Toy Review: SOTA Street Fighter Balrog

Eat your heart out Pacquiao. This boxer can knock you out to the next Street Fighter game. Balrog is a former boxing legend and now a member of the sinister Shadaloo. His bad temperament and blood-thirsty path had him banned for life by the industry that made him famous. He has taken the thirst to the streets and was noticed by M.Bison and eventually took Balrog under his wing. Balrog or also known as "M. Bison" in Japan, is akin to Mike Tyson’s features. This was the inspiration where Capcom built the character.  

SOTA initially chose the blue variant and recreated this character with utmost detail, his scale is accurate to Street Fighter II. Balrog physique in this SOTA offering stands between T-Hawk and E. Honda. So he is short at the same time bulky. His external abdominals are wide, this means that the arms cannot clip closer to its torso leaving them in a curve.

The very noticeable details about Balrog are the holes in his shirt and the design of the boots. Many would complain that the paint apps on the clothes are unimpressive but it is a small nitpick. For me, I like the details and the triangular haircut is clean and polished. And thanks to its sheer size, Balrog is stable. His feet are flat which enables you to plant the figure on surfaces perfectly.

Just like the bigger SOTA Street Fighter figures, Balrog is 2 joints short (mainly from the elbow) meaning he has 35 articulation points.  Waist movement becomes easy after the first turn and the abdominals are clicky and may take some time before it eases up. Not all articulation points are well hidden. At most, you can see the hinges especially on the sides of the torso.

Accessories come with a pair of extra fists. The boxing gloves are already the default hands. And lastly, he has a smirking alternate head. That is all.

It should range from 9-20 USD these days, depending of course where you are and where you are looking at. He also has other color variants so if you are not picky in having Balrog in his original blue costume, I bet there are still a lot of stocks of this figure on online trading shops, in my opinion, this is because Balrog is not one of the popular SOTA figures. This means it’s easy for you to track him down.