Udon Street Fighter Comics Street Fighter Legends Sakura # 4

By Mark Rodriguez

After helping Rainbow Mika defeat Zangief in a wrestling match, Sakura Kasugano gets a challenge from her arch rival Karin Kanzuki, in anything she wants. Sakura goes for a hot dog eating contest, and Karin agrees in exchange for her next challenge to be at the format and time she chooses. Honda holds the contest and Sakura's friends notice that Karin was cheating by feeding all her hot dogs to her butler hidden under the table. Sakura, having stuffed herself silly, is in no condition to fight, so Karin declares that NOW is the time for her challenge and dashes at her with several men by her side.

Sakura already considers this to be a losing battle and prepares to go down fighting. Suddenly, Karin gets bashed in the face by a volleyball. Sakura's friends aren't gonna take this sitting down, and Karin angrily sends her men after them instead. Natsu and Hinata do their tag team move, and the volleyball gal takes most of the men down with her Volleyball Armageddon. Shoma scares the rest away with his bat and they run. One of the men is about to attack him from behind, but Kei trips him and he falls on his face. Kei hates getting involved in fights, but is happy the fight is even now and tells Sakura to kick Karin's ass.

Sakura asks Karin if she's still up to the fight now that her men are down, and the rich schoolgirl is ready to fight. Sakura blocks a jumpkick from her rival, and Karin says she'll never win since she's too busy trying to keep her lunch to focus on the fight. Sakura is way too slow and Karin easily dodges all her moves. Then the snobby schoolgirl catches her first and kicks her in the gut, followed by two palm strikes, also to the stomach, sending Sakura to her knees.

Karin says the fight is over and Sakura mentions a new technique she's been working on and was hoping to show to Ryu the next time they saw each other. Karin turns just in time to get smashed by Sakura's Shinkuu Hadouken. Sakura then loses her lunch.... while using Hinata's backpack. Karin gets back up and is ready to continue, but Honda has announced the victor of the hot dog eating competition. The trophy goes to.... Karin's butler Ishizaki for eating more hot dogs than both Sakura and Kain combined. Karin looks like she's gonna scream again, but decides to let Ishizaki enjoy his victory and head home, leaving the fight for another day.

Hinata and Kei are surprised that Karin actually acted nice for a change, but Sakura feels bad for losing a fight she started. Honda says it's nothing to be ashamed of, losing fights only serve to push you to improve yourself, and he mentions how he pushed himself after losing a fight to Vega. Sakura takes his words to heart and strives to continue her dream to be an awesome Street Fighter.

The next day, Dan is missing from his hospital bed again. Sakura is riding her bike towards her house and runs into Dan, eager for a rematch, claiming to not having shown her his full power last time. Sakura agrees and Dan flies in with his Dankyu-Kyaku.... which she knocks back with his standard high kick. Dan commends her on her attack and tries to punch her, but she kicks the back of his head with her Flower Kick. Sakura thanks him for the workout and starts to head off.

Dan is then overcome with rage and is overcome 'with the power of the Dark Hadou' and charges at her with the Shun Goku Satsu... but trips over her backpack. Sakura decides to take what Ryu said about learning from other fighters and put it into practice. She decides to use Rainbow Mika's spontaneity, Zangief's power, Karin's relentlessness, Honda's perseverance and even Dan's unpredictability.... and defeats Dan with her Midare Zakura Super Combo.

Dan gets back up and brags that anything Sakura hit him with was because he let her hit him as part of his technique. He then charges into Sakura... and everyone watching is shocked at the beating he receives at the hands of Sakura.

The next day, Sakura and Ryu are cyber-chatting again and the World Warrior is happy to know his words helped her out. Sakura types out that there is something that can be learned from all fighters... even the bad ones. Dan, with several casts on his hospital bed, says he decided to make Sakura his pupil and someday she will be 'as great as him'. Sakura says it sounds like fun.

My Opinions:

It was a fun read and good ride. This story was basically a 'week in the life' of Sakura as she continues her journey to becoming the fighter she'd become in the Street Fighter 4 series. She got to watch (and take part) in a Rainbow Mika wrestling match, she got the inevitable match against Karin, and hung out with the Rival Schools cast, all while Dan tried to find her for a rematch while running into trouble. Along the way she learned a few things and managed to show off her Shinkuu Hadouken and also try out her Midare Zakure attack (I assume for the first time).

It was fun and entertaining and funny. It also brought be back to the days when the Alpha series was still fresh in the minds of the fans. And for fans of Rival Schools we got to see a few of the characters and hey, there was even a Gem Fighter reference last issue.

Karin's plan to trick Sakura into a fight when she just finished chowing down on 40 hot dogs was cheating, but it was perfect and really put our girl in a tight spot. I read the fan letters and one of them even asked why they chose to make Karin into such a brat. Even though the guy admits he exaggerated a bit, I really don't think they were that far off. Karin is extremely sure of herself and is used to getting when she wants so I do imagine a hissy fit whenever things don't go her way. She did act downright villainous in the last issue but here we saw a glimpse of niceness towards her butler showing that deep down she really does appreciate how devoted he is to her. I don't think she acted as extreme in the game, but then again there is only so much you can work with with a few lines of pre-fight dialogue and an ending when she sends her own Kanzuki satellite to blow up Bison's Psycho Drive. Yikes!

Karin actually came from a manga series called Sakura Ganbare! and I guess they did such a good job with her character, they decided to actually put her in Alpha 3. She might have been portrayed just as extreme in the manga. UDON eventually did re-release almost every Street Fighter manga out there, translated into English of course, as well as their American comic series, so who knows? I might snag a volume.

This panel also surprised me. I wasn't expecting to see anime fanservice in an American comic, but I guess Udon could slip that in there since that is an actual move she does in the games.