Tag Archives: jada toys

Jul 19 2024

Ultra Street Fighter II: M. Bison by Jada Toys

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!

Mar 20 2024

Mega Man by Jada Toys

A short while back, Jada Toys started trying their hand at the 6-inch scale action figure market with a selection of Universal Monsters. These were really quite good, especially for a company’s early effort and I think the only thing that really hurt them was the fact that veteran NECA Toys was doing the same figures at the same time, and infinitely better. But, Jada persevered and wound up giving us what I thought were some of the best figures of 2024 with their Ultra Street Fighter II line. And it looks like they’re continuing to cozy up with Capcom, because now they’re tackling The Blue Bomber himself, Mega Man!

It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of Mega Man as a game franchise. It perfected run-and-gun side-scrolling action and managed to create an intensely difficult challenge, while rarely feeling cheap and unfair. That didn’t stop me from wanting to snap a few controllers in half while playing, but more often than not, when I die playing I’m willing to concede that it’s entirely my fault. The first assortment of three figures includes Mega Man, and the bosses Ice Man and Fire Man. I decided to give Mega Man his own slot today, but both Ice Man and Fire Man are on their way to me, so I’ll likely check them out together in the near future. The figure comes in some snazzy packaging with a big window to show off the figure and accessories. You get some beautiful character art and Mega Man’s power meter fully powered up, which I thought was a great touch. It’s all collector friendly, so let’s cut some tape and bust him out!

And dang, doesn’t he look great! Mega Man stands shorter than the Street Fighter figures, but I’d still consider him to be about 6-inch scale. There’s actually not a lot to say about Mega Man when it comes to his sculpt. His body is smooth and lacks any sculpted details, letting the wonderful proportions do all the work. And that’s not a complaint, as it’s right in line with the cartoony character design. There’s an excellent use of pale matte blue for the torso, upper legs and biceps and high gloss blue for the lower legs, lower arms, feet and hands. I love his triangular body design that goes from his narrow shoulders down to his giant feet, and he’s got a little swell to his forearms. My figure does have an unfortunate blue mark on his chest, which I’m hoping will come out with a little rubbing.

You get two different heads: One whimsical and grinning, and one with his battle face on. Both of these are quite good with the same two-tone blue deco for the helmet. He’s got his headphone-like ear pieces and the raised mohawk-like crest running up the center of his helmet. All the facial features are sculpted as well as painted in. Punching in close reveals that the sculpt and paint are a bit at odds with each other, but it’s not something I notice with the naked eye.

The articulation here is pretty damn great for a short and stocky character. He’s got rotating hinges in his shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. There’s a ball joint in his chest and another in his neck. The feet have a pretty wide ranging lateral hinge to keep his feet flat in most stances. The hands are on hinged pegs to allow you to swap them out between the set of fists and open hands. I honestly did not expect this little guy to be so much fun to pose and play with, but he sure is!

The Mega Buster can be swapped out for the right forearm by unpegging the arm and pegging the Buster in. And yeah, this will likely be the way he’s displayed on my shelf most of the time. The cannon has the same high gloss finish as the arm piece it replaces and you get a sculpted power meter painted yellow as well as some red paint inside the barrel.

The final accessory in the box is the Mega Buster Blast effect part and a stand to display it on. The effect part uses the same style stand as we saw with the Street Fighter figures, with a clear post divided up with two hinges. One end plugs into the base and the other into the blast piece. It’s kind of elaborate for what it does, but it works fine.

The last Mega Man figure I owned was probably the one Jazzwares put out around 2004. I remember finding him at a KayBee Toys Outlet and taking him home. It was a lot bigger and it was a decent enough figure for its time, but Jada’s release really approaches a level of perfection. I think he’s the perfect size as he’s chunky enough to have all the articulation he needs and be fun to play with, but small enough to scale well for posing with the Ultra Street Fighter line. Or you can even bring him in to beat the hell out of some Marvel Legends, Marvel Vs. Capcom style. Either way, Jada really seems to be killing it with their current crop of figures and I’m excited to see if their partnership with Capcom branches out even further. In the meantime, I’ll likely be on board this Mega Man train for as far as it goes!

