Book Review: SF25: The Art of Street Fighter

I'm a big fan of the Street Fighter games and art, so it is such a joy to hold this thick enormous artbook book in hand.

However, the joy may be offset slightly if you have bought the earlier edition SF20: The Art of Street Fighter that was released in 2009. Five years have passed and now the 25th anniversary edition is out. This updated edition has 448 pages, that's 128 pages more than the SF20. Binding feels alright for a book this thick but I will still want to be careful though. Both are still paperback.

The original edition for this book is actually the Japanese artbook ストリートファイターアートワークス 極. Udon has translated that to English which is great because there are commentary from the artists and several pages of interviews. Other differences would be the lack of dust jacket in SF25, and the use of slightly glossier ink.

This is a wonderful collection of Street Fighter art featuring an incredible amount of artwork. You'll see a lot of character art from the various generations of the game. There are sketches, splash art, game poses, promotional art and more. I like the Street Fighter art for their dynamism.

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)
• ポリゴンーピクチュアズ (Polygon Pictures)

A new chapter with art from Polygon Pictures is included. They are the ones who created the black ink splashy art for Super Street Fighter IV. Some of the works are featured in the art book Street Fighter IV & Super Street Fighter IV: Official Complete Works except they are printed smaller here.

Many new artists and their works are also featured in the latter half of the book.

Definitely worth the money. Highly recommended.

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The book's a review copy from Udon Entertainment.

SF25: The Art of Street Fighter is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

The Japanese edition is on the left.

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