Several years ago a small company called SOTA (State of the Art Toys) released a line of Street Fighter action figures. Styled like ToyBiz Marvel Legends, these were approximately 6" tall, retailed for about $15, and have an interesting life story as far as action figures go:
Series 1 consisted of Ryu, Sagat, Bison, Chun li, and Sodom. Half the initial shipment was lost when the shipping vessel burned and sank in a Chinese harbor. These were really hard to find and are subject to rampant bootlegging/Knock-offs these days. Series 1 had one variant color per character with Ryu and Bison having two variants due to a SDCC special 2-pack with Evil Ryu and Psycho Bison. Evil Ryu as a separate figure and the 2-pack are constantly knocked off.
Series 2 consisted of Ken, Cammy, T.Hawk, Blanka, and Vega. It was perhaps the best series both in terms of sculpt and character selection. Series 2 had numerous variants per character and several retailer exclusive figures. It also introduced the infamous Gamestop exclusives which were literally less than 300 in production numbers.
Series 3 consisted of Guile, Adon, Balrog, Gen, and Sakura. An outstanding follow up to Series 2 with equally awesome sculpts but the beginnings of quality control issues crept in where numerous reports of broken Balrog and Sakura figures were happening due to the factory not allowing paint to dry prior to assembly.
Series 4 was the beginning of the end. The series included Akuma, Fei Long, Ibuki, Remy, and Birdie. It sold far worse than other series (not really true, but larger production numbers made it seem this way). The sculpts were solid, but problems crept in again with QC and with Ibuki being out of scale with the rest of the cast (too tall). Massive amounts of variants were produced including Shin Akuma, Alpha Akuma, and Third Strike Akuma.
Then, the line ceased to be. A rumored Series 5 was canceled and new ownership would eventually **** the line into nothingness.
An out-of-scale rerelease of Ryu, Ken, and Akuma was done with prices increasing by some 50% as part of a "Preview" line. All of these figures were produced with Akuma's larger sculpted body making Ryu and Ken appear to be monstrously swollen. Around this time a Wizard exclusive Dan was created with the same mold and one recolor.
Back from the dead SOTA gave it one last effort with Street Fighter Revolutions. The series included Zangief, Dhalsim, R.Mika, and Honda. Scale was really questionable and quality control was in the literal shitter. Figures broke, were frozen together, and paint was everywhere. Worst off yet, the series included R.Mika who took the place of DeeJay, forever ending the hope that a full ST cast could be created.
Side Note: Other figures were released as SDCC exclusives including Gouken, Shin Gouken, Spirit Gouken, and Cannon Strike Cammy.
