Jada Toys Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers Ryu review

Ryu has been the one Jada Toys Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers’ first four releases I haven’t found at retail. I did manage to wait long enough to get him where he was a little cheaper than the others. Ryu’s my favorite fighting game character so it was just a matter of time when I got him. The Jada SF figures have really impressed me, and I had high hopes he was going to be one of my favorites in the line.

Let’s see if Ryu lived up to my expectations or if he’s gotta keep traveling the world to become a better figure as well as a fighter.

Packaging: I really dig the arcade cabinet style setup complete with the player 1 and player 2 joystick and buttons.

The bottom left corner features Ryu’s game artwork along with decreasing health bars for 1P and 2P. The artwork on the sides hasn’t been updated for newer releases so there’s no image of Ken among the mix of Cammy, Dee Jay, T. Hawk, Vega and Ryu.

On the left side, there is a very tiny bit of personalization with Ryu’s hometown and fighting style.

I’m still confused about the lack of any interesting elements on the rear packaging. Ryu is posed in a deep battle stance. He has the cross sell with the other Wave 1 figures Chun-Li and Fei Long. The bottom features the game art featuring the 19 playable characters, which amazingly Jada has already revealed.

Likeness: Ryu looks solid. I love the default head sculpt, which is probably my favorite of the four I’ve grabbed so far. His hair hangs above his headband just right and his eyebrows flare up over it. His expression is stern and focused like he’s ready for his latest challenge.

While his body is mostly the same as Ken, there are some differences namely Ryu’s sleeves and pant cuffs are jagged like they’ve been ripped off.

His sparring gloves have a leather-like texture to them, which is an impressive amount of detail for something that usually is just done as a simple sculpt.

Paint: Jada doesn’t half-tail it with the paintwork. Ryu’s skin tone has a wash to help bring out his musculature. That little bit of shading goes a long way to make Ryu stand out. It’s the difference between a figure that’s fine and one that really looks like care was put to him on all levels.

There’s not a lot of additional paintwork needed save the yellow script with the Japanese symbols of Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain.

Ironically this is my first Ryu figure in his classic white attire. My SOTA and Storm Collectibles figure were in his darker blue attires. While Jada has released an alternate grey attire, I decided to stick classic on this one.

MORE:

• G.I. Joe Classified Series Clutch with VAMP review
• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live – Bye review S1 E3
• Star Wars The Black Series Padawan Ahsoka Tano – Clone Wars review
• Road House (2024) review

Scale:  Ryu is naturally the same height as Ken and they’re average height placing him taller than Chun-Li and Fei Long. With the regular height characters basically done it’ll be fun pitting Ryu against taller characters like Sagat.

Articulation: Not shockingly, Ryu sports the same sensational articulation as Ken. Jada’s articulation scheme is outstanding allowing the figures to smoothly and naturally hit the characters’ signature poses.

There wasn’t something I envisioned for Ryu that I couldn’t pull off.

He can hit deeper stances for his hard and high punches and kicks while getting low enough to do sweeps and hurricane kicks.

Ryu also benefits from Jada’s rocker torso, which has fantastic side to side movement. It allows him to strike more poses and maintain them with ease.

Ryu has

• head
• neck
• shoulders (butterfly)
• elbow (double-jointed)
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• mid-torso
• torso
• hips (ball-jointed)
• thigh
• knees (double-jointed)
• ankles

Accessories: Jada’s lines are right up with Hasbro’s G.I. Joe Classified Series and Mattel’s Masters of the Universe New Eternia lines in terms of providing the strongest value for under $30.

He also has a swappable set of open hands as if he was channeling his Hadoken. 

It’s done in a translucent blue plastic and comes with a stand to convey its path.

Finally, he comes with another head sculpt. This one is the more intense, gritted teeth portrait. That’s helpful for action shots.

Worth It?  I’m still crazy impressed that Jada is able to get these highly articulated figures out with a generous number of accessories for $25. I got him for $22, which was a nice little discount from the standard price point.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Based on the quality of other figures in the line I had no doubt that Ryu would impress. And he didn’t disappoint. I’m looking forward to further building out this line.

Where to Get It?  I never found these figures at retail, but you can get him from my affiliates Amazon or Entertainment Earth.