Koto continues to challenge my finances and shelf space with their never ending flood of Bishoujo Statues. I’m now pursuing these on four fronts: Marvel, DC, Street Fighter, and Tekken, and I’m falling a few statues behind. There are actually a couple Tekken statues I’m missing, but given the high prices on the secondary market, may end up writing those off. Anyway, Today I’m pressing on with my fifth statue in the Tekken series: The younger of the two Williams sisters, Anna.

The packaging is right in line with what we’ve been seeing. Koto uses a black box to distinguish the Street Fighter and Tekken lines from the Marvel and DC ones. While Anna has appeared in just about every Tekken release to date (excluding Tekken 4), the package is branded, as usual, with the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 logo. You get windows on the front, top and right side panels allowing a pretty good look at the statue. Instead of a future release, the back of the box simply offers a look at Nina Williams, no doubt trying to capitalize on the odd rivalry between the two sisters. A rivalry that usually ends up with Nina taking a surprise polaroid of Anna coming out of the shower, Nina pulling off Anna’s bikini top in front of a bunch of dudes, or Nina stealing Anna’s shoes and then pretending she doesn’t know anything about it. What’s that? Oh yeah, we’re talking about a fighting game franchise.

Anna dons a stunning red dress with a gold liner and a rather large bow on the small of her back. She’s either caught in mid twirl or standing in a wind tunnel because there’s a convenient breeze blowing her dress up to the side and accentuating the high slit and showing off a generous amount of thigh. If that’s not enough to get your blood pumping, there’s also an ample amount of cleavage on display through a boob window that would make Power Girl jealous. The dress features a nice glossy sheen both to the red outside and the gold liner and is contrasted by the matte red of her detached sleeves. Damn, Anna, your caboose is PUNISHING that dress!

I really dig the pose here. With her right hand behind her head, she’s beckoning with the left, possibly inviting her next sparring partner to come at her. The placement of the legs, one straight out and one bent back is perfect to accenutate her long legs, heels, and stockings.

Speaking of stockings, Koto really seems to be all about the fishnet stockings lately. They first employed it with their Zatanna statue and again with the new Black Canary. Anna’s stockings are quite spectacular, fashioned from super thin stread in a honeycomb pattern and running from her thighs all the way down into her shoes. It’s actually pretty neat the way they run under the plastic ankle straps. The seams on the backs of her legs are a little thicker than one might expect, but they’re still rather tidy and don’t get in my way of enjoying the statue. The whole ensemble is “held up” by sculpted garter straps.

The portrait here is just lovely. Anna sports a perfect little smile and the wind blows her short hair up to the side. The paint on the eyes and lips is immaculate, but then again it always is on these pieces.

The base is the typical circular clear disk that we’ve been seeing all along on the Tekken statues. You get three different inserts to decorate it with. The options are colorful character art, a signature insert, or a 20th Anniversary logo, which is a new option. Lately, I’ve been going with the character art.

I picked up Anna for around fifty bucks, which is a great deal for a Bishoujo these days. Even with about 30 of these statues in my collection, Koto never fails to impress and every time I open one of these is a treat. And yes, she looks fantastic on display next to her sister. Thankfully, I’m going to get a little breathing room now (at least as far as Tekken goes), as the next statue isn’t due to ship until the later half of the year. I should also note that it’s Lucky Chloe from the upcoming Tekken 7 release, and I haven’t decided yet whether she’s a pass for me. I may just take that money and invest it toward tracking down Emily de Rochefort. In the meantime, I have a couple of new DC Bishoujo’s on their way to me now and Street Fighter’s Sakura just landed on my doorstep a couple of days ago… then Poison is shipping soon… Lady Deadpool is almost out… They’re doing Tali from Mass Effect… Oh yeah, Sniper Wolf from Metal Gear Solid… Jeepers!

