A prequel of the prequel of the Fatal Fury movie that was released in 1994, Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf is a 45-minute OVA that provides crucial character information and development for people that view the Fatal Fury movie later on in the timeline... or so I hoped. This OVA is completely standalone and has no links whatsoever to the movie other than the names of the characters.

However, I didn't watch this lame OVA for the character development, I watched it because I force myself to watch anything and everything created by the one and only Obari Masami. Though not directed - only drawn and animated - by Obari Masami, one can easily tell that the black hole that one might call his talent has sucked away the talent of all of those around him. For those of you who haven't seen his other works like Virus Buster Serge, Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, Battle Arena Toshinden, Gravion, and so many other clunkers, I'll describe what his anime is like. His anime is shallow, meaningless, ugly, and just awful.

Surprisingly, I actually was rather disappointed to discover that the character designs in this OVA episode are actually pretty decent. Instead of looking like they're anorexic, all of the characters are well built and somehow interesting to look at as well. Unfortunately, there's only so much that artwork can do for an anime (just look at Kai Doh Maru). So many other aspects of an anime need far more attention than character and environment designs, but did all of those other things get the attention they needed?

Well, as you can see by the rating I gave Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf, none of the other aspects of this anime even came close to being well done. I was actually rather pleased by the first ten minutes or so of the OVA, but after that it quickly went downhill at a rate I've never seen before. It all starts when the ridiculously forced romance subplot kicks in and doesn't stop going downhill until the credits stop rolling. In fact, I was so impressed before it started going sour that I was actually thinking to myself, "Hey, this isn't that bad. Looks like it could break 3.5."

I was pretty much smacking my head in every scene after the story got going. The first thing that made me realize this movie was going to be bad was when the romance subplot starts. The female lead, who for some reason wears the same nightgown every single day, is taking care of some children that I can only assume live on the streets. Terry comes up to her all sweet-like and the woman becomes frightened and tries to get all of the kids away from him, then has a change of heart and practically hits on Terry for no apparent reason.

Another thing that really disappointed me was that for an anime based on a fighting game, there was almost no fighting whatsoever in this anime. By some ironic twist of fate, the action scene that lasts the longest is the one in the prologue, and that one involves a guy that can't even move. From then on, the action, despite being the entire focus of the OVA (it's a fighting tournament, for pete's sake!), becomes entirely secondary to the misshapen story that is developed by its sadistic creators.

It would at least have been nice to watch the awful plot continue had the dialogue been well-written, but alas, I could not be granted even that wish. Lines such as "If sorry could solve everything, we wouldn't need the police." are tossed around without a care in the world. Some of the dialogue is so badly written that it actually creates a pseudo-plot hole. For example, one of the "bad guys", despite having never seen Terry before, constantly spouts out lines like "Where have I seen him before?" and "I knew I'd seen him before!" (though his lines weren't quite as grammatically correct as mine). All of the other lines are pretty much just things like "Haaaaaaaa" when they're fighting and "I'll get you/him for killing my father!".

The only redeeming factor for Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf is that it at least explains the origins of some of the characters and who they are, which at least helps people know the characters a bit before diving into the movie head first. Of course, the little development the characters receive still doesn't explain any of the actions in the movie, and it doesn't make the story of the movie any better. But hey, at least now we know their names.