NINA WILLIAMS

 When i think on Tekken and female characters, the very first image i have is surelly Nina Williams. She was the poster girl for Tekken, she was there from the very begining along side Michelle Chang, but unlike Michelle, Nina continue her career on Tekken, soo she was the very first option for a Bishoujo statue from Kotobukiya.

It took them a while tough to make her statue and Shunya Yamashita even redraw her illustration of Nina to give her a more dynamic pose. The result was a much more faithfull image compared to Nina´s original design and the illustration can be seen on the awesome round base that comes with the figure.

Nina is really beautifull, with a very young looking face like all Shunya Yamashita girls use to have (just like Jun), with silverish pink lips and strans of her hair moving around her face, this figure have a great sence of movement compared to Jun and JayCee.

Her costume is not my favorite but is the most used on the game: a weird mix between combat gear and containment fetish, very tigth and with lots of leather belts with no usefullnes all around her body. Really this makes me wonder how she put that outfit in the morning? Does someone help her dress?

The paint is clean cut, a mix of blue and purple that matchs really good to her blond hair and is really intense and vibrant, really cartoony or "anime".

The pose tough...that pose....while JayCee and Jun had a totally discrete and normal pose, Nina´s pose is hard to belive. She is jumping on one leg and turning her upper half around with her hands readdy to figth. I dunno...is amazing how she have her ass up while keeping the balance and how she can twist her spine....this must be really painfull.

And that pain kinda crash with her peacefull face expresion. Is pretty evident this pose was designed to highlight every asset of her body but this is one of the most extreme examples i ever seen on unatural body motion.

And despite this she really shines along her sister Anna.

JUN KAZAMA

My very first Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue wasnt JayCee or the Street Figther girls but it was Jun Kazama, my main character in Tekken 2 and Tag Tournament (one of my mains) and she did an awesome come back in Tekken Tag Tournament 2. She wasnt one of the very first figures from the Bishoujo series but she was one of the very first from my favorites.

She is actually the tallest of the Tekken women and one of the very few that is standing straigth. The pose is incrediblly simple but really beautifull with Jun walking while she turns her head, just enough movement to give her dinamism and make her look extra femenine.

Her face is beautifull tough not the face of a mature woman since she looks still pretty young even with the soft make up and light pink on her lips, here eyes are very expresive and even kind of wise and her short black hair have transparency on the tips, wich makes it catch the light pretty nicelly.

Now, while i have no problem with the pose at al i do have an issue with her outfit. For some odd reason, Shunya Yamashita decided to change her outfit and give her an swimsuit. Her pose is really elegant but her swimsuit is not soo much in my opinion....is white with the same shadow dove design her normal outfit have but to make everything more strange looking....she have her belt and shawl too and high heels...

I mean, if she is on the beach or close to a pool with her swimsuit, why the shawl, belt and high heels??? This is really awkard looking despite the elegant color scheme. I would have liked this much more if she had her normal costume with white pants and sandals, for me this change of design really ruin the figure.

Even if she is not my favorite of the serires, she is quiet expensive now....i saw her blasting really high numbers, specially on her box and i think she wasnt very comon of a statue back then. I just wish Kotobukiya had release her on her Unknown version.

JAY CEE

Jay Cee was one of the strangest additions to Tekken Tag Tournament 2. She was an old character refreshed with a new look and half a new fight style. I liked a lot her mixed combat system with wrestling and martial arts and she ended up being one of the characters i used the most in the game (more than Jin….).

My main objective was to get Lili statue but i hated her design a lot and i ended up getting Jey Cee. Shunya Yamashita design for Julia´s wrestler character ended up being incrediblly cool and well made.

The level o detail is quiet intrincate, with every detail on her mask and suit individually sculpted. The pain work is really good too with strong and vibrant pinks and blue colors. My favorite part is the feathers on her shoulders and her mask.

The mask is pretty awesome and her face is really pretty. While Nina and Jun eyes were mature and stoic and Anna looked like shes half an orgasm, Jay Cee eyes are brigth and inoccent, almost childish and her tongue is a really cute detail.

