This week's comic is based on the famous arcade fighting franchises, Street Fighter by Capcom and King of Fighters by SNK.

Since Sakura's first appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 2 back in 1996, she's always worn her school uniform in battle and is always depicted as a high school attendee. She's become a rather popular character over the years and has appeared in not only the most recently released Street Fighter 4 arcade game, but has made cameo appearances in other franchises. Though I don't think it's ever clear how much time is supposed to have passed between Street Fighter games, it's hard to believe that the time span between Alpha 2 and the fourth game would be less than three years. o_< Shouldn't she have graduated by now?

A friend and I liked comparing Kyo Kusanagi of the King of Fighter series with Sakura because like her, he attended high school at the time of his first appearance, but since then, has moved on, and even changed his wardrobe twice. The aspect of time progression and change is one of the things I really like about King of Fighters. I can't help to feel that Street Fighter in comparison feels a little weak on the story side since the characters never strive for anything different and there never seems to be any major story changing events. Chun-li is still trying to avenge her father, Guile is still trying to avenge Nash, Ryu is still wandering to become a better warrior. They're the same stories as what were introduced all the way back in Street Fighter 2 in 1991.

I think over the years, I've developed a kind of bias against Street Fighter. I used to love it long ago when Street Fighter Alpha 2 came out, but I think I've just gotten so tired of the characters, especially Ryu and Chun-li. Whenever Capcom made a mixed franchise fighting game, the rosters almost always felt like a "Street Fighter vs XXX" instead of a "Capcom vs XXX" title. They have so many characters and series so why not pull from their huge pool of diverse characters? I'm really glad to see them doing it more for the recently released Marvel vs Capcom 3, but I think it's already too late for me since Capcom doesn't seem to have any continuing franchises left that interest me.

I remember a few years back when I felt so frustrated because Capcom seemed to put so much money into the Street Fighter franchise, but not so much into Megaman or Breath of Fire! I know there were a numerous TV seasons of Megaman Battle Network, but I really wanted a series based on Classic Megaman or more Megaman Legends stuff! >.< Though I hear Megaman Battle Network is an awesome series, I can't help to feel that its main purpose was to be a tool for Capcom to cash in on the collect-cards/monsters-and-battle craze that went viral in the mid-late '90's. '_'