RYU

For the longest time now Storm Collectibles has been my favorite figures brand given the subjest they always produce: character from fighting games and they been fullfiling a lot of wishes of mine from long time ago, like figures based on Virtua Fighter or Darkstalkers, Samurai Shodown, but most of the time, they are really focused on Street Fighter. Seriuslly, like 70% of theyr production is Street Fighter based and while i love Street Fighter i somehow not been very intersted on collecting it since pretty much every single action figure brand have released every character multiple times.

But my weak point is Ryu, i been in love of Ryu since i was a little kid with Street Fighter 2 and my love for the character is constant...i mean, currently my most expensive piece of my collection is Ryu from IconiQ Studio, soo i am open to spent a lot of money on him!! Soo when Storm anounced theyr Street Fighter 6 line i was pretty sure who i was going to get.

And here he is, the Ryu from Street Fighter 6 that is basically Hot Ryu from SFV but with a cape, or is it?? For starters, this is the same sie as that Hot Ryu piece from 2017 soo this guy is shorter than most Storm figures and he can stand on his own with no problem, but unlike the Hot Ryu, this one dosnt comes with a base. I guess the Storm from now days is really very different to the Storm from back then.

This Ryu is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet with the usual Storm movement: a chest piece made with soft plastic that let the neck move yp and down with freedom, a buttlefly joint in each shulder, cut biceps to rotate as well as legs, double articulation in both elbows and knees and a pibot on the ankles, and given Ryu esign, theres nothing to get in the way of the articulations soo he have total freedom of movement.

The sculpt is a HUGE HUUUGGEEEE upgrade over the Hot Ryu (or the nomal Ryu from SFV) in every sence. At first i tough there was going to be some recycled elements, but theres nothing here. He looks soo incrediblly handsome from every angle, the face features are very stylish and manly but very realistic as well, he noo longer looks like an ape or a cave man. The thick eyebrows, wide mouth, full beard and stoic and manly look on his eyes looks amazing as well as his spiky hair.

The bandana is amde with soft plastic and can be removed and rotated behind his back and his body build is just as perfect as his face since he no longer have Hot Ryu´s  long torso and short legs that makes him looks out of place with other Storm figures. This Ryu is build like a greek god with long legs, perfect size hands and feet and a beautififull muscular torso. He have soft plastic bandages around his abdomen but they can be removed.

The paints have a lot of fabric texture on them and while theyr are thorn at the end of the legs, they looks much more fresh than the other Ryu´s pants and also, for the first time, this is the first Ryu that is not bare feet!! He is using sandals and while the cords of the sandals and his feet are a single sculpt, they look really nice.

The paint on the feet is kinda sloppy tough since the skin color is invading the sandals and cords, but thats hard to see at any normal distance. The pants have a lot of grey washes that makes them looks used and dirty and the kanji at his belt are painted in yellow and they looks perfect, just like the grey washes on the bandages.

The torso is cast on skin color soo theres not much paint here aside of all the scars in randome places on his muscles. They are not as dramatic as Kazuya scars and while Hot Ryu´s are osft pink, this scars are brown wich means they are older and heal. The hair is plain black and the bandana is plain red, tough his eyes are impresive looking, with the brown pupils perfectly painted.

While the beard itself is painted in black and looks good, they painted brown thin hairs in the area where the beard conects with his skin to make it looks like the breard gorws thicker gradually, but the effect dosnt work at all and the beard and skin dont mix despite this paint aplication.

Also this is my very first Storm figure with a fabric piece: his cape/ poncho thingy is made with real fabric. The tailroing is really good and not only the material is thick enough to give it weigth, but the way it wraps around his body is perfect and is wired soo it can allso be posed despite not being very long. The fabric is red but is darker at the end, where is torn apart soo it looks like it was burn. The while piece is tied together with a thick golden ring with some engrabins that canot be removed, but the whole cape can be removed and Ryu can be displayed fully shirtless (is not like it covers much tough).

In the accesorys apartment he dont have much but is not lacking stuff either: four pair of hands aside of the closed fist: relaxed hands, hands with two fingers ready to strike, open palms and claw shaped hands. All of them made with soft plastic and sharing the same skin tone as the figure, they cna be swaped pretty easy and helps toons to different battle ready poses.

he have four different heads as well: the neutral head expression, a growling face showing his teeth, a screaming face for the momentum of attack and another that i am not sure how to describe....he is basically hardening his muscles and or pushing an objetc, i dunno, but the face sculpt is really subtle but effective: his mouth is wider, the muscles on his chesk and around his mouth looks more prominent and have a furrowed brow.

The fierce looking head is less subtle and the sculpt and paint on his teeth is superv as well as the screaming face with the pink tongue isndie his mouth, the expression is really menacing and spectacular while keeping every element in check with the quality of the rest of the heads.

There is also four different bandanas. Why add soo many? I mean they all loks the same soo with one or two would do, but somehow they decided to give a bandana to each extra head.

Int he effects section he have a Hadoken, a fireball made in transluscent blue plastic and while it have different tones of blue and a white wash in the front, this effect is a little simple compared with other effects from Sorm, but i guess thats to be expected. There is also a base with an adjustable bar to keep the Hadoken fliying in front of Ryu.

And lastly, a tradition from almost all Storm Collectibles figures: a background. This time is the Genbu Temple from Street Figther 6, with a completelly white sky and grey ground with some fox statues and red Torii coming out from the grey water and a huge ancient sakura tree in the left side. While the Torii and the temple in the back have red, most of the color on this scenes comes with the pink sakura and its petals fliying around. A pretty heavenly stage for Ryu deffinetly.

The impresion is really good, and in the back of the cardboard theres a second image, an artwork of Ryu in black and white with his red bandana and a lot of ink around. It looks more like a promo poster since it have the SF6 logos as well but is a ncie touch to have this secondario option to display Ryu.

While the pint of the beard could be better and the accesorys are a little too "standar", this figure is really god looking. Hot Ryu looks almost cartoonish comapred to this guy!! He fits much better with the rest of the Storm figures but is also much more sthetic and articulations works much better and the cape is a great touch that makes this design more memorable.

Is pretty neat to see Ryu grow this much and evolve into a more solid and unique character after soo long. This may not be the best Ryu figure out there but is deffinetly th best Ryu Storm has released or any ther brand has done in this scale. Now if only they release Rashid or Ken, my (tiny) Street Figther collectoin would be complete.