Toy Fair 2014: Kotobukiya’s Street Fighting Ladies

We've always been big fans of Kotobukiya, and couldn't pass up an opportunity to see what the Japanese collectible-maker had in the works at Toy Fair. Though the company has always had a fairly diverse line-up, 2014 is shaping up to cover more franchises and licenses than we've seen in previous years.

Fans of Koto's bishoujo line will be happy to know it's still going strong in this new year. For Street Fighter, Chun-Li will kick things off this month, with Cammy due later in the year and Juri planned for an early 2015 release. The designs are still based on artist Shunya Yamashita's concepts, and do a more that adequate job bringing his linework into three dimensions. A few new Tekken bishoujo are also on the way this year, with Jun Kazama and Nina Williams both set to arrive before the year is over.

But Koto isn't all just statues of beautiful women. There are also some pieces coming based on more traditional video game designs. The ArtFX Batman from Arkham City will be coming later this fall, and more Bat statues are planned based on the ongoing Arkham video game franchise. This Arkham City Batman is different from the Kotobukiya statue included in the collector's edition of that game, and is actually in full-color. He even includes two sets of hands, one with a batarang and one with his grappling gun.

Master Chief will be getting a Fine Art statue, too. Based on his look from Halo 4 (which was a running theme at Toy Fair this year), Koto's Chief was shown off in prototype form but in proper scale. While there will likely be some revisions to the final product, this John-117 was pretty close to what the final statue will look like when it arrives this summer. He may not be in an action-oriented pose, but Chief still looked rather imposing standing at the ready with his battle rifle in tow.

We inquired about the Mass Effect 3 Commander Shepard statue, which made the rounds quite a bit over the last two years, but has been absent as of late. As it turns out, after going through numerous revisions and subsequent delays, it would appear the Shepard statue is no longer planned for release. Since Mass Effect 3 is now a few years old, and Shepard is unlikely a part of the series going forward, it just made sense for