DSC_3125
Storm Mai Shiranui arrived a few nights ago, which for me is relatively fast as blogger photos started popping up maybe two weeks ago?
Mai is... interesting. I guess by now what you should be expecting from Storm is pretty well known, so I guess my concerns began when I preordered based on the prototype. But, being a devout Mai Shiranui fan, and seeing how few action figures we get her, it had to be done.
So the good news is that there seems to have been some improvements made, but ultimately it's not exactly where I would like it to be.
Mai Shiranui is known for being... full bodied. Now, granted the curves kind of change depending on the art for the game, but ultimately she's got curves. The KoF '978 art is from the era before they started giving her slimmer proportions, but at a time they kept changing up the face.
The prototype looked like Mai skipped meals. To me, it looks like they made her bust larger, and it feel like the thighs were increased or the groin piece was altered slightly as the figure, or at least mine, cannot stand with her legs together like in the prototype.
HOWEVER... it looks like the neck was inexplicably lengthened, which combined with the undersized head, just looks really, really odd at any angle where the neck isn't tilted. Perhaps to add even more insult to injury, Juri, who caters to the foot fetish crowd, actually has thiccer thighs than freakin' Mai, which is unacceptable AND leaves Mai still looking waifish. This is most evident in an poses that require her to stick out her legs.
I also wish they had increased the arm girth, both for aesthetic and practical reasons.
The faces are... adequate. They're certainly identifiable as Mai, but they're not even remotely close to the character and to be completely frank, range from OK to Gollum, especially the face with the closed mouth. Part of it is the small size, but in general I've found that many of the Storm female faces lack any real muscle definition. They get marginally better as you get less and less mouth, though the eyes are again, kind of generic.
Decent number of accessories, though like with most Mai figures, there's always something missing. You get a closed fan, and open fan, a thrown fan, and her Flaming Bee Attack effect. I don't recall Mai having the two fan spinning attack in KoF '98 nor do I recall her having the flame pillar attack (I think that made its debut in Fatal Fury Real Bout) but there's yet again, no Flaming Tail attack effect and also, sadly, her Tassels are made of soft plastic. There's no manual, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to attach the stand to the Flaming Bee Attack effect like in the stock photos.
Articulation is mostly as expected, with a few weird twists. The shoulders, arms, knees, and feet work as you would expect. Starting with the torso, the aforementioned soft rubber tassels, specifically the bow on her lower back, along with the fact they made her torso one piece have eliminated the entire point of articulation in the abdominal area.
One win/lose choice is the ass, specifically to have the ass cheeks and the thigh together in one piece. Aesthetically it looks much better when she's standing, but in most other poses it just looks weird. The other problem is that because of the bulk, articulation of the hips/thigh are restricted.
A final stroke of weirdness, sort of, is the neck. Now, I was happy that Juri got a fully articulated neck. Well, that joy was short lived as the restricted neck is back, but there is some movement at least.
To summarize, her neck articulation is optimized to allow for many, many, MANY poses where Mai is bent at the waist and showing off the goods.
Other facets of the figure are per Storm Collectibles norm. I just wish they had made the dangling bits off the fan not as easy to come off.
DSC_3125
Storm Mai Shiranui arrived a few nights ago, which for me is relatively fast as blogger photos started popping up maybe two weeks ago?
Mai is... interesting. I guess by now what you should be expecting from Storm is pretty well known, so I guess my concerns began when I preordered based on the prototype. But, being a devout Mai Shiranui fan, and seeing how few action figures we get her, it had to be done.
So the good news is that there seems to have been some improvements made, but ultimately it's not exactly where I would like it to be.
Mai Shiranui is known for being... full bodied. Now, granted the curves kind of change depending on the art for the game, but ultimately she's got curves. The KoF '978 art is from the era before they started giving her slimmer proportions, but at a time they kept changing up the face.
The prototype looked like Mai skipped meals. To me, it looks like they made her bust larger, and it feel like the thighs were increased or the groin piece was altered slightly as the figure, or at least mine, cannot stand with her legs together like in the prototype.
HOWEVER... it looks like the neck was inexplicably lengthened, which combined with the undersized head, just looks really, really odd at any angle where the neck isn't tilted. Perhaps to add even more insult to injury, Juri, who caters to the foot fetish crowd, actually has thiccer thighs than freakin' Mai, which is unacceptable AND leaves Mai still looking waifish. This is most evident in an poses that require her to stick out her legs.
I also wish they had increased the arm girth, both for aesthetic and practical reasons.
The faces are... adequate. They're certainly identifiable as Mai, but they're not even remotely close to the character and to be completely frank, range from OK to Gollum, especially the face with the closed mouth. Part of it is the small size, but in general I've found that many of the Storm female faces lack any real muscle definition. They get marginally better as you get less and less mouth, though the eyes are again, kind of generic.
Decent number of accessories, though like with most Mai figures, there's always something missing. You get a closed fan, and open fan, a thrown fan, and her Flaming Bee Attack effect. I don't recall Mai having the two fan spinning attack in KoF '98 nor do I recall her having the flame pillar attack (I think that made its debut in Fatal Fury Real Bout) but there's yet again, no Flaming Tail attack effect and also, sadly, her Tassels are made of soft plastic. There's no manual, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to attach the stand to the Flaming Bee Attack effect like in the stock photos.
Articulation is mostly as expected, with a few weird twists. The shoulders, arms, knees, and feet work as you would expect. Starting with the torso, the aforementioned soft rubber tassels, specifically the bow on her lower back, along with the fact they made her torso one piece have eliminated the entire point of articulation in the abdominal area.
One win/lose choice is the ass, specifically to have the ass cheeks and the thigh together in one piece. Aesthetically it looks much better when she's standing, but in most other poses it just looks weird. The other problem is that because of the bulk, articulation of the hips/thigh are restricted.
A final stroke of weirdness, sort of, is the neck. Now, I was happy that Juri got a fully articulated neck. Well, that joy was short lived as the restricted neck is back, but there is some movement at least.
To summarize, her neck articulation is optimized to allow for many, many, MANY poses where Mai is bent at the waist and showing off the goods.
Other facets of the figure are per Storm Collectibles norm. I just wish they had made the dangling bits off the fan not as easy to come off.