LONGSTANDING LUST IMPULSE BUY: 52Toys Street Fighter 6 Ryu

I fuckin’ looooooooooove this dude.Honestly, ever since he was announced, he’s had his hooks in me. I never preordered because I think I missed a window, didn’t have a reliable source for 52Toys stuff, didn’t want to spend the BigBad Import Surcharge, or some combination of all those factors.

But he showed up as in stock on 5KToys who are now my reliable go-to for certain types of things and holy crap. Just glorious.

Let’s talk about value for money for a second, though. This dude came at a roughly $20 premium over a similar Storm Arena figure of the same size. The differences that $20 gets you are small but also huge.

So, joints. From a range of motion in the joints standpoint, the biggest difference is the butterfly shoulders. It’s a small difference that’s also a huge difference. Storm Arena Charlie can almost touch his hands together in front of his chest with his arms straight even with the squishy Storm chest. Ryo, with a solid chest, can cross his straight arms in front of his chest at the wrist Something I absolutelytook advantage of in the above pic. Very few figures could hit this pose. Ryu’s double knees also do a thing where the knee joint  stays inside the sculpt while extending it, so instead of the visible diamond kneecap most figures have when there’s a straight leg, there’s just a cut. line.

Or effects. Your $30 Storm Arena or Jada fig will give you one or two effects pieces for the most part and if they’re punch effects they fit over the hands. Ryu comes with four effect hands, two lof the long swirlies and two of the short whooshies. And the long swirlies especially capture a flow and a motion that’s really appealing that I remember from the “ink stroke” style of effects introduced in Street Fighter V that I always found super appealing. And that’s in ADDITION to a very fancy clear blue hadouken fireball and stand which you’ll see tomorrow.

You’ll occasionally see a bit of wired soft goods on a Jada (not sure about Storm) but Ryu comes with a wired, tattered half-cape with a molded, sculpted, maybe painted ring in it. 

It all adds up. Little touches. The blt tie and hair ti being able to swivel for posing. The bracers. Just a bunch of little details that make you feel like the extra money wasn’t in vain. Also somehow Beardy Ryu is a smoke show in a way that regular Ryu absolutely is not.