DRACULA

 Before the pandemic i was pretty sure the Universal Monsters were pretty much forgotten, specially for new generations since everything that had to be done with them was already done, but all of a sudden we saw a rebirth of the characters in toy format thanks to bot Jada Toys and NECA, tough NECA teased Dracula TWO YEARS AGO!!! making him one of the most hyed figure in theyr catalogue to the point many of us doubt they still had the Lugosi licence.

The wait was pretty long but it was worth since, since the Ultimate Dracula is here and under the Lugosi State seal, soo he is 100% accurate to Bela Lugosi portray of the character, the very first time since Sideshow released Dracula exactly 20 years ago!!

Dracula is half a head smaller than the Frankenstein Monster soo he is in the same size as the Wolfman, the standar scale for NECA action figures and he can stand on his own pretty nicelly despite his standar shaped feet. He is articulated on the base of his head but also on the section where his neck conects with his torso because theres a big ball joint there, the shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes and ankles all ball joint with plenty of movility, even his ehad tilt up and down pretty good tough his legs are a little bit limited thanks to the back side of his jacket, but thats not specially important since this is no Akira Yuki, Dracula is not a character know for his dynamic posing.

Tough his articulations are more than enough to give him a lot of life like poses and given the simplicity of his tuxedo, theres nothing that gets in the way of moving (tough his jacket is made with soft plastic).

The sculpt is good, with all the wrinkles on his outfit flowing naturally and the different textures present between his jacket and his a little bit more rugged pants and the clean and shiny shoes, but of course the star of the show is the head sculpt since Bela Lugosi managed to create a monster out of pure actin force and presence, with no special effects or make up at all, he had an impact very few actors have in 100 hundred years.

The head sculpt is pretty impresive, the texture of the skin, the shape of his lips, the wrinkles around his eyes, the nose lenght, the head shape, everything looks perfect for even for such a small scale, this is one of the best Lugosi sculpts i ever seen and even wins over the Sieshow version.

The paint have the same level of perfection as well since not only the skin color and lips colors looks incredible natural but the vibrant blue eyes and purple shadow around them make them stand perfectly and gives him a steel gaze Dracula deserves. His body is more simple tough, mostly bkack with some pretty soft greys that gives volume to his outfit here and there but everything looks really natural.

His shirt and vest are perfectly white tough the detail that stands out a lot is his neckalce with the golden star, the red around his neck accentuate his outfit nicelly but also give a hint of his intentions: blood on the neck of his victims. The handkchief on his chest as well as the ring on his finger are pretty nice details as well.

His accesorys are an extra rigth hand and an extra pair of hands. The rigth hand is for him to hold on the candle between his fingers and the other pair of hands have his charactertistic hypnotic hand gestures he uses to control anyone at will. They looks great and they are really easy to swap.

Then he have an extra pair of heads as well tough they also includes theyr neck. They are easy to change and the sculpt and paint is terrific!! One of them have an evil and mischevious grin with one of his eyebrows up in a pretty malevolent and yet seductive display. The portrait is spot on. The second extra head shows him just about biting his victim with a firece frown on his eyes and open mouth. His teeth and tongue are an independent sculpt and are painted perfectly tough he have no pointy fangs of course!!

His other accesory is, of course, his cape. The collar section is made with plastic while the rest is fabrc, a pretty fort and high quality black fabric, really good to the touch and thin. No wire inside but it dosnt need it since the cape drapes around his body perfectly and have a good weigth and flow and the correct lenght as well! Longer in the back side and shorter in the front to show Draculas feet. The hard plastic clips on Draculas neck and thats it, no horrible looking tie cord of elastic, the cape just hands around his shoulders and neck perfectly!! Is easy to remove but also it stay in place with no problem, i am surprised such a basic design works soo good!!!

His other accesory is the candle he have the very first time he is on screen, an item pretty much every figure of Dracula have. The candle holder sculp is nice and looks like some kind of dragon or serpent while the candle itself is just white with a brigth orange on the flame, is really perfect.

His other accesorys makes me unconfotable: a tray, a bottle of wine and two goblets. The tray have a really nice metal paint and looks pretty old and the goblets looks cleaner but they are an exact replica of they ones on screen and they even have purple wine inside!! The bottle is pretty clean looking and have the same weird...white...check mark the bottle in the movie have as well.

