The King of Fighters: Another Day is a short five minutes each four part ONA anime series that was produced by Production I.G. and directed by Masaki Tachibana as extras to the KOF: Maximum Impact fighting game release from SNK back in 2005.
The four short stories all revolve around a single plot with an unknown devastating fire breaking out in Southtown and four separate groups getting caught up in it.
The first episode has Soiree Meira trying to lead the rescue operation in the midst of the affected area, before being drawn into a fight with Iori Yagami. The second episode has Rock Howard being drawn to a battle between Lien Neville and the assassin Billy Kane, before jumping in to try and save Billy Kane who get tossed over the edge of Geese Tower. The third episode features K’ and Maxima attempting to extract information on the kidnapped scientist Makishima, but their hacking attempts are detected and leads to a scuffle onboard a underground tram with Leona, Ralf and Clark.
Finally, the fourth episode ties all the events of the first three episodes together, reveals Ash Crimson and then gives us a fight between Kyo Kusanagi and Alba Meira. Nice.
Because of the extreme short length of the episodes, there isn’t much all to say about the story, but the way they are interlinked is well done and for fans of the fighting game series, it is pretty cool to see some of your favourite KOF characters get some proper screen time.
Other than that, this really is a showcase for the artists, as we get treated to some fantastic and detailed artwork, with smooth animation and great fight choreography, which means that all in all, King of Fighters: Another Day looks pretty darn good.
Oh, and it sounds pretty cool too.
Should you bother tracking it down then? No, not really. It is too short to make it worthwhile picking up, and paying for it is a definite silly thing to do, but if you do stumble across them lying around on the Net or on a friend’s hard drive, they are most certainly worth a watch if you are a KOF fan! If not, well then I guess you can safely give them a skip.
Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Fighters_Another_Day