Collecting Koto’s Bishoujo statues these days is like trying to keep your head above water. The releases are coming fast and furious and if you don’t keep up you’ll die in a watery grave. Actually, no you’ll just have to pay a lot more for what you missed out on through the secondary market, because most of these statues, particularly in the Tekken series, shoot up in price like crazy as soon as they’re discontinued. Yes, sadly, I have to face facts that there’s at least one Tekken gal that will probably never land on my shelves for this very reason, (I’m looking at you, Alisa Boscono!) and I’ll probably eventually lay down the $80 or so bucks that Jun Kazama is going for these days. I didn’t want that to happen with Nina Williams, because she’s been my gal ever since I first played the original Tekken.

Nina comes in a rather compact window box. Don’t forget the Tekken pieces are scaled slightly smaller than Koto’s other Bishoujo lines. The box is black, features the Tekken Tag Torunament 2 logo and some great shots of the artwork by Shunya Yamashita, which inspired this piece. The back panel has some shots of the statue, a little blurb about Nina and a teaser image for the next release, which just so happens to be Nina’s sister, Anna. Inside the box, Nina is wrapped in plastic and secured between two clear plastic trays. She comes attached to her base and all ready for display, but I found it easier to remove the base to get all that plastic off of her. Thus far all, or at least most, of these statues have been from characters introduced later in the series, but Nina’s been around as long as the franchise has and even starred in her own game on the PlayStation 2, Death by Degrees, which shipped with a Tekken 5 Demo Disk. This gal has done it all!

And here she is in all her glory. she’s caught turning around and winding up for a lethal side kick. Koto loves showing off the balance on these pieces with the girls often posing on only one leg and these are often my favorites. This one in particular works really well from multiple angles, either with Nina looking straight out from the display shelf, or kicking off to the side.

In keeping with the theme of this series, Koto went for Nina’s modern look. I believe she first wore this outfit in Tekken 5 and she’s been donning this as her Player 1 outfit ever since. She’s wearing a two-piece purple camo tactical suit (because… video games!), which allows her to show off a little mid-riff, with the top belted to her bottom in the front and back. The pants include integral high-heeled boots, wrapped with belts, silver reinforced plates on the interior of her legs, armored knee-pads, and a sheathed combat knife strapped to her right thigh. Her top is a bevy of straps and belts with long sleeves, thick gloves, and bare shoulders.

Nina’s portrait is a thing of beauty. She wears a sly smile on her perfectly painted lips with her pretty eyes glancing off to the side. Somebody’s about to get a whooping! Her blonde hair is cinched in a ponytail with strands framing her face and blowing every which way. Interesingtly, Koto seems to be shying away from the transparent hair effect in some of their current pieces. I’ve always been a fan of that look, but I can’t say as I really miss it here.

The coloring on this piece is overall rather soft and muted, even with the crazy purple camo pattern on her tactical suit. Even the metallic silver used on her legs isn’t the super shiny stuff that Koto likes to use. You do get some high gloss purple on the insides of her legs near the knees, the back of her collar, and some more used on the soles of her boots. The paint is immaculate with plenty of silver used on the buckles and rivets holding her straps together. As always the skin tones are perfect.

The base consists of the simple clear disk we’ve been seeing on all the Tekken pieces. While I find these are tough to keep free of fingerprints, I appreciate the economy of space they present. As always, you get a number of graphical inlays that you can put inside the base to customize your statue. I do believe I’ll end up going with the character art.

I have to admit, when I started collecting the Tekken Bishoujos way back in 2012, I never imagined Koto would keep it going this long. What’s even more impressive is that the line ran for three whole years before releasing a primary character like Nina Williams. That right there was probably a sign that they were in it for the long haul. I grabbed this statue for the ridiculous low price of $45, which is practically unheard of these days, but even at the full retail of around $60ish, I think she’s well worth the money.

A couple weeks back I featured Jaycee from Koto’s Tekken Bishoujo line and lamented the fact that I had to start grabbing the discontinued Tekken ladies up before they get too pricey on the secondary market. Asuka was one of the ones that I really wanted when she was released but I had so many other things vying for my dollars I had to put her off and she was rapidly beginning to climb out of the price range ($100+) that I am comfortable paying for these gals. I try not to resort to Ebay for my Bishoujos, especially if they’re not new, but this was a case where I had to take an opportunity and nab her when I could. Luckily she was still boxed and in excellent condition.