Jan 26 2024

Ultra Street Fighter II: Chun Li by Jada Toys

Last year Jada Toys came out of left field with their new line of Ultra Street Fighter II figures and blew a lot of people away. This is a company known for making cars and metal miniatures, so I don’t think anyone expected them to toss out such exceptional figures with so little experience. And yet Ryu turned out to be one of the better 6-inch scale figures I reviewed here last year, doing a lot of things better than veterans like Hasbro and Mattel. After playing around with him, I quickly decided I was going to be collecting this line, although I probably won’t be all in on the variants. I picked up two additional figures last year, but they didn’t get the spotlight here, so let’s start remedying that today with a look at Chun Li.

The packaging here goes a long way to show how much passion Jada is putting into this line, as you get a window box recreating an arcade coin-op machine with some character art at the bottom left hand corner. The window shows off the figure from the knees up, as well as most of the accessories you’re getting. The illustrated backdrop has some pixel art from one of the stages in the game, although it’s rather obscured by all the stuff. I love the health bars up top and you get a recreation of the character select screen on the back. Best of all, these boxes are totally collector friendly, and you can bet that I’m keeping them all.

While I tend to play Street Fighter III: Third Strike on my Dreamcast more than any other game in the franchise, this look for Chun Li is still about as iconic as things get for me. And boy, Jada did a great job rendering it in plastic! Chun Li’s qipao is cast in a vibrant electric blue plastic with some very fine texturing. All the trim is sculpted as well as painted in some very nice gold leaf paint with some pretty sharp lines. The lower part of the dress is cast in soft plastic and hangs down the front and back, with wide cuts in the sides so as not to try to contain those magnificent thighs. As if anything ever could! The poufy shoulders include short sleeves, which are sculpted separately from the biceps, there’s some great sculpting in the lacings of her white boots, and her spiked bracelets are separate pieces, so keep an eye on them when you swap hands! From the coloring to the sculpt, this figure just looks absolutely superb!

You get two heads to display on the figure: One serious and one shouty-serious! Both of these look great and follow the stylized game art fairly well. Punching in with the camera doesn’t do them a lot of favors as some of the paint quality breaks down the closer in you get. That’s to be expected with most figures, and it’s not something that I notice at all with the figure in hand. I think the biggest problem with paint on my figure is slop around the yellow fringe against the white covering on her oxtails. Again, not that big a deal when viewed with the naked eye, but it looks pretty bad when zoomed in. I do have a dark spot on my shouty face’s right cheek, but most of that has managed to come off with a little wiping. Yes, I would have really liked a happy victory head too, but at this price point, I think two heads is reasonable. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that a recolored variant will include that head and if that’s true, then I’m on board!

One of the things that impressed me most about Ryu was how great the figure felt in hand and how much fun he was to pose. Well, all that is definitely the case for Chun Li as well. All the joints on this figure are solid and easy to work with, and there was nothing stuck or problematic as she came out of the box. It’s sad to have to point that out, but I’ve had a lot of issues with stuck joints on figures these days, it’s great to see Jada getting it right. They’ve done an excellent job of balancing sculpt and aesthetics with lots of useful articulation. You need only go back and look at the SOTA Chun Li to see how far we’ve come!

Chun-Li includes two sets of hands: Fists and tight-fingered chopping hands. The pegs are pretty robust and these are easy to swap out without fear of anything snapping.

The final accessories are the effect part for Chun-Li’s Hundred Lightning Kicks, which comes with its own dedicated stand. The stand is hinged at two places and plugs into the bottom of the effect piece to support it. The effect piece itself is cast in soft translucent blue plastic and you just insert Chun-Li’s foot into on of the slots and it works really well. The stand can also be repurposed to support the figure for other action poses, even though it wasn’t really intended for that purpose.

Boy do I love this line! The retail on these figures remains about $25 each, which is great for people who don’t want to sink $100 a pop into Storm Collectible’s far more premium line. I’m not about to tell you the two are in the same league, as Storm’s figures are scaled bigger and tend to have a lot more accessories. But as someone who does collect several of Storm’s series, proportionally speaking, I think the value is far better on Jada’s figures. These are incredibly fun toys that pitch perfectly capture the spirit of the game characters and are tough to put down. The amount of extras feels just right and when it comes to sculpt and coloring and overall quality, Jada is absolutely eating Hasbro’s lunch when it comes to figures in this scale. The next time I pop a quarter into this machine, we’ll check out Fei Long!

Jun 23 2023

Ultra Street Fighter II: Ryu by Jada Toys

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!