Jiggle physics is pretty much standard these days, but back in the stone age, SNK pioneered it all when they animated Mai Shiranui for Fatal Fury 2. I don't know how hard SNK pushed the NEO-GEO, but the character animations in those games are all gorgeous, and the subtle bouncing was no exception.
So yeah, Mai's a pretty popular character.
Which is why it's kind of hard to understand why she doesn't have too many action figures. There's the 1/6 figures and the Nendoroid from the past few years but before that it was like 2005 with the SNK vs. Capcom figures and before that around 2000 the BBi set.
So, unsurprisingly, I leapt into action when the Storm Collectibles figure was announced, and waited eagerly for a year for Mai to make her arrival.
Mai is part of Storm's KoF '98 line up, which, as far as I recall, is the only one they've done up to this point. Now, every KoF is SLIGHTLY different in terms of play mechanics, move set, and of course character art, but you'll soon find out that it wouldn't matter what series she was placed under - Mai would still end up looking the same.
MSRP is around $100 USD, and like with Juri, a decent number of accessories:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 4 x Head Sculpts (Neutral, Shouting, Winking, Fan-In-Mouth)
- 14 x Posing/Gripping Hands
- 1 x Close Fan
- 1 x Open Fan
- 1 x Thrown Fan
- 1 x Flaming Bee Attack Effect
Her umbrella would have been nice, but I don't believe that made its way into her prefight animation until KoF 2000.
The Thrown Fan effect piece connects to a dedicated stand, same as the one I got with Juri. The Flaming Bee attack part, however, isn't as straight forward. The effect wraps around her body, but per the stock photos, you should be able to mount this on the stand and get it floating off the floor. I have not figured out how to do this, and there's no manual anywhere for guidance.
So here she is in her unpackaged glory, and before I start, I will say that she's actually better than the prototype.
Overall, you're not going to mistake this figure for anyone other than Mai. She's in her most iconic outfit and her P1 colours, hairstyle is in the radiational ponytail. Joints stand out but that's flesh colours for you, so no biggie there. Her curves are decent, with the thighs being slightly bigger than the prototype (or they changed something that now prevents her from closing her legs in the standing position) and her bust receiving a substantial upgrade. Arms, sadly, didn't get a boost - they're a tad undersized, which doesn't help aesthetically, and also, I have my concerns from a durability perspective.
Strangely, while the body still features the typical Storm Collectibles combination of jointed parts and soft rubber clothing and body parts, the rubber on Mai is the stiffest of any figure I've handed from the company.
While the thighs were increased in size, it's still all kinds of hilarious that the Queen of T&A actually has smaller thighs than the Foot Fetish Queen, Juri.
One of the unfortunate consequences of changes like this, however, is sometimes they just forget to change other things. The above head is the default one, and yes, the face looks like Mitch McConnell in drag. But that aside, you'll notice things look.. off. So from what I can tell, it feels like when they made the bust bigger, they made the neck longer as well, without compensating for that with a deeper neck cavity. There's also the issue that the the face seems to be curving in towards the neck as it goes from forehead to chin, as opposed to say Juri, who arcs outward. Her chin, particularly in open mouth poses, touches her neck.
Effectively, Mai looks like a turtle in any pose where her neck and head are straight up.
Now while the expression of the first head sculpt isn't the greatest, they do get better. The one with the fan in the mouth isn't so much a choice as opposed to a necessity, so the only real optional ones are the open mouth sculpts. Can't say I can pick a favourite amongst the two, but I can say either of these are better than the default. All heads feature the same decently sculpted hair.
Articulation, strangely, takes a hit, despite Mai being more naked than your typical fighting game character. Part of that is understandable, as she does have this giant knot of rubber on her lower back. You might have noticed that to keep aesthetics,
Mai has a fused torso, so she doesn't have that independently moving abdominal section, which basically means her upper body moves as one single unit. The ponytail does rotate at the base to all for more dynamic posing and of course, to get it out of the way.
You might recall I was very happy that they brought back an articulated neck for Juri, and I was hoping that would be the trend going forward. Nope, or at least, not on my figure - this one only is capable of moving the neck backwards, and I feel even that was only done because of the tendency for Mai to pose with her chest pointed towards the ground.
Another deliberate choice to maintain the aesthetics is the moulding of her ass cheeks to the thigh, which looks great when she's standing up but not so much in any other position. This extra mass also interferes with the range of motion for thigh twist,
There's quite a bit of paint work on Mai, even if it isn't immediately obvious. Her exposed skin is all painted, which is why the colour across her body matches. The hair is painted, along with the whites on her red and white getup. Paint work on the whole is pretty good, but you don't have to look very hard to find masking weaknesses. Decal work is solid.
Build Quality wise, there's only one thing that stands out, and that is I wish they had devised a way for those dangly bits on the fans to stay in their holes properly. I'm paranoid of losing parts, and the ease of which the part comes off the fans is terrifying to me. Otherwise, everything else is pretty much as expected, with the figure putting up with my rough handling for the photos and still being a figure that holds poses and has no issues with interaction with accessories.
I guess there is one more bit of warning - the soft rubber right above her hips can get mangled and rub against the thigh. Normally this wouldn't be such a huge issue, but remember that part is painted so if you're not careful I can foresee many figures being sold in the future with paint rubs in that area.
So in the end, Mai is kind of a mixed bag. Mostly positive, but there are some questionable decision made that knock down the enthusiasm of ownership a bit. Certainly as a collector of specific scales then this will do nicely in your 1/12 horde, but I'm hoping that some day we get a proper attempt by Figma, though I am aware of that unlicensed Figma-ish release that seemed OK except for the outfit. I've heard rumblings of 3D models being made of some famous Mai statues that are being worked to be compatible with this figure, so there's also some hope from that perspective.
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