I’m in the middle of a major letdown. And it is my own fault. And I will be hated for it. I was super excited to be getting S.H. Figuarts Street Fighter action figures. I needed some 6-inch Street Fighter action figures, and I did get some. But oddly, I wanted something else.
Bandai announced that they would be releasing Street Fighter action figures last year, starting with two of the core chracters: Ryu and Chun-Li. The initial pics were fantastic, and I somehow got it into my head that these would be along the scale lines of the anime properties like Lupin, One Piece, and Dragonball Z. But they aren’t really. And they aren’t Marvel Legends scaled, either. They are their own thing.
And they should be. They are their own property and they should be unique to that property. Bandai did this right. The figures are beautiful 6-inch action figures, topped with a ton articulation. They are hand candy for the collector in the same way the joystick was hand candy for the gamer. As my initial shock and disappointment wears off, I begin to love these figures more and more with each passing minute.
I’m starting this set of reviews with Chun-Li, I thought about leading with Ryu, but Chun-Li is a wonderful figure and needs to be pushed to the front of the line. She stands somewhere in between standard anime S.H. Figuarts and the new standard Marvel Legends female buck (Hawkeye, Silk, Spider-Bitch, Phoenix, Invisible Woman). I actually like her scale quite a bit: tall but not too tall, imposing but not overly imposing. She pops/stands out on the shelf.
The sculpt is well done. I’m terrible with spotting which exact game version she represents, but the box says Street Fighter V, and I have to assume that she matches that game build. Let’s examine. This is the same costume from Street Fighter II, but the character art is thicker through the waist/hips/thighs in and that is what this figure looks like — large muscular thighs and butt. She’s also top heavy, a large difference between II and V. Bandai captures this look perfectly, and the more I gaze at her and pose her, the more she grows on me. (Rereading that sentence, really creepy).
Chun-Li is packed with articulation. The one thing that I was hoping was that she would be packed with some great S.H. Figuarts articulation, and she is. And it looks like there are some improvements in the articulation design. The arms, shoulders, neck, head, chest, and waist all seem the same. Ball hinges, hinges, swivels, double balls — this is all standard fodder for S.H. Figuarts. Even the ankles and the knees have the usual ball hinges. But the thighs have some “new.”
Or kinda new. I’m afraid to take them apart, but there is a new piece at the underside of the crotch that covers the ball joint and the cavity that is usually prevalent there. This also seems to function like a t-crotch with the ball for the hip poking out of it. Then there is the cover for the ball joint on the thigh and then the thigh covers that where it swivels. It seems to be a complex design and required some serious engineering. The result is clear: the hip joints are nice and solid and do not flop. Perfect for one-legged poses.
Chun-Li comes with extra hands, faces, power-up accessories, a base for the power up, and a backdrop. The backdrop is two pieces of printed cardstock that look like a game background. Cool, but I’m not really interested. The extra hands are always great for additional poses and looks. The power up looks great, but it falls apart if I look at it. Part of me wants to glue most of it together, but it’ll just wind up in a zip-lock and be stored. The heads are great, but I’m missing the smiling excited face.
Now that I’ve had time to play with the action figure, take some pictures of it, and write some thoughts down, my letdown has turned into a rash of excitement. Chun-Li is a solid action figure and full of some serious promise. She has a decent scale and is a good addition to my shelves, either standalone or as part of the S.H. Figuarts collection. I can recommend her, but I would caution any collector buying her to fit into any pre-existing collection: she won’t fit and really needs to be allowed to stand on her own. You can pick her up here:
