Today’s Comic> Street Fighter Vs Rival Schools [FCBD]

“Ken and Ryu aren’t going to get mad at us doing their pose, are they?”

Street Fighter Vs Rival Schools #1

UDON Entertainment (May, 2025)

WRITER: David Lumsdon

“Deadly Lessons!”

ARTIST: Tovio Rogers

LETTERER: Marshall Dillon

“A Shot At Freedom”

ARTIST: Royce Southerland

At the time I did the X-Twitter reviews I had no idea what Rival Schools was. Apparently it’s a fighting game set in the Street Fighter universe, using best girl Sakura as one of the fighters and friends with two of the good guys in this story. Taking place in Aohura City, we start with Edge and Gan of Gedo High, the former upset that their school’s rep is down since Batsui of Taiyo High kicked his butt. They come across Dan Hibiki and Blanka, starving in an alley. After tricking Blanka into thinking they’re the victims of bullies from the other school and beating down Dan when Blanka isn’t around, they use him to go after all the schools. Batsui and one of Sakura’s friends from Taiyo, Hinata, go to confront the “monster” but Sakura shows up to stop the fight and expose the liars…who get a beating from Blanka and a returning Dan.

What they got right: Nice that Dan finally got to beat someone up. It was a couple of high schoolers and he still needed help from Blanka, but that’s his luck. I got a good idea of each of the Rival Schools characters even though I never knew about the game. The fights and the comedy work together and it’s a really fun story.

What they got wrong: I never heard of the Rival Schools franchise. I didn’t even know it was a game, writing it off in my X-Twitter review as possibly one of Udon’s other titles. Maybe Street Fighter fans were already aware of this but I’m not as familiar with the series. I was better at Virtua Fighter and Soul Edge. Which isn’t saying much, mind you, and I only play Marvel Vs Capcom to team Iron Man and Mega Man. Fighting games are not my strong suit. As for the story, my only issue is Blanka attacking high schoolers. Yes, the fighters in the schools of this city are tough fighters, but hardly in Blanka’s class as we see in the story. Blanka’s picking on kids, even if he does falsely believe them to be bullies.

In the back-up story, Interpol calls in Kyoko Miazuki, a school nurse from Justice High School in the Rival Schools games to treat a very special patient: Chun-Li, who hates getting shots that much, even a simple vitamin shot to the butt. (Lucky needle.) It’s silly but in a good way.

What I thin overall: If I ever get regular income I want to get all the Udon Studios Street Fighter comics I can, though I do also have space issues. (I’m trying to sell off old comics over at The Clutter Reports for a reason.) I love getting their Street Fighter comics every Free Comic Book Day and now I have another series to check out apparently.