The Virtua Fighter manga

Cleaning out some of my old junk and uncovered a copy of one of the Virtua Fighter manga which was produced during the VF2 era. This copy will shortly be on its way to the hands of another Virtua Fighter fan.



There were at least 2 volumes of these produced, and as far as I know each one is a self contained story.

They were drawn by Yoshihide Fujiwara, who also drew the manga Kenji. This is significant because Kenji was a huge influence on Yu Suzuki and the development of Virtua Fighter, as well as the spread of Chinese martial arts in Japan. In fact, a bunch of Akira's signature moves are prominently featured in Kenji, so for the author to do the Virtua Fighter manga is like coming full circle.

The Virtua Fighter manga unfortunately isn't as well done as the manga for Kenji. It seems to have been done on a tight deadline as the art and writing never manages to reach the same quality as in Kenji. The story in this one revolves around Akira advancing through the world martial arts tournament and uncovering a secret ploy by Dural. A fun read, with some of the usual manga/anime tropes, but it is what you'd expect from a fighting game story.

The back of the book has a bunch of short cute style comics strips.

Apologies for the low quality photos. I no longer have a working scanner.

Hurrhurr he fell into her chest.

Kage tries to do his stomp on a standing Akira. From a building.


Lau beats the crap out of Pai


A couple of chapters feature fights aboard a moving train. This could have been a cool stage in the game.


Ringouts!


Right before Dural, Akira has to fight this huge Chinese guy with a helmet.


Cosplaying Dural.


VF Kids!


Virtua Fighter 2 cast.

 

Wow! I've heard about the VF manga, but never read it before. Cool.
Hey, I see the Virtua Fighter kids manga there too. Cool!

 

Here's a translated version of the VF Kids manga: https://2am-rgb.tumblr.com/post/133746814768/fightersmegamix-in-celebration-of-two#notes

 

Nope. Different story from the anime as far as I know. Eva Durix and other anime only characters like Yang Weimin don't appear, at least in the volume I had.