Book Review: SF20: The Art of Street Fighter

September 18, 2009 by Parka

SF20: The Art of Street Fighter is actually a translated edition of the Japanese art book ストリートファイターアートワークス 覇, which I reviewed few months ago. It's really great that Capcom (or Udon Entertainment) has decided to translate it and pushed it out so fast. Since the content didn't change, I'll just reuse my review for the Japanese edition here, with a few updates.

SF20 is a 20th anniversary tribute art book to Street Fighter, which was actually released in 1987. This is a pretty thick 320-page paperback. It doesn't come with a dust jacket like the Japanese edition. On the non-glossy pages are printed with over 1500 illustrations, paintings and sketches. The spine is a bit inflexible for a book this thick and will definitely have wrinkles if you open the pages too wide.

The illustrations are divided into chapters by artists, namely:

• あきまん (Akiman) | blog
• 西村キヌ (Kinu Nishimura)
• CRMK
• イケノ (Daigo Ikeno)
• 大ちゃん (Daichan)
• えだやん (Edayan)
• 森気楼 (Shinkiro)

Akiman is the designer for the classic Street Fighter characters. Daigo Ikeno is the art director and character designer for Street Fighter IV. The last chapter is a collection of work from other artists.

Since this is a character based game, you'll see a lot of character designs. They are a mixture in sizes from small portraits to the full page group splash art. Most are full colored illustrations in myriad manga styles. There are captions for everything and several artists interviews.

Work comes from all the various different versions of Street Fighter, including spin-offs like Super Puzzle Fighter II, or even some SNK-vs-CAPCOM illustrations — rivalry between King of Fighters and Street Fighter is strong and burning. Included also are the latest Street Fighter IV character profile designs used in the game.

The art here spans over an impressive 20 years, I'm very sure there will be more to come. This satisfying thick compilation is recommended to all Street Fighter fans and collectors.

If you have bought Street Fighter Tribute and Udon's Art of Capcom and like them, I'm very sure you'll like this book as well.

Since the content is the same, I've used the pictures from the Japanese edition. Note again that all the text have already been translated into English for the English edition.

Here's how it looks compared to the Japanese edition on the right side.

And the back cover. Japanese edition on the right.

The expression on Ryu and Chun Li is hilarious.

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Places to get SF20: The Art of Street Fighter:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.fr | Amazon.de | Amazon.co.jp | Bookdepository.com | Bookdepository.co.uk

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