And speaking of boxes, there’s Asuka’s packaging. It’s very similar to what we saw with Jaycee and Christie Monteiro before her. The box is mostly black as opposed to the white Koto uses for the comic based characters. You get some great shots of the statue as well as the beautiful artwork that inspired it. While Asuka originally hails from Tekken 5, this particular piece is based on her appearance in TekkenTag Tournament 2 and features the game’s logo on the box. The back of the box shows a teaser for the next statue, which happens to be Jaycee, the one I looked at last time. As I said, this statue came to me second hand and despite being a little shelfworn, the box is in pretty good shape. Asuka requires no assembly, nor does she come with any extra bits or bobs. You just take her out of the box, unwrap the plastic, and she’s ready for display.

I absolutely love the simplicity of this piece and the fact that it in no way sacrifices any of the sexy flash that I’ve come to expect from my Bishoujo statues. Asuka’s brash, arrogant, and playful style is wonderfully conveyed as she throws her hip to the side, winks and offers up a salute. Even if you knew nothing about Ms. Kazama, this pose would tell you everything about her personality. I often go back and forth over whether I prefer my Bishoujo poses to be “action shots”or just shameless mugging for the camera, but this one certainly champions the later.

The previous Tekken statues that I featured here on FFZ showcased some pretty crazy and complex outfits, but Asuka’s couldn’t be further from that trend. Her one-piece (for lack of a better term) is zipped down to the belt and cast off behind her to reveal just her sporty bikini top, which ironically also has its own zipper, which is also zipped down to the bottom. This is a good news, bad news scenario, folks. If you’re an ass-man, Asuka ain’t gonna do much for you because of that damn jacket. If cleavage is your game, however, Asuka certainly came to play. Proportionally speaking, Asuka probably has more covering her arms and legs than anywhere else. She sports a set of boots with shin pads and fingerless gloves with elbow pads.

The coloring offers up some blue, gray, white, a little teal and black. I find it to be a pleasing pallet, although while there’s a nice bit of gloss to Ms. Kazama top, you don’t get that same contrast of high gloss latex and soft skin tones that characterize so many of Koto’s Bishoujo line. The skin tone’s here, on the other hand, are executed particularly well. The use of shading on her midriff, neck, and cleavage all looks fantastic.

The portrait here follows suit with being rather simple and yet so good. Koto usually likes to go crazy with long windblown hair, and Asuka’s rather short coif robbed them of the opportunity here. That’s OK, though, I dig the short haircut and they still managed to get in that tapered transparent look that they love so much. With one eye closed and the other shrouded by hair, you don’t get the same clarity of peepers on this statue as most, but I’m still in love with this portrait.

As is par for the course, Asuka comes on a clear disk stand, which can be opened and customized with different art transparencies or just left blank. As I bought this statue second hand, mine only came with one transparency, but I doubt there was anything that I would have chosen to display her with over this wonderful piece of art. It’s nice to know that if I ever get tired of looking at the boobs on the statue, I can look at the ones on the base art. Who loves ya, kids? Kotobukiya does! [I actually didn’t notice until after I shot the pictures that the previous owner of the statue put all three transparencies into the base. If you look closely, you can see the signature overlay and the title overlay under the character art overlay. 10 Points to me for getting all three included, but minus 100 points for being too stupid to notice! -FFZ]

I’m always thrilled to add a new Bishoujo statue to my collection, but this was a special case because not owning Asuka was beginning to worry me, and that brings me to the subject of cost. This is usually the part of the feature where I say what a great value the Bishoujo statues are, and in fairness, when Asuka first hit the shelves at an MSRP of around $60, she was indeed a great value. Now, you’d be hard pressed to find her selling new for under $100, although in fairness she is close to three years old now. I grabbed mine from a good home on Ebay for about $85 shipped, and I still manage to feel like I got a pretty solid deal, especially considering I spend about that same amount for DC Collectible’s cold cast porcelain Cover Girls, and I’d readily debate that Koto’s pieces are nearly always superior. Either way, I can’t put a price on peace of mind, and knowing that Asuka is finally on my shelf does indeed give me plenty of that.