Getting a hold of fairly priced Bishoujo Street Fighter stuff on the Secondary Market is very hit and miss, with the prices of recognizable characters being generally stupidly high. I do alright on the secondary character, fortunately. Equally fortunately, upon my return from Vancouver at the beginning of June 2024, I came across an ad for a Bishoujo Chun Li, the first one mind you, but I don't have any of them. Bit of a drive, but pricing wasn't terrible, so I bit and here we are.
Chun Li, IIRC, is one of the first in the Bishoujo line, and it makes sense as most lines are generally launched with Chun Li as their first female character, which in a line of female only statues, would mean all of them. As this was a second hand statue, it's missing a box and already had the insert put into the base. I did do my due diligence, and there were no signs that this was a bootleg, which typically features some pretty sloppy paint work that is painfully obvious, along with poor finishes.
I don't know the official name of this move, but it is supposed to be her standing HK anti air/launcher. Now one of the more annoying things about statues is that they sometimes change things from the artwork for.. reasons. Sometimes it's a stability thing or concern with production issues, but most of the time I really can't tell. In this case, it seems that from the sash down, things are working as expected, But the entire upper body is off, with the worst offender being the entire arch of the back and direction the face is in being completely off, making this look more like a side kick than an upward kick.
While the pose was kind of screwed up, at least the hall marks of the line, namely curves, and when appropriate, muscles, were not missed. Facial curves are slimmed down, which generally seems to be a thing with all Shunya Yamashita releases. Average amount on the arms, but a significant amount of muscle on the legs, especially the thighs. Bit difficult to photograph her glutes as they're behind the flap, but there is a nice imprint on that part of the statue so you can visualize in your mind. Other finer details are well within acceptable levels, such as the hair, tassels, and the little fabric details. No seam lines to be found anywhere on the statue. As mentioned above, you'll notice that the paint work for the statue is pretty solid, without any major messes on the Gold trim, something that generally speaking stands on out bootlegs, along with terrible assembly.
Of course, if you look close enough you're always going to find things that they never thought anyone would ever actually see, like the sketch paintwork on the nails and mould lines on the palm itself.
It's nice to add another piece to the Chun Li collection (though to be completely transparent, this is what I could grab easily). I guess in hindsight, I should have been a bit more up to date with these releases, but when you're first married, there's lots of things to deal with and sometimes, things like this just pass you by. But as always, it's not like you're chasing some one of a kind release - you just got to keep your eyes open.
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