Battle Arena Toshinden Reviews

Yet another animated version of a popular video game, BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN offers exciting action, expert animation, and interesting character design. But this tale of a criminal operation pursuing martial artists in order to to absorb their skills for an army of super soldiers suffers from a convoluted plot and too many characters. The clandestine criminal group "The Organization" embarks on the Man-Machine Project to create an army of super soldiers. It sends its best fighter, Chaos (voice of Chris Yates), out to confront the Toshinden Warriors--nine martial artists who fight in a secret tournament every year--in order to gather data on their moves and program them into its machine soldiers. One of the Toshinden group, Eiji (voice of Ted Lewis), is shocked to learn that his missing brother Sho (voice of Chris Yates) has been programmed by The Organization's leader, Lady Uranus (voice of Emma Rayda), to seek out and attack the Toshinden Warriors. Eiji teams up with his regular opponent, Kayin (voice of Hideo Seaver), to find The Organization's hideout and fend off attacks from Chaos and Sho. Sofia (voice of Debbie Rabbai), a warrior who was once abducted and controlled by Lady Uranus, recalls the location of The Organization's headquarters. She leads the Toshinden Warriors on a raid to stop production of Lady Uranus's army of androids, programmed with martial arts skills. They are joined by Fo, Mondo, Rungo, Duke, Gaia, and the persistent, curious female cop Tracy (voice of Apollo Smile). In the final battle, Eiji beats Chaos by having everyone use other warriors' moves in order to confuse his programing. The trick works and they vanquish Chaos. Lady Uranus escapes, but Sho emerges free of the organization's programming. BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN's animation is expertly done and offers sufficient action to please the largely adolescent audience which follows the games on which so many anime features are based. However, the film fails to condense the large cast of video game characters into a manageable grouping, or to incorporate them into a cohesive narrative in the way that the Japanese film adaptations of STREET FIGHTER II (like 1994's STREET FIGHTER II: THE ANIMATED MOVIE) did. It also lacks the spectacle of most other Japanese animated video game adaptations, such as FATAL FURY: THE MOTION PICTURE (1994), from Masami Ohbari, the director of TOSHINDEN. At some point, the characters simply overwhelm the already brief story line. (Violence.)