Bottle and goblets fist inside the tray perfectly and Dracula can hoold them together or hold the goblets and bottle independetly. While they are pretty nice looking the idea they give this to Dracula keeps buging me, i doubt anyone display him with them since they makes him looks too much like a waiter. Yes he offers this to Renfield on his role of good host at the begining of the movie, but this would looks better on a table than on his hands. Tough of course i am glad they didnt add a table accesory.

And lastly, he have a vamprie bat. This little guy is nicelly detailed, specially on his fur, and have a much more natural face sculpt than the grotesque bat included in the Sideshow figure. His wing span is big and the paint is really good for such an accesory: black nails, grey wings with brown fingers and fur, red eyes and white fangs. But the best part is that this guy comes with a base! A transluscent rod that conest with a black round base and since the top part that conest with his body is ball shaped, this little guy cna be adjusted in many ways.

Sadlly, Dracula´s coffin and other nigth creatures sold separatelly, they are DLC and while they really tempt me to get them, i really dont want to pay full figure price for a box to fit Dracula inside...while NECA is amazin at theyr craft, this accesory sold separatelly is really disapointing.

Aside of that this is perfect. This is trully and Ultimate Dracula since, given the rigth ligth, he looks extremelly fotorealistic and NECA really take advantage of that Lugosi lisence.

GUTS BERSERK ARMOR

 I still remember 23 years ago when i started to read Berserk and tough "woooww...i really wish i had just one of those Art of War statues, i would be happy just with one". Fastforward to 2023 and now i even have plushies aside of an Art of War statue and the entire action figures line from Figma, tough after the death of Kentaro Miura, i wasnt expecting no more merchadise.

That changed last year with Good Smile company releasing a Guts on Berserk Armor on theyr PopUp Parade, that line of ultra cheap statues and i am glad they did it, since with the price tag Figmas have i cant no longer afford them.Tough this guy was stuck on the customs office of my country for two months and a half to a point i almost tough mi lose him....but here he is, escaped from burocratic cautivity.

This figure is just one inch shorter than a Play Arts Kai or Gecco statue soo he is not small by any means, but he is not huge either, just have the perfect size to have enough presence on the shelves while still fit on small places. He is deffinetly taller than the other PopUp Parade figure i have - Lancer from Fate - because in the boox it says is a PopUp Parade L....Large?? I havent seen too many of this figure in Large size but despite that the price is still very good.

He have the same base Lancer have, an hexagon base but instead of electroic blue this one is black. Extremelly simple but it does the job perfectly and fits on most shelves. The figure is conected to the base with two pages under it soo it wont fall by any mean since is not that heavy either.

No articulations at all, just a cmpletelly static statue of Guts on top of a rocky pillar, posing as a wild animal with his sword on his shoulder and his cape flowing with the wind, replicating an extremelly popular illustration of Kentaro Miura.

The anatomy, shapes and body language is perfect since i seen another figure of this same illustration from another brand and Guts have a huge head....but Good Smile Company managed to make a perfect scupt of such an iconic image. The rocky pillar have such a nice texture on it, pretty soft like velveth and the Berserk Armor looks very different than the Figma version.

While the Figma version have this clean metal texture with some grey paint to give it a metal look, this guy have the armor full of small lines following each metal plate giving it a weird texture....it looks really busy and catchs the ligth nicelly but it also give it a looks like if this is hand drawn and have shadows made with a pencil and the entire figure is covered in this texture from toes to the helmeth.

I love the cape soo much, it flows soo nicelly like tentacles around him and its soo thin in the top and gets wider and wider, huging Guts back and with the same "pencil" texture, it deffinetly looks like fur in the back of a wolf instead of a cape. Tough its made of very hard plastic soo the pointy ends of it seems to me the most easy to brake sections.

He is holding his Dragon Slayer sword on his hand and it rest on his shpulder where he have a cut for it. The sword is really good looking and easy to install and i specially like a lot the rags on the grip. Is this an accesory? I dunno tough its perfectly removable but extremelly necesary for the display.

The paint is black...like pitch black....this is like a big mass of blackness to the point i had to use my cell phone camera since my digital camera could not take any descent picture of it. The rocky pillar have some soft greys that make it looks like a very realistic rock while the armour ir just gun metal black soo the black shines with ligh. The cape is dark brown mixed with blacks soo that enhance even more the fur texture out of it.

