I would never consider myself an expert at Capcom’s Street Fighter series, it’s still been an enduring thread running through most of my video game playing years. I dabbled in it back in its early days, I tried to get good when it came home to the Genesis and SNES, but it probably wasn’t until Street Fighter III on the Dreamcast that I really started to dig in. Of course, there have been many lines of mech for Street Fighter over the years, but I think SOTA Toys line of figures tends to be looked back on the fondest. Storm Collectibles has a line going, but at around $100 each, I had to shy away from those, in favor of their Golden Axe figures. But now, Jada Toys is producing figures at a much more appealing price point and the first one of these has landed. Let’s have a look at Ryu!

My first indication that Jada knew what they were doing is seen in the package design, which is so fun and stylish! You get a little arcade cab-style box with the dual joystick set ups and the health bars on the top for two players. Ryu can be seen in the “screen” which is a clear window set against a pixelated background from the game. The box is collector friendly and gives you a great look at the figure and all his accessories. I’ll definitely be displaying these in the packages!

Out of the box, Ryu feels rather unique in hand. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time with either Hasbro or McFarlane these days, but I really enjoyed exploring what this figure had to offer when I first started messing about with him. Ryu’s classic character design comes through in the sculpt, and there are some nice flourishes like the cloth material texturing that runs through every bit of his costume. I expected the belt and below the costume to be all one piece, but as it happens the entire top is worn by the figure and actually belted, so that’s pretty cool. The costume is sculpted as part of the legs, but the way the ragged cuffs hang down over the ankles makes it look like the figure is searing pants as well, and that makes for a great effect. You also get some texturing on the belt and some Japanese symbols in gold. This figure takes every opportunity to flourish with what is a pretty simple costume design.

The sculpted musculature under the costume is well defined. You get some visible veins in the arms, and the hands and feet both have some pretty sharp sculpts in the fingers and toes. Even the red gloves have some excellent texturing and the red adds a nice pop to the figure’s colors, even though they probably shouldn’t be red. The bare skin is all achieved through colored plastic, and there’s a bit of a plastic sheen to him, but I don’t find it all that distracting.

Ryu comes with two heads: A rather determined looking pre-fight expression and a holy-shit-imma-gonna-kick-yo-ass expression, and I think both of these look great. The faces on both are painted so they have a bit more of a matte finish to them than the rest of the body, but again I don’t find it all that obvious or distracting. The painted skin and the printed eyes all look fine with the figure in hand, but as you punch in closer it tends to look like pancake makeup. The sculpted hair hangs down over the red bandanna to add some depth to the portrait, and I also love how his eyebrows overlap the bandanna as well. The bandanna ties hang down on the first head and blow off to the side on the second.

Obviously, articulation is going to be important on a Street Fighter figure, and I’m happy to say that Jada really brought a lot of it to the table here. I don’t have any first hand experience with SOTA’s offerings, so I can’t make comparisons. Storm’s will certainly offer more, but that’s to be expected with bigger figures at a much higher budget. The arms have both rotating hinges in the shoulders as well as butterfly joints. The elbows are double-hinged, there are bicep swivels, and you get hinged pegs for the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, double-hinged knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint at the waist and another under the chest, and the the neck has a ball joint at the base and again up in the head. Many of the joints have a ratcheting effect, which makes them pretty strong and an absolute pleasure to work with!

I’ve got to say that the balance on this figure is absolutely amazing. He can balance on one leg pretty easily without assistance.

You get two pairs of hands with Ryu: One set of fists, and one pair for palm strikes or performing a Hadouken. You also get the Hadouken effect part and a stand for it. The effect part is absolutely gorgeous with a iridescent swirl of blue energy inside it and you can even see Ryu’s hands in it as he projects it. The stand plugs into the bottom and it’s hinged in two places.

At $25, Ryu feels like a pretty solid value when compared to what other companies are offering, and this figure just does so much stuff right. The articulation is well thought out and well implemented. The use of colored plastic over paint makes him look clean and vibrant, and everything here just screams quality and polish. I was originally going to just cherry pick this line, but with Ryu now in hand, I think I’m going all in!