Mai Shiranui has been a favorite muse for figure manufacturers for well over a decade now, and for good reason; she is one of the earliest female fighting game heroines and stars in one of the most long-running game franchises, with The King of Fighters celebrating its fourteenth core game release in 2016. Her exuberant personality and agreeable appearance are also obvious explanations for her enduring popularity. Curiously, she’s scheduled to get at least three – and perhaps four – figure releases this year; quite a respectable quantity for any character. One is a large 1/4 scale figure from Chinese maker Infinity Studio; it’s of rather unconventional design being that she appears far more realistic than the anime-style designs that have represented her since her Fatal Fury days. Another is an exorbitantly-priced 1/6 scale figure from Gantaku, which looks to be very much in the same style as Alphamax’s polystone figures, before they switched gears and become a purveyor of high-quality pornographic PVC figures. The third – which hasn’t been shown off yet – is one that will supposedly be done by Kinetiquettes based off of an illustration drawn by Stanley Lau. But of the ones that have been sculpted, this one – by Amakuni – is in my view the best of the group.
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