The sword is nicelly painted but soo clean....very clean, and i seen many people complaignin that theres no blood on it, wich makes sence since the Figma version have a lot of blood spalttered on it. Maybe the lack of blood is because of the low price?? While i would have liked some red on here, i dont think is necesary for the overall look.

The reason this Guts was two months and a half stuck on customs office was because of his action feature. Yes he have an action feature, wich is pretty odd for anything of Good Smile or a statue at this point. He have led ligths on his eyes.

The basic looks have his eyes painted in metalic red wich looks really fantastic (this eyes are the only parts that arent black, soo they stand out a lot), but the top half of his helmeth can be removed for another one with a little hole inside. Put the led ligths inside and put the head back and you have Guts with his eyes burning intense red and you can see the ligth coming out from his mouth as well!!!

Its looks fanfastic!! But the mechanism is not wath i was expecting...theres no button at all or anything, if you want to turn it on or off you need to remove the helmeth and remove the ligth itself and the ligth.....is just an indepdnetn entity, a little blister with a tiny tiny tube and the ligth on top. Push the ligth and its turned on, pull it up and it turns off but given its small size ir turns on and off just by looking at it.

Also no battery changes...the ligth battery ran out and goes directly to the trash and you need to buy another one, a Hiromi Miraito 316R. Where? A fishing store at Hokaido or Kyoto it seems or buy another one on Ebay for a fortune.....and it seems the battery only last for 7 hours soo.....

Overall, the price i pay for this Guts was an insult, the quality of the material is soo high as well as the paint and sculpt and he is not small at all. I am astonished this was much cheaper than a damn Nendroid or Figma toygh at the same time i am really bafled by the ligth feature, it looks fantastic and i can live with the constant helmeth removal but where i am going to buy another Miraito 316R?? I feel sad to not be able to have his eyes ligth on all the time, i am even anxious to turn them on a minute....

AKIRA YUKI

In the begining of the 90s Capcom and SNK battled each other to refine the fighting game genre but at the same time Sega was there, tough instead of fighting with them, it took things to a totally different alternate reality with Virtua Fighter, the very first 3D fighting game and one of the very first 3D games at all. Watch those huge polygonal characters in the arcade screen was an spectacle worth to be seen and for a long time, Virtua Fighter took the spothlight each time it had a new game, taking a lot of attention to Soul Calibur, Tekken or Dead of Alive....at least until 2008, when Virtua Fighter 5 came out on the PS3 and then, suddenly, it just dissapeared...

Last year Sega released a remake of that very last game of the series, but in the last 15 years Virtua Fighter has been mostly a pretty distant shadow surrounded by Bloody Roar or Rival Schools, soo was actually shocked to see Storm Collectibles actually get the licence to create action figures based on the remake. Unexpected but pretty good news and i didnt doubt a second to pre-order the very first figure: Akira Yuki.

Akira is shorter than Paul and King but taller than Ryu and Haohmaru from Storm, but not that much soo he is a middle sized man (180cm says the box actually) and he cna stand perfectly on his own. Actually, he have an amazing balance and is even able to stand in one single foot!!! This may seem like something random but no other Storm Collectibles figure can do that with no base...actually not many figures of any scale can do it either.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, abs, waist, legs, knes, ankles and middle feet. All ball joints and doule joints on the elbows and knes soo each articulation have a big range of movement. Like always, the chest piece as well as the hips are made with soft plastic as well as the top of his dogi soo thers literally nothing to stop his movement. 

Special note here are the feet, since his bagy pants cover a lot of the side of his feet, just like Kazuya Mishima´s pants, but while Kazuya´s pants are made with hard plastic (soo blocking all his ankle movement), Akira´s pants have a small section at the end of his pants made with soft plastic, soo the ankles can move by the sides with all freedom. The weird thing is that this extra section is actually present as well on the character model of the game, soo it game accurate!!

The sculpt is really good, just like evetyhing Storm Collectibles make. Akira´s build is muscular but much more lean than characters like Ryu or Demitri (more realistic i guess??) his torso is particulary good looking and can be seen by removing his dogi in a pretty easy way.

The texture on his dogi is really nice too, and looks and feel like thick fabric despite being two different materials (hard plastic on the legs ans soft plastic on the top) and the pants are extra baggy and all wrinkles give it a heavy look. His face is really good looking with his characteristic "Guile" hair stylem with the flap of hairs at the sides, strong jaw and pointy eye brows tough i am afraid dust can be very nasty with that pointy hair of him.

His bandana is really long but it can be removed in the back side and its made with soft plastic soo technically is also articulated. My favorite part is his belt, with kanjis in front and 3 white lines  and the paint helps a lot with the dark paint and the bringht orange of the kanjis. I simpresive how such delicate and tiny symbols are soo perfectly painted at this scale.

His dogi is white...and thats it, with some soft grey brushes to give it volume and shadows but nothing too instrusive. His torso is cast on flesh color soo theres no paint on it except on his nipples and like always, thats gives him a pretty natural and whole look.

The hair is just plain black tough the application is perfect, just like his eyes. The eyes are beautifull and brown, with a steel look full of determination and strenght and i love the small scar on his cheek. Tough i really dont like the mouth....the painted his lips purple for some reason and this attract all attention to them but also makes them look smaller than they actually are and change his face structure a little bit. I dont understand why they did such a thing since Storm has always did a great job painting really natural looking lips in this scale.

Tough he comes with two extra heads. One with an open mouth and another shouting with a fierce expression. Both looks very similar but you can see the differences with a close inpection and they can be exchanged pretty easy. Also each head comes with theyr own bandana, soo you dont need to keep using the same one. Is extraordinary how the paint application is the same in all 3 heads, the eyes looks the same as well as the small scar on his cheek, but the mouth is completelly fixed here since theres no putple lips no more!! The teeth and tongue inside the mouths are sculpted and perfectly painted with a soft pink and overall, this two extra heads looks much more like the Akira of the game deffinetly.

He also comes with four extra pair of hands that can be exchanged pretty easy. Aside of the closed fist he have another pair with flexed fingers to hit with the side of his hand, he also have completelly open palms and two relaxed pairs. Yes two....this two relaxed hands are 90% the same and i fail to see the difference here, the pinky fingers are a little bit flexed but really, i fail to justofy the inclusion of a pair of hands that looks almots the same.

There is an effect and that really surprise me since Virtua Fighter is the only fight game that use totally realistic movements, theres no electrich rays, or fireballs or sparks of any kind of the game but still, Storm Collectibles managed to add an effect to Akira, a circular crown-shaped hit effect cast in yellow transluscent plastic with orange in the middle. Give how soft are Akira´s hands, this needs to be pushed down into his fist and there it is, a hit effect for a strung punch.

Is small and easy to use but it works good and is really appreciated Storm added it at this point. The last accesory is the printed background that show Akira´s scenario: and old temple with a golden buda in the center. The scenario is pretty dark tough but i guess that contrast a lot with Akira´s white body to make him stand out.

At first i was unsure if ot was wise to buy such an expensive figure from such a simple looking character. Akira is not the most flashy character of Virtua Fighter, quiet the opposite, he is as spartan as Ryu and while visually he dosnt stand out, his character shines with his movements: Unlike Ryu or any other main character of a fight game, Akira is extremelly difficult to use. His attacks have quirurgic precission and he is imposible to move, like a mountain. And while other characters needs a lot of punches and kicks to win, he just need two punches to defeat anyone soo he is extremelly overpowered.

He is the classic representation of the karate warrior in a very realistic way and that makes him different to any other fight game character. Also, i had a lot of fun taking this photos since his articulations works fantastic and express perfectly all the simple beauty of his powerfull movements.

At this point i been wondering a lot if i am the only one who likes Virtua Fighter and i can see not a lot of people interest on this figure at all, but Storm did a great job with this part of Sega´s soul and i am really excited to see Jacky Bryant and Wolf Hawkfield next. Sadlly, and knowing Storm Collectibles, we will have to wait for many years to see those two on stores.

