Street Fighter Swimsuit Special #1 Review: Interesting

“Sports Illustrated” is the world’s best-selling sports magazine. One of its most famous and best-selling issues is its swimsuit issues. “Udon Comics” decided to take this idea with the world’s best-selling fighting game franchise “Street Fighter” in order to create its first issue of “Street Fighter Swimsuit Special.” Some people reading that will say, “that sounds like a dumb idea.” In a way, yes, but the end result is actually well done.

As something that’s trying to copy “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit specials, the pages do look like something you’d see in that magazine. Although the poses are not as sexual as in SI, these are more “in the moment” kind of photos.

The who’s who of “Street Fighter” females are on full display. There’s Chun-li (Rob “Robaato” Porter,) Rose (Hanzo Steinbach,) Juri (Xa,) Maki (Gisele Lagace,) Juli and Juni (Long Vo,) Laura (Vincenzo Cucca,) and many others. The ones that stand out are Chun-li, Juli and Juni, and R. Mika. The best overall ones are Laura (looks exactly like a photo you’d see in “Sports illustrated”) and Makoto (Derek Laufman) because it’s Guile, E. Honda, Dhalsim ogling Laura as Makoto looks on in envy. It’s hilarious, and the cartoony look fits the mood of the scene perfectly.

One of the weirder ones is Poison (Ecchi-Star.) Her hips look way too small to be normal, and making them toned seems a bit off putting. Hugo playing beach ball and wearing a duck floatie in the background is hilarious, though.

Of course, there are two pages for the ladies. There’re Vega and Ryu (both by Oskar Vega.) Vega is an obvious choice since his entire persona is that he’s a pretty boy. Ryu, on the other hand, isn’t really the posing for the ladies type and this picture is more along the lines of the uncanny valley. The only real reason is that Ryu is the face of “Street Fighter.” That position is more suitable for Ken.

There is a group shot by Dax Gordine with colors by Josh Perez. It’s another one that has a cartoony look which is fine for what’s happening in the scene. Dan Hibiki making a sand castle and Gil buried under the sand that’s shaped like a mermaid are hilarious.

In all, it does the job well of copying “Sports Illustrated” style. There’s plenty of great art here with characters not just posing but doing stuff. Hardcore fans may get a kick out of it which is most likely what Udon was going for.