This is the first time i see this statues have accesoryes. Aside of the neat transparent base, she comes with an extra head with no mask and an empty mask to place on her hand. The head with no mask looks really nice. Her bangs are really transluscent and the empty mask on her hand is incrediblly well done and a detail most toy makers would forgett about.

The focal point is her ass, of couse, but her pose is really no sexual at all, like Nina and Anna that looks like they are twisting theyr body and inhuman ways. Jay Cee is just standing like she would after win a fight, playfull and proud. Her outfit is the same of the game as well, its not a sexualyzed re-imagination of it like Jun Swimsuit or Lili maid outfit. This statue is soppused to be herotic, yes, but is done more naturally than the rest.

She is one of the coolest girls of Tekken now, and she makes me twist in agony to think how would it be if they released a Miguel, King or Shaheen statues like this, designed by Shunya Yamashita. Posing as erotic as they can, in a tiny swimsuit and with theyr shirts open…

ALEX

 

One of the very first companys to produce videogame action figures, along Toy Biz, was ReSaurus back in the 90s. Sadly they dissapeare a few years later but they manage to produce some very impresive figures from Crash Bandicot, Meteoro and Street Fighter, a series based on the 2D art of Capcom.

I got Ryu, Cammy, Vega and Alex and i missed Ken and Blanka wich was a shame because Blanka was awesome. I kinda missplaced Vega´s mask soo didnt take pictures of him until i foind it but i will review Alex instead. Alex is....a pretty weird character, a pretty obscure one considering he was the main character in Street Fighter 3 in the end of the 90s. But then again, no one cared for SF 3 back then...

Soo for many years this was the only figure of Alex and he is HUGE, much more than Ryu or Cammy, tall and really heavy. He can stand perfectly tough he got the same logo base the rest of the figures got. He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, wrists, waist, legs and knes but despite this perfectly working articulations, he is mostly an statue capable of a couple of poses and no more.

And unlike Cammy, his pose is strong but kinda boring. The sculpt tough is really impresive, the big boots, the huge hands, the thing waist and giant back and shoulders and the rock solid muscles, this is a really good 3D representation of the artwork of SF3. Also the sculpt is very angular, wich gives him a more ripped look and both his hair and overall are made with soft plastic.

The paint is limited t his bandana, face, glvoes, boots and the marks on his shoulders and is pretty clean and perfect tugh he got a pretty bad problem with the skin color. He is cast on pretty dark plastic and i have no idea why they did this since on the game he is really pale. Also with the years, the plasic of his torso has been changing color and getting some weird yellow stains.

I dont know why the stains but aside of that his skin color is already wrong and that ruins a pretty good sculpt of a character that dosnt have too many figures to beging with. I guess ReSaurus wasnt as perfect as it looked. They release a second series with characters from Street Fighter Zero and 3 (Chun Li, Akuma, Sagat, Nash...) but i was never able to get them.

CAMMY

 

Last century was very different for Street Fighter, not only it was super popular but it didnt had the flood of merchadise we have for it. Now we got multiple companys mass producing Street Fighter figures; Storm, Figuarts, Prime1, Funk, Play Arts Kai, NECA....but back in the 90s there was only one company producing them: ReSaurus.

They were huge and cool and totally based on Capcoms 2D art wich makes them stad out from other figures (like Toy Biz). I got Ryu of course but i also got the only female of the first series of figures: Cammy.

Just like Ryu, Cammy is more like a statue than an action figure and she is even less articulated than Ryu: only her head, shoulders and legs can move but this lack of articulation means her body dosnt looks robotic or in sections, ReSaurus were more concerned about aesthetic than playability.

She can stand on her own perfectly, but still she comes with the same base the rest have: a big coin with the Street Fighter logo. The metal texture and golden paint along side the grafity logo felt very 90s....and also, like most Cammy figure, she is designed to give her back to the viewer or at least she does it in most promotional photos.

The scult is good, the pose is really simple but extremelly powerfull and her bent arm and hair adds some drama to the display. The musculature is pretty good looking and have a super hero comic style. She have more paint than Ryu tough since her swimsuit, camo, boots, gauntlets and face are all painted and her braids have some golden shadows to make them looks more natural too.

The paint is clean and they didnt forgot any detail since even the scar on her check is there. The eyes are huge, kinda anime looking but not soo much at the same time and for some reason the eyes are focused to different directions but is not that easy to notice, specially when she is on profile

This is the 2P version tough, with soft blue swimsuit and camo since the original version 1P is painted on green. That was rpetty cool from ReSaurus, to add a secondary color scheme for figure but not give them a crazy and akward color palette, just make a discrete variant.

Over the years theres lots of new Cammy figures soo i guess this one looks really outdated by now but is such a classic since this is the very first plastic version of such iconic character.

RYU

 

Last century, while Street Fighter was the most succesfull Capcom production, there wasnt too much about the character in toy form. Actually there wasnt too much merchadise at all. There was a horrible G.I. Joe Sreet Fighter action figure series that was stuff of nightmares (Ryu and the rest had machineguns and swords) and that was all until the last days of the century, when a brand new company called ReSaurus release an action figure serires of Street Figther (along Crash Bandicot and other brands).

The figure were HUGE, bigger than any other action figure on the market and they came in this cool blister like canister that made them feel very special and premium. Also, the sculptor were sure to made them 100% accurate to the game designs, with the traditional Street Fighter anatomy.

The very first figure i got was my main man Ryu of course. He is based on his Street Fighter Zero version soo he is the young Ryu with the white bandana. He is almost as big as a Play Arts Kai and can stand perfectly tough they give him a base in the shape of a giant coing with the logo of Street Fighter on it and this is his only accesory.

Well, maybe for today standars he is not very impresive looking, but for the 90s he was terrific. The muscles are pretty close to how the Capcom artists drew them, the size of the hands and feet, everything transltaes pretty well the 2D art of Capcom. His face needs a little bit of deffinition on the mouth tough and theres no textures at all, just clean plastic wich is not bad considering the cartoon nature of Ryu.

The paint is at minimum, his hair, eyes, gloves and nails are pretty much the only painted parts on this figures since each of his elements is cast on flesh tone plastic. His uniform is made with soft pastic as well as his bandana and belt and this was pretty unique back then. With the years the paint of his brown hair has been chiping off a little but aside of that the paint is clean and detailes, he even got the golden kanjis on his belt.

He is not very articulated tough since they designed this figures to be like statues, sculpted on a single dynamic pose with very limited articulations for a couple of variants but thats it. He is articulated on his neck, shoulders, waist, legs and knes and while all articulations move perfectly, Ryu is permanently looking down, about to punch someone on the ground.

The pose is not that bad tough since the bandana and belt adds a lot of dinamism to an already pose full of movement. Actually, i always found this figure really sexy, much more than the Play Arts Kai. His silhouette is very stylish and i love how his uniform opens to show a lot of his chest and even a nipple. For many years this was actually my favorite Ryu figure, much better looking than the SOTA version.

RYU

 Another trip to the past, almost a decade ago, when SquareEnix just started theyr premium toy line Play Arts Kai, one of the very first licenses they pick was Street Fighter and unlike Tekken, they release an awfull lot of characters. My main interest is Ryu of course soo i didnt think twice on getting him. I didnt get my second favorite tough , Chun Li, and now i regret it since Ryu looks kinda lonely (i refused to buy the ape looking Ken).

He came in the clasic PAK box with windows all over and strokes of paint. He is on scale with the old PAKs, shorter than Chris and Dante and same size than the female figures, it seems he is actually short since all other toy companys makes him smaller than the rest of the characters. He can stand on his own perfectly tough i wish they give him a base for some dynamic posing but Square had a lot of issues with bases back then...

He is ultra articulated: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs knes, ankles and bandana, all balljointed and with a descent range of movement. I say descent because some of his movement is blocked by the material, he is made with very hard plastic and that prevent his arms to come together for example. But despite this he have a lot of poseability.

Also, the joints on his legs are getting very very lose with time, sometimes is hard to make him stand thanks to this and i seen photos of him or Chun Li loosing theyr legs. It seems this was a prevalent issue with production and all Street Fighter figures have this problem. I guess it can be fixed with some soft glue but is worth mentioning.

The sculpt is good, i mean his face is extremelly square looking but this is SF IV Ryu, the Ryu that looks like a caveman soo its faithfull to the character design. His feet and hands are HUGE, double or triple the size od Dante´s or Chris and both him and his outfit have sculpted textures to mimic skin and cloth. I am not sure i like this tough the skin texture is not as heavy and instrusive as it was with Chris Redfield.

The paint is good too, specially on his brownish eyes and his mouth  tough theres some brown of his hair mixing with his red bandana. Yhea... Play Arts Kai had some quality issues tough the price was low. The paint on his flesh is good, with some brown tones but not soo much and his white outfit have some grey tones as well, very simplictic.

His belt have some golden kanjis on it and the logo on his gloves are very good looking.

My biggest issue with him tough are, again, the articulations. While i apreciate them they looks pretty evident, specially on the knes and shoulder areas since they leave a big gap between the arms and torso. Also, his overall shape is not as.....sexy as other Ryu figures, i know this sounds odd but well, this is Street Fihter IV Ryu, not one of the best looking designs.

He comes with an extra pair of hands in pose for a Hadouken. Change the hands is EXTREMELLY difficult since the ball joints are pretty small and delicate and the lower half of the gloves get in they way. Really i dont know how i hasnt broke them yet...and still, achive the Hadoken pose is not as easy as one could guess.

His other accesory is an extra face plate. This face can be exchanged pretty easy and shows Ryu with a fierce look screaming HADOOOOKEN!! And the finall accesory is the actuall Hadoken, a blue transparent ball of energy that actually looks pretty watery. The sculpt is really good and the thing actually does have a base soo you can put it on Ryu´s hands or on the base, being shot by Ryu´s hands.

Back then this kind of effect was pretty neat and actually help this figure to be much more fun and good looking despite all its faults. Over the years theres been much better looking figures of this character but this guy is not bad at all and fits nicelly with the Capcom characters released by Suare.

CAMMY

 

Soo years fly and i wasnt able to get the Cammy Bishoujo from Kotobukiya since it got really expensive in a pretty short time. She and Poison are missing from my collection tough theres LOTS of Cammy figures aside of the Bishoujo and i was able to get another one a  few months ago.

The Cammy from Street Fighter Zero "Authentic White Version" from Wonder Showcase Plus. I am not familiar with the brand tough it seems this figure is really old, from last decade and she was exclusive from the WonderFest in Japan (hence the Wonder Showcase name). Sculpted by Mitsumasa Yoshizawa, painted by Yoshinori Yatake, manufactured by Kaiyodo and designed by Akiman, the box of this girl is full of big names.

Actually, it was the box wath got my attention at first, tall, elegant and with a beautifull Akiman illustration in the front and sides, the illustrated cover opens and reveale the figure in all her glry with a histori about it and comments from the creaturs (all in japanese), they call this figure "a Cammy never before seen" since this color scheme is not on any game.

1/6 scale she is really tall, much more than the Bishoujo, tough still not as tall as the GECCO statues and she cant stand at all thanks to the wonky shape of her legs but she comes with a round and very simple blue base with all the info of the figure printed on it.

This is a really beautifull statue with the same proportion she have on the art of Akiman. She is slim, not as strong looking as she is in her older SF 2 version. Her suit have a ceramic like texture and her face is really pretty tough the starnd of hair in front is very delicate as well as the braids. The pose is....well, just like the Bishoujo figures, no human could twist this much her limbs. She looks stylish but from certain angles is kinda painfull looking.

The paint is clean and perfect looking specially on her eyes and her totally white suit. Her skin is bronce looking with some soft shadows here and there and her hair is not yellow but is golden soo hair and skin almost mix each other. This along side her perfectly clean suit makes a pretty neat effect, she looks like a metalic statue.

It seems theres a lot of fuss about this figure and how is the best Cammy figure ever made? I am not sure of its the best since theres way too much of her, for me she looks pretty and the hand of Akiman on her makes it special.