Akuma Cameo In "Street Fighter II V" VS. His Guest Role In "Street Fighter" American Cartoon

 I've concluded my Street Fighter II V review. I remember having an issue with Akuma being just a cameo when the guy carried a threat in the lore. I overlooked the production timeline. Street Fighter II V may have begun production sometime in 1994. Super Street Fighter II Turbo was released on February 23, 1994, on the arcades. He was meant to be that tough challenge if you manage to win with ZERO CONTINUES, achieve a high score or reach the final battle in LESSTHAN 25 MINUTES (SUPER TOUGH), and he becomes that incredibly absurd gimmick character. 

Akuma never had a storyline until the Street Fighter Alpha series. The first two Street Fighter Alpha games didn't give us a true final boss -- it was final opponent, depending on who you played as. In fact, the first Street Fighter Alpha game had Ryu's final opponent as Sagat. Street Fighter Alpha 2 had Ryu facing off against Akuma as his final opponent -- giving Ryu a messy ending instead of the standard good one. But those games came sometime AFTER Street Fighter II V concluded.

Instead, Street Fighter II V worked around Akuma cameos that had no dialogue whatsoever. He was just a random gimmick -- a nod to what he TRULY WAS back then. Akuma was but a gimmick that gave people the right to brag that they managed to reach this "fabled final boss" based on skill and mastering the game. Only a few people may have actually earned the right to fight Akuma. But even then, Akuma was so powerful that not many people may have defeated him.

The American cartoon had some lore to turn around. However, Akuma in the series becomes a chi-stealing, mustachioed, twirling villain of the week. He showed up in episode 13 of the first season aired on February 3, 1996. The next episode to feature Akuma was in the second season, episode 4 of season 2 that aired on October 12th, 1996. I think these episodes were most likely done to promote Akuma. However, by Season 2, the American studio may have been scrambling over royalty issues which caused several episodes to have incredible gaps in between that year.

So far, it's a shame that Street Fighter II V had to be cut short in 29 episodes. I mean, I could've imagined if Group TAC managed to give Akuma his backstory and treat the cameo in the same way as Sharivan had a bald dude stalker. Toei was able to do something with the bald guy stalker, from first making him a random joke to secretly being a threat to BTS. Instead, that 29-episode bottleneck prevented Group TAC from actually giving Akuma their own OG backstory that the game canon could just ignore. 

IMHO, I felt Akuma could've been added as the penultimate boss of Street Fighter II V. Instead, because of the whole ratings problem -- Akuma remained a CAMEO. But it's still way more merciful than the American cartoon!