you. Bison: Oh, c'mon guys, I killed your * points to Dhalsim* father and yours * points to Vega* . And most of Zangief's extended family, it was a different time. Zangief: They said that fire was an accident.