I already talked about the cornucopia of King of Fighters merch that’s been hitting the shelves, back when I looked at Storm’s Blue Mary figure and a lot of that merch mostly seems to be centered around KOF 98, which works for me, because it’s definitely the game in the series I played the most when it was released as KOF Dream Match 99 on the SEGA Dreamcast. Of course, since then I’ve collected a ton of KOF releases for just about every platform imaginable and have access to the actual arcade games on my Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro so it’s a pretty great time to be a fan of the franchise. And even Kotobukiya is getting in on the action with 1:7 scale statues in their Bishoujo series.

Here she is in the box, which features some colorful artwork and some generously sized windows to let in plenty of light. Indeed, once you remove the plastic wrap, she displays really well in the package! The box also feels a lot more durable than the super thin cardboard they were using for a while. Some of you may know that I have a pretty sizeable collection of Koto’s Bishoujo statues, most of which have been reviewed here on FFZ, and I was fond of ending most of those reviews by stating that these statues were the best value to be had on the statue market. Well, those days are long gone as the retail price of most of Koto’s releases have doubled in the last ten years or so. I can remember getting most of mine back in the day for around $59-69.99 and nowadays most release at over $120. Yikes! The quality is still there, but because of the price hike, I’ve pulled back on collecting them and even let some of my Street Fighter Bishoujos go. Heck, the last Bishoujo I reviewed was Ibuki from Street Fighter and that was six years ago! But, here we are today and Mai turned up at a pretty deep discount a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t resist.

Sporting what I would consider her most iconic pose, I can practically see her going through the fluid motions of her idle animation and hear her exclaim.. NIPPON ICHI! Her pose places her left hand upon her jutting backside while her right hand clutches her butterfly fan. She sports her red and white kunoichi regalia, which is sculpted separately from the body to really give the figure some wonderful depth. She has has heavy braided cords that cross her back and loop under her arms, while the split running down the middle front of her top can barely contain her great assets. It’s belted in white around her slender waist and spills down between her legs, stopping at her knees in the front, but bisecting into two flowing forms out the back, each girded with a giant ball. The outfit is rounded out with a pair of red and black tabi on her feet. Koto did a wonderful job capturing the flow of the outfit as well as the sensual curves of her amazing body.

As is always the case with Koto’s work, the colors are gorgeous. The whites feature a clean matte finish while and the red pops with a vibrant glossy sheen. The plastic they use for the skin holds a beautiful warm tone with some added shading to bring it to life, with none of that waxy finish you get on lesser quality statues.

The portrait is spot-on with the Bishoujo style matching the KOF artwork quite nicely. Mai looks up and off to the side with a thin smile on her lips. Her hair features a top knot that cascades down in a ponytail while her bangs part to perfectly frame each side of her face on the front. So beautiful!

For the base, Koto went for more of a diorama style than usual. I’ve been used to seeing either stylized logo bases or just plain generic black or clear disks for a while. This one is just a section of a street with a manhole cover. It looks OK, but it’s nothing special.

There’s no doubt about it, Kotobukiya still knows how to put out quality figures, and unfortunately they know it, so those prices keep going up. Mai retails for around $120, but I nabbed her for $80. It was still a bit more than I felt comfortable spending, but she went up right before I was going into a spending moratorium for a while, so I decided to splurge. Ultimately, I’m glad I picked her up as she looks gorgeous, but I really wish Max Factory would give us some KOF PopUp Parade figures so Koto’s wouldn’t tempt me so much. Koto also did a Bishoujo of Athena from KOF 98, but I’m not a big enough fan of hers to get her unless she went on a serious clearance sell-out price. And, of course they did a female version of Terry Bogard, and I swear the first release pre-dated the SNK Heroines game that gender-swapped Terry. I wasn’t interested in it back then, but now it’s actually branded under the game and I kind of want her, but it’s not a $130 kind of want.