Last year, Jada Toys, one of the kings of diecast cars, came out of nowhere and started shipping some absolutely incredible action figures based on Capcom’s timeless Street Fighter videogame franchise. So far, I’ve checked out Ryu and Chun-Li, and now that some new challengers hit my doorstep, I’m ready for more! Apologies to Ken and Fei Long, who have been waiting for their turn in the spotlight, but M. Bison and Dhalsim arrived and I’m bumping them to the head of the line. Today let’s go with the villainous M. Bison!

I absolutely adore the package design Jada came up with for this line! You get a cardboard arcade cabinet motif with a large window displaying the figure from the knees up, so unfortunately if you buy your figures based on feet, you’ll be going in blind! And are also a very peculiar person! There’s some character art on the bottom and a life bar recreated up top. The packaging here is collector friendly, but you do need to show a modicum of care when opening it from the bottom flaps and sliding out the tray. I rarely keep action figure boxes these days, but I have been hanging onto all of these.

Out of the box, Bison is showing off all the great stuff that made me fall in love with this line at the start. A lot of the coloring is in the plastic, which I think tends to look more vibrant and minimizes paint issues. The red suit is covered in a very fine woven texture with some scrapes and cuts add here and there. There’s a sculpted blue collar, which continues to run down the center of the tunic where it tucks under a thin black belt and gold buckle. His forearms and lower legs are armored and these have a very nice silver finish with some spray to show a rust-like weathering. I’m hard pressed to remember the last time I saw a faux metal finish this nice on a retail action figure in this price range. Of course, Bison is a chonky boi, and the musculature and proportions here look great.

Bison’s black cape is cloth with a wire running around the edges to make it posable. The cape itself actually feels a bit leather-like. And I’ve gotta ask, how often do you see this kind of stuff in mass market figures these days? The cape is attached to his shoulder armor by gold fixtures. It’s also removable by snapping off the shoulder plates and replacing them with a second pair. It would have been easier for Jada to just do snaps, but this way you can nix the cape and still have clean looking shoulder pieces. Swapping them out is easy enough and they seem to stay on pretty well. The armor pieces are attached around the shoulder articulation with rings and can shift back and forward to keep from hindering the range of motion there. With the cape gone, comes the only gripe I have with this figure and that’s the unpainted hinges in the back of his knees where the red stands out against the black of the boots. Now, I’ll likely be displaying him with the cape a lot of the time, which will cover this, but it’s worth pointing out all the same.

You get two heads to choose from: One neutral and one showing his fighty face! Both feature his military-style officer’s cap and it has the same texture as the suit. The sculpted crests are painted gold and when you punch in close, there’s a little unevenness to the paint, mostly on the first head. The facial features are very well sculpted right down to the cleft chin. The angry face is definitely the one I’ll be going with most of the time, as it just oozes character.

As with the previous figures in the line, the articulation here is simply fantastic. I won’t run through all the points here, as I’ve done it for the previous figures. Suffice it to say the articulation is extremely fun to work with and the joints are all smooth as butter. He has a pretty good balance, thanks in part to his big boots and like the previous figures he can hold a high kick pose without any support. Bison comes with a pair of fists and a pair of grapple hands.

Finally, you get an effect part to represent his Psycho Power attack. This piece is cast in translucent purple plastic and fits right over either of his fists. The shading in the purple looks really nice.

I may have said this in my other reviews of this line: These figures feel more like imports to me than figures designed for the US market. The design is so polished, the quality so good, and they are just so ridiculously fun to have in hand. And when you factor in the $25 price point and the fact that Jada is still pretty new at this sort of thing, the line becomes all the more impressive to me. And with all of the preview pictures that have been showing up at conventions, it looks like Jada is in this one for the long haul. Jada is absolutely killing it here, and I’m excited to get back and check out Dhalism in the near future!