KEN MASTERS - Storm Collectibles Street Fighter V action figure

It seems like everyone and their grandmother is reviewing Storm Collectibles' Street Fighter figures right now. The good news is that the reviews tend to be very positive, with most of the complaints I have seen occurring around QC issues having to do with breakage at the joints. To this point, Ken is my sixth opened Storm Collectibles action figure and, thankfully, I haven't had any breakage issues at all (knock wood). I've been very pleased with the figures I've gotten so far, and I'm still as excited about the line moving forward as I was before the first figure's initial release!

Ken is the third Street Fighter V figure to be released by SC (not counting re-paints). It's another solid figure, and might actually be my favorite of the three so far, despite my general ambivalence towards Ken's SFV character re-design.

Ken comes packaged in a fairly large window box with attractive graphics on each of the panels. SC has been releasing 2 package versions for each figure: Asian releases have all of the descriptive text in Japanese (I assume), while North American versions are translated into English. Since mine came directly from SC, I've no idea what the bio shares. I like the general design of the box, but there are a couple of things worth noting. First, there's a LOT crammed into this figure's package, which makes it feel like the thing is about to burst. In fact, my top panel was fairly popping out of the tape. It's easy enough to open, but a little trickier to keep mint for MIB collectors. My second and third notes have to do with MIB collectors, as well. The SF logo on the top panel is a cut-out, which means there's a V-shape of cardboard that doesn't like to sit flush against the top panel. As a result, that V tends to get caught on things and bend upwards, which can be an annoyance for MIBers. Finally, there's a sheet of thin plastic film wedged around the figure and between the clamshells that hold everything in place. I love that SC is keeping the figure and contents from paint mishaps, but it makes it very difficult to see the figure and its accessories in detail through the protective wrap. These are all minor quibbles to me, and do not in any way detract from my enjoyment of the product.

Storm Collectibles has included a ton of useful accessories with Ken. You'll get a total of: 8 hands, 3 face plates, 3 bang hair pieces (making for a total of 9 different looks for the head), a small flame effect for the foot, a dragon punch flame effect, a large dragon kick flame effect, a display stand and arm, a flaming Hadoken effect and a cardboard backdrop. The flame effects are beautifully crafted of translucent plastic with painted highlights at the edges. The hands include 2 fists, 2 open palms, 2 Hadoken gripping hands, another open left hand and a pointing right hand. The Hadoken hands clamp onto the fireball pretty well, but getting them attached to the arms is tricky.

Aesthetically, Ken is fantastic. I feel like Storm Collectibles begins with the sculpt, and works the articulation scheme from there. The result is that their figures look really accurate to the game and make creative use of a variety of materials (such as rubber or softer plastic) to enhance their articulation. Bandai's Figuarts figures, on the other hand, feel like they begin with the articulation and work towards the sculpt from there. The result is a figure that has a smoother articulation scheme and can achieve a wider variety of excellent poses, but doesn't quite match the thickness of the SFV game renders. I like both styles, personally, and am as excited as ever that we are finally getting outstanding SF figures - from TWO different lines, no less!

SC's figures are so well-sculpted that I'm perfectly content with them standing in a vanilla pose, fists at their sides, on my shelf. Ken is bulky but proportionate. There are wrinkles sculpted across the back of his tight undershirt, and his gi-top hangs folded down around his waist. The black stretch shirt has red piping that is sculpted on as raised elements, rather than just painted on, while the pants and lower torso elements are very similar to those we saw with Ryu (the exception being the straps molded onto the underside of Ken's feet). The default face comes with a stern, tight-lipped expression, creased at the forehead. The alternate faces feature two kids of yells, while the bangs either sweep to the side, or apart. Overall, this is an A-quality sculpt that matches the game renders nearly perfectly, while hiding the articulation fairly well.

The paint is excellent, especially on the face(s). The eyes and brows look great, and the hair looks blonde without being glaring. There's an uneven wash in places over the outfit to give it some grime, though it's not as heavy as it was on Ryu.

Once I started messing around with trying to pose this guy, I discovered some things that I really liked, and some that weren't quite as good. I'll start with the good, first. The head has an amazing amount of tilt, both forward and backwards. The rubber neck and the ball inside work much better than they did on Ryu, and he holds the tilts very well. The rubber upper torso can lean deeply, as well, though a gap opens in the front when he tilts too far backwards. The rubber inserts at the shoulders are great, working as well as they did on Ryu, while looking better. The "skirt" is rubber (it can be removed by pulling the torso apart), but it does restrict the ability of the legs to move out to the sides somewhat. It was inconvenient when I was trying to get high-kicking poses. The wrists have an amazing amount for movement to them, and the ball joint underneath is hidden well by the rubber wrist cuffs. All of that, combined with the excellent sculpt and paint work, really make this figure shine. That said, there were some negatives I encountered.

First and foremost, I do not care for the rubber bangs. The "sweeping to the side" and "sweeping outwards" bangs don't do much for me, and (more importantly) they did not peg into the head deep enough. Either the post is too long, or the rubber is too flexible. Either way, they stick out too far and just don't look good. I'd suggest small bits like that be done with regular plastic, rather than rubber (they really don't need to flex anyway). My biggest gripe (and biggest surprise, actually) are the translucent plastic effect parts. They are not easy to get on, at all. It was really frustrating to try to squeeze Ken's foot into the large dragon fire kicking effect, and once I got it on it was too heavy for the hip joint, so it kept pulling the leg down. Plus, it sits in a really awkward direction on the foot. I couldn't even get the smaller foot-fire effect attached at all. The place where these parts clamp in is just too tight, and they have no flex whatsoever to them. This is a case where I'd recommend a softer plastic for the effect parts. The dragon punch flame effect part worked great.

Overall, Ken is another home run for Storm Collectibles. The figure looks terrific, and the SF shelf is really starting to round out now (check out the pic below of all three figures released so far)! I think each release is improving in many ways. I did find the effects parts to be fairly difficult to work with, though they do end up looking pretty good in action shots. I'm sure someone with more posing skills than me will really enjoy this figure. For me, I super happy having him displayed on my shelf. Next up is Zangief!