RYU

 Aaaahh.....Ryu, wath a fond memorie of videogames and arcade from the 90s. I still remember, as a little kid, seen the Street Fighter II arcade cabinet with an Akiman artoekr of Ryu on one side, it had Ryu´s big back on it while you could see his face on profile. In that moment my heart skiped a beat and i was struck by a sudden realization: "soo, thats it...i am gay then?". As a kid i didnt had any sex tough of course but o just liked Ryu...like...too much, i played with him just to seen his defeat sprite of him liying on the floor with his shirt open and revealing his chest or the victory animation with his fist pointing up and that big cute smile, and that view of his arm pit.

Aaaahh.....Street Fighter V....actually the only good memorie i have about SFV is how no other figth game followed its steps. Sure gameplay was OK but pretty much the rest was a nigtmare that turned figth games into a paying service. The only good thing about it was actually the visuals, a giant stepe beyond the terror that was Street Figther IV. In SFV characters finally looked like Homosapiens, no more Australopithecus beating each other with kicks and fireballs. Soo far SFV is the best visual representation of the World Warriors to date.

And just like Tunshi Studios started existing all of a sudden with an amazing Haohmaru figure last year, IconiQ Studios open theyr doors as well but with Ryu from Street Fighter V in 1/6 scale. I do really struggled a whole lot last year, deciding pre-order him or not...this would have been my most expensive figure to date, never buy anything with this high price before but i finally given up and lived an entire year of waiting, expecting when will Ryu arrive.

He finally did and is pointless to write how excited and happy made me, soo i will go directly to the descriptions here and pictures. He came in a much more heavyer but deffinetly smaller box than the Tunshi Studio Haohmaru. The bix have a really beautifull art of Ryu getting ready for a Hadoken. The art is crispy and the title of the game have a soft texture tough the back of the box is really not specially interesting and the art and presentation are not as pretty as Tunshi´s.

Once open, the inside have a cover featuring Ryu special moves comands and the credits of the people behind this amazing figure: painte by Eleven, sculpt by Leon Enriquez and body engineering by TB League and beyond that everyhing is arranged neatly on two separate blisters, pretty easy to take Ryu out or store him back any time.

This guy is 1/6 scale, soo he is big, real big just like Haohmaru´s or any other Hot Toys or Sideshow figures, of ThreeZero, Medicom, Mondo....but he is much heavyer deffinetly tough he cna stand on his own perfecly thanks to his huge feet and pretty strong articulations on the legs and knes but he have a base just in case and for better display.

I dont know were to start in here....this is a joint effort between IconiQ Studios and TB League, a company who has been doing rubber figures with a stainles steel eskeleton for quiet some time, soo this Ryu have a metal skeletong that makes him really, really, really heavy but he is covered with rubber "flesh" that makes him super flexible with a realistic texture.

He is soo damn soft....soo soft and squishy. Hot Toys used this same technology in figures arms a long time ago, like in the Resident Evil figures and Three Zero did it as well with theyr Guts figure, but non are this squishy and soft and move soo easy. 

Soo Ryu have an articulation on the neck and as well as the base of the neck soo he move his head up and down A LOT. He is articulated on the chest area soo his arms can bend to the front or the back to puff out his chest. he is articulated on the shoulders, boceps soo his arms can turn, elbows, wrists, abs area to crunch as much as he wants, lehs, half tigth soo he can turn his legs, knes and ankles, each one of this are ball joints, metalic ball joints! that move pretty easy but strong enough to keep everything in place and the body dont stop any of this freedom of movement at all!!

Except two areas tough: the legs and wrists. Ryu´s pants are tigth and dont let him open of bend his legs too much without ripping them apart, i guess theres no way to fix that. Also the wrists, his gloves are one sculpted piece, soo the cuffs really dont let him move his hands up or down, just by the sides. I am actually surprised by this since Storm or Play Arts Kai make the cuffs a separate peice for exactly this reason, dont lose the wrists articulation.

Also, Ryu´s body is not your run of the mile TB League body either, this one was done specificaly for Ryu, to caprute perfectly the Capcom´s anatomy in all its glory, soo his hands are HUGE as well as his feet, his thigh are masive.....but nothing like his chest and shoulders. Its not very apparent by himself, he looks perectly Ryu, but once you bring another figure in this scale to compare, is pretty evident that if Ryu was real he would be more beast than man.

The head sculpt is amazing, the best any Ryu figure ever had and put to shame the Storm Collectibles sculpt. The strong jaw, the cheek bones and square nose are perfect but the best part are his manly and strong eyes, his gaze is soo penetrating and yet soo peacefull and contemplative. Is easy to see black pupil and brown iris and cornea as well as the perfect paint in the eye lids. The eyes looks wet soo that gives them a pretty neat shine that makes them looks alive.

The other amazing part is his hair, the sculpt is pretty spiky and each strand is pretty sharp. The bandana is sculpted but in the back and inder the hair, it transitions into a bandana made with pretty thin fabric with a wire inside soo it can be posed with total freedom.

The paint job on the head is fantastic, with his eyes full of details i already mentioned but the skin tone being really natural and having only subtle darker shadows in some sections to enhance Ryu´s chiseled and sharp face features and i am including here the lips as well, since they loosk pretty natural. The body tough has no paint soo it depends entirelly of the skin color of the rubber but it matches perfectly the head.

Ryu´s dogi is made with cloth, is soft but a little too clean for my licking, tough the tattering on the sleves area and the end of the pants looks good but demands to be moved with caution soo the fraying threads dont fall apart. 

His pants are tigth and have an lastic to keep them up as well as wrinkles stitched in the knes areas, soo the pants have some room for the knes to bend. This detail looks kinda weird but is a clever way to give some lextra freedom to Ryu,s legs. Remove them is quiet a challengue given how masive are Ryu´s thighs but the top of the dogi is big enough to not limit any of his torso movement.

There is a wire inside the neck and chest area soo the dogi can be posed as well, open up or close around Ryu´s body and the black belt is also wired. The belt have kanjis FURINKAZAN enbroided in golden thread. This is a military philosophy that Ryu follows like his path: swift as wind, silent as forest, fierce as fire and stable as mountains. 

Despite such an spartan design, Ryu have some neat little details on his persona that IconiQ Studio reproduced here perfectly with an amazing artcraft.

 I already mentioned his base, that is not necesary but is really helpfull just to be sure this heavy boy dont fall. The face have exactly the same design as Tunshi Studio´s Haohmaru: A circular plataform that looks like an arcade button with a circular space in the center with the game logo, tough unlike Haohmaru´s, this base is black and instead of a wooden plaque in front it have a metalic plaque with Ryu´s name and Street Fighter V Champion Edition on top. There is a metalic rod in the other end of the base with a clamp to hold onto Ryu´s body. The clamp is not that big to fully hold Ryu tough and the metal rod is flexyble and moves almost like a tentacle (how a metal rod can be flexible??? I really dont know) but te insturctions manual says its not designed to hold him on air, soo Tetsumaki Sempukyaku is out of question (or any other jumping pose) or an airborne Shoryuken.

This makes me question, wath other base to use for aerial poses? This guy cna really kick around, specially with no pants, but thanks to his heavy weigth find a base for him will be a real challengue.

He also comes with a second head with a fierce expression. The sculpt quality and paint here are as high as in the normal head and is really easy to change. The teeth sculpt and paint is amazing as well as the fiery look on his eyes tough he is looking at his rigth and that limits the posing a lot. I really wish they give him moving eyes (some figures have them!!!) but i guess thats ask too much? Also this face expression is when he is about to shot a Hadoken soo a third head with an open mouth for "after the Hadoken" would have been a good idea as well.

Then theres a small army of hands, aside of his closed fist he have a pair of open hands, focusing hands, claw hands, Hadoken hands and an extra of Hadoken hands joined for the exact moment of the fireball shooting. The focusing hands are very helpfull for posing him calling someone and the claw hands for fierce poses tough, i must add, in the game the gloves are extremelly old and missing a lot of the red material already, soo they show this white sections and are full of scratches. Here all the gloves are pretty new and shiny, the sculpt is good as well as the paint but they are missing some age effect.

Change the hands is pretty easy, just hold the shoulders and pull them and they come off inmidietly. Put them back on not soo much....theres a metalic ball to insert on the holde on the hands but problem is, the squishy flesh of Ryu push them off pretty easy. Even when you hear the "pop" of the insertion of the ball joint in the hand, just move his arm a little and the "pop" can be ehard again and the hand is lose. At the same time, that same squishy rubbery texture keeps somehow the lose hands in place soo...its a pretty ironic dicotomy how the arm push down the hands but at the same time keeps them there.

Special mention goes for the Hadoken hands, those jointed hands are IMPOSIBLE to use!!! It took me like 3 full hours to put them for this photographys!! Ryu´s skeleton can join his arms perfectly, but his big rubber pecs and biceps keeps the arms away!! I dont know how i did it here actually and after a few minutes, his arms open up and the joined hands fall off. 

This is quiet a shame tough since having him shooting a Hadoken looks fantastic, but will kill his shoulders joints in any moment!! Sadlly, i dont think i will ever pose him with them ever again.

His other accesory are an extra pair of feet, bending in the middle soo hes like giving a step forward. The sculpt is amazing as well as the skin texture, you can see the wrinkles on the base as wlel as the veins on top. Problem is....again, removing Ryu´s feet is an imposible task. The feet are made with pretty dense and hard plastic (soo he dosnt keeps falling over) and the metal ball of the articulation is buried very deep. 

I pulled for hours but i am really afraid to broke the leg of kne articulation if i keep pulling. Someone told me i should use hot water or an hair dryer but that would melt away his entire leg. Sounds like a job made with quirurgic exactitud and the risk is too much, at least for me soo i wasnt able to take pictures of this extra feet on use and i dont think i will ever use them.

Another accesory is his bag, made with cotton fabric and a black lace. Tough he have no specific hands for him to hold it and i wish the lace was longer, the bag is stuffed with cottong soo its very squichy and soft, almost like a small pillow. This bag is one of the biggest misterys of Street Figther since i always wondered wath he carrys there?? He is been using the same dogi for 30 years soo wath are Ryu belongings?

Ryu also comes with a Hadoken effect, a fireball just like the Play Arts Kai did 10 years ago. The ball is nicelly sculpted in trabsluscent and soft plastic and all the buubles on it makes the ligth reflects and gives it a particle effect just like in the game. Ans yes, it dosnt looks like a fireball but looks more like water to me. Its made in soft plastic and for some reason is kind of sticky too.

It also have a translucent plastic rod that goes inserted on the Hadoken and then the other end inserts on a small round transluscent base. If you took the foreball the round base keeps falling, but it does a good job keeping the ball on air and with a led ligth, it would looks amazing!!! But sadly, this effect wont be used too much since the Hadoken hands dont work!!!

There is also a pair of gloves....this is the very first time one of my figures comes with gloves tough, this gives a nice idea how high end this figure is. The gloves fits nicelly and they keep away all dirty of unclean hands away of Ryu´s fantastic skin tough this is a figure that screams to be touched...aside of the pretty evident reason, the texture of the squishy skin is really confortable to touch soo using always gloves is really criminal.

Lastly, while the box art isnt as pretty as Haohmaru´s, it can be detached completelly from the iner box with the help of magnets and spread like a folding screen, inside theres Ryu´s scenario from SFV, the Suzaku Castle. The print is crisp and in HD and given how huge it is, the entire scenario is present. Also thanks to its folding screen nature it can be wrapped around Ryu or fully open behind him to form an spectacular display for Ryu alone of having him battling another 1/6 scale opponent.

This post is a gigantic text wall but really, despite the simplicity and elegance of Ryu´s design, tehres way too much to say about this figure, soo many new details to find each time i see him and way too many poses for him as well. Took al this pictures was extremelly easy (except for the Hadoken hands) and this is one of the most photogenic figures i have.

IconiQ Studio is now working on Ken but while having both Street boyfriends together sounds fantastic, i never found Ken specially interesting. Chun Li tough would be very interesting but in the end, Ryu is more than enough to satisfy anyone.

Despite some shortcomings (Hadoken hands and extra feet) this is one of the most amazing figures i ever seen. The quality towers against anything else and is perfect for Street Fighter fans, figting games fans or gamers in general given how iconic is Ryu, he enbodys perfectly the spirit of figthing games and looks soo perfect along side Hohmaru.

Really, somehow Haohmaru and Ryu have the same build and are perfect for some Capcom vs SNK battle scenes. Now i just want a Terry and a Ryo Sakazaki and maybe a Sol, a Mitsurugi and a Jin Kazama....but instead IconicQ Studio is making Silent Hill, wich makes me in an even worst position because i really want that Red Pyramid Thing and Bubble Head Nurse with this same quality.