The Warrior King

Street Fighter episode 22
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For a detailed overview of this episode, click here.

Bison obtains an object of awesome power, but the Warrior King wants it back.
Original USA broadcast date: January 4th, 1997

Contents

1) Synopsis
2) Notes
3) Errors


Synopsis

On Warrior World, the Warrior King's palace is attacked by some wizards, who want the orb of power. The orb is sent into a portal, and the Warrior King goes after it, as the orb sustains his world. The orb lands on Earth, where it is found by some farmers. However Bison is soon aware of it, and takes it for himself. He holds a press conference that Chun-Li attends, where he demonstrates the orb's power -making what was a barren desert into a lush garden. Chun-Li reports to Escher, but he tells her that Bison has yet to do anything illegal, so she must investigate for now.



Chun-Li attends a ball which is being held in Bison's honor. She confronts Bison, but is restrained by Zangief, and then attacked by Bison. However the Warrior King then arrives, and a battle for the orb begins. Bison is eventually able to reclaim the orb, whilst Chun-Li and the Warrior King retreat. They decide to work together to get the orb back.



Bison soon starts threatening the world, causing all kinds of disasters in several major cities by using the orb's power. Guile, Ken and Ryu are sent in, but when they arrive, a massive wall bursts out of the ground, which surrounds the entire city. Inside the city, Chun-Li and the Warrior King take down many Shadaloo soldiers.



However, despite Escher's best efforts, the A.N. decide to surrender to Bison. They send in a delegate via plane to Bison with the treaties, so Bison removes the windstorm he has surrounding the city. When he does this, Chun-Li and the Warrior King launch a surprise attack.



The Warrior King manages to get the orb, but Bison hits him with an energy blast, causing him to drop it. It falls into another portal, and Chun-Li tells him to go after it -without the orb, his world is doomed. The Warrior King tells her that the chronicles will record the tale of the champion of the Warrior King, and her beauty and bravery. He jumps in as Bison blasts him in the back, but then A.N. jets start bombing the place, forcing the bad guys to run off. Guile's team arrives with some tanks, but the battle is already over. Ken sees the destruction and tells Chun-Li it looks like she's been working some major frustrations here -does she need a boyfriend? She tells him she already has one... she hopes to meet him someday.



Notes

-This episode was first broadcast almost a full month after the previous one. It was the only new episode to originally air in the month of January 1997.

-This episode also introduces the Warrior King, an original character who would appear in several other cartoons being aired on the USA Network's Action Extreme Team programming block. The Warrior King would next appear in in "Endgame" of The Savage Dragon, then in "Resurrection" of Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and then in "Recreation" of Wing Commander. His story has a largely tragic ending in Wing Commander as he ends up stuck in the that universe, giving up the orb and revealing that his own world was destroyed centuries a go. The Warrior King was voiced by Michael Dorn in all of his appearances, aside from in the Mortal Kombat cartoon as the character does not speak in that.

-At the start of the episode, the wizards attacking the castle are armed with staffs that look exactly the same as the ones used by the Priest character featured in the game Magic Sword, which was released by Capcom in 1990. In that game, you play as a Barbarian who is on a quest to destroy an orb of power -a possible influence for the Warrior King character, who knows.

-Kampfer appears to be a made-up state, as far as I can tell. The word "Kampfer" means "Warrior" in German, but the city clearly isn't meant to be in Germany.

-The animators seemingly went out of their way to make Bison look as awful as possible in certain shots -check here for details.

-Some fans wonder if the dress Chun-Li wears in this episode inspired her first alternate costume in Street Fighter IV... you be the judge.

-In "The Strongest Woman in the World", Chun-Li actually said "fireball" whenever she used her projectile. For the past few episodes, she said nothing or grunted when using it. In this episode, she finally says "kikouken", like in the games.

-This episode is the only one to show Escher doing something other than working for the Street Fighter organization, as he apparently works for the A.N. too.

-At one point, Chun-Li uses an air version of her lightning kick against Bison, which resembles a new move she had in X-Men Vs. Street Fighter. This is the only new move that came from that game to make it into this series.



Errors

-When the portal is activated, the Warrior King's pants are skin colored instead of red during this shot. This happens a couple more times throughout the opening scene.
-The orb of power is absolutely huge in this shot -the Warrior King has to hold it with both hands.
-When the Warrior King jump kicks the guy off his dragon, he's not holding the orb. He had it when he was jumping up, and he has it again when he lands.
-When the Warrior King does land, he seemingly lands on thin air!
-Sagat does not have his chest scar all of a sudden -this seems to be a deliberate design change, as he consistently doesn't have it for the entire episode.
-The shot of the Prince walking forward does not make any sense. He gets bigger and bigger, but the people in front of him don't, making him look like he's becoming a giant.
-When Bison first uses the orb, during this shot, the energy beams it emits do not quite stretch far enough to the right of the shot for a second or so.
-As Bison puts the orb down, it goes through a remote. The remote than vanishes.
-Sagat and Zangief both take their hoods down, but when Bison says "there will be plenty to eat and drink", their hoods are suddenly back up again.
-When Chun-Li contacts Escher, the background behind her changes from day to night between shots. When she says "nice to that monster", it's daytime again.
-The first time Chun-Li uses her kikouken, her mouth can be seen moving, but she doesn't say anything.
-Bison's arms are skin colored during this shot.
-When the Warrior King and Chun-Li start smashing up the spikes, Chun-Li suddenly has this weapon. It looks like the same weapon the Warrior King has, but colored differently. It appears this was meant to be a spike, because that's what she's seen with a few seconds later.
-During this shot, only Ryu's screen is actually on, Ken and Guile's are blank.
-Throughout the episode, keep looking at Ken and Ryu's gloves. Sometimes, they aren't gloves, they're just wrist bands that don't cover their fists.
-When the Street Fighters eject from their plane, the camera acts oddly. First it focuses on Guile, then Ken... then back to where Guile was, instead of Ryu.
-Ken's gloves are missing when he's seen running towards the city.
-When Chun-Li runs through some smoke, she's drawn as if she's wearing her usual outfit, instead of her ball dress.
-During this shot, Chun-Li's legs are colored light brown instead of red.
-Chun-Li has ring-shaped earrings during this shot only.
-The one hadouken Ken uses appears to use unfinished animation. It's black when he charges it up, and then when he throws it out, it vanishes. Then when it cuts to a shot of it hitting the wall, it's colored green instead of blue.
-Chun-Li's wrist bracelets are missing during this shot, but are immediately back during the next shot.
-When Chun-Li says "nor I mine", watch her hands -she puts them up and down three times, using the same animation. Her wrist bracelets are also missing during this shot.
-During this shot, the Warrior King's mouth can be seen moving, but he says nothing.
-Chun-li's wrist bracelets are missing again when she uses her air lightning kick against Bison.
-How nice of the A.N. to consider Chun-Li's safety -they start bombing the place without any concern for her!

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