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Series:
1,
Street Fighter Craftsmanship:
9.5 / 10 -
Very detailed -
Captures the likeness of Ryu -
Alternative hands and head -
Very poseable Playability: 9.5 / 10 -
Lots of articulation -
Accessories are easy to lose - Can pose in any signature move!
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Ryu (Street Fighter)by SOTA Toys
“I’m
not strong, that’s why I fight. I fight myself, against myself…” -
Ryu
(Street Fighter Alpha anime movie)
Ryu is by far my favorite videogame character and second favorite anime character of all time. He’s just so damn cool. He’s the heart of the Street Fighter games. In fact, any game that includes Street Fighter characters, Ryu will always be one of them. Unlike his best friend and sometimes rival “Ken Masters”, Ryu doesn’t live an ordinary life. He wanders around the world challenging talented fighters in order to perfect his own skills. He has no earthly attachments and that really shows how devoted he is to mastering the martial arts and becoming a true warrior. Now to stop babbling about his coolness and to get on with the damn review!
Ryu stands approximately 6” tall. The height is something SOTA took into consideration when making the Street Fighter toy line because they wanted collectors to be able to pair up Street Fighter and Marvel Legends figures. By doing so, recreations from their favorite matches could be captured from the hit videogame, Marvel vs. Capcom. Ryu has around 32 points of articulation. The articulation is located all over his body for maximum posing possibilities. The joints are really stiff which I find good because he stays in all his poses. When you make Ryu pose into one of his signatures moves, you will have to play around with the joints a bit to find the right balance. As most of AE’s readers know, I hate articulation. It’s just so damn ugly to me and makes the figures less appealing. However, this is different. Sure you might think I’m being biased because this is Ryu we’re talking about, but when I look at all the detail put into Ryu’s face, muscles and especially the clothing, I realize that the somewhat highly visible articulation is a small price to pay. Especially because it makes Ryu look like he’s pulling off special moves from the game.
I own other figures of Ryu and I must admit that I wasn’t very impressed with some of the preview pictures for SOTA’s version. When I got my Ryu in the mail a little while back, I was in a state of shock. SOTA did a fantastic job with Ryu! In fact, the best I’ve ever seen. The figure obviously wasn’t based on the Street Fighter Alpha version of Ryu , but rather more like the Street Fighter II and the Street Fighter III version. The biggest giveaway, besides the huge hands and feet, is that he wears his red headband which was given to him by his best friend Ken Masters. In the Alpha games Ryu sports a white headband. I can’t help but wonder how badass a Ryu figure based on the popular Street Fighter Udon comics would look.
The craftsmanship of this figure is absolutely fantastic. Some of the best work I’ve ever seen. He is, literally, detailed from head to toe. (Even the toe nails look realistic). There is a lot of muscle definition shown in the biceps and chest area. There are even visible veins located on Ryu. The only problem I have is that the chest shows a little too much detail.
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Ripples on the chest look good and all, but the amount of ripples is a bit excessive. The alternate head that comes with Ryu looks really bad. It’s a screaming face of Ryu that looks really pissed off and probably yelling out an attack but it doesn’t really look like him at all. I don’t really mind though because I prefer the default head anyways. The calm look on the default head suits his character more.
The paint application done on Ryu is very good. The hair color is an accurate dark brown and the gloves are painted red like in Street Fighter III. The karate gi is a simple white but Sota added |
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some strokes of light blue in the folds to give it more depth. The headband and gloves would’ve looked nicer with a lighter shade of red. There’s some kanji located on his black belt, but the kanji is black and hardly visible.
Ryu
comes with a pair of alternative hands with opened fingers, the awful
alternative head and his carrying bag. I love the idea of including the
carrying bag in the package because it reminds me of the Street Fighter
II anime movie where Ryu constantly had it with him. With all the points of articulation, how well can Ryu replicate his special moves from the games? The shoryuken is the easiest move for him to pose in and it also looks the best. This should get fans of Ken Masters excited because the shoryuken is Ken’s strongest move and the Ken figure is scheduled to ship in January. When you position Ryu in the shoryuken, you will have to play around with his legs a little bit to give him balance. I like to put the carrying bag into Ryu’s chambered hand which gives the illusion that he’s dropping the bag while he’s preparing to jump off the ground and deliver that awesome dragon punch to Bison’s ugly face.
The tatsumaki senpu kyaku (whirlwind hurricane kick) is definitely easy to position Ryu in, but he can’t balance on one leg due to weight. If you have one of those special clear stands to help Ryu support himself it would look very nice, but without one it’s just impossible. This has nothing to do with SOTA’s craftsmanship. They take no blame in this; after all, how many figures do you have that can balance on one foot while supporting the rest of the body?
Finally,
we have the ever so famous hadouken (fireball). Positioning for the
hadouken will require twisting Ryu’s waste/hip area and repositioning
the legs into a front stance. For the hands you should obviously use the
alternative open fingered pair of hands that make it look like he’s
going to summon up his chi into one massive energy ball. Positioning the
arms is the hardest part and you can never align the top and bottom arms
properly so it looks kind of awkward from the front view. It looks a lot
better from the side however, so this shouldn’t be too troublesome.
Overall, I have to say that SOTA is doing a superb job with the Street Fighter franchise. I just wish that SOTA would release the rest of the crew from the Final Fight team (Sodom is out now). Sadly, Guy just barely missed making it into series 3.
Street Fighter fans, I’m telling you right now! Get your wallet ready and buy these figures right away! Heck, go out and support Udon by buying their Street Fighter comics while you’re at it! You have nothing to lose here. There’s a lot of Street Fighter goodies going around so don’t miss this great opportunity.
- J’Tonello (December 24, 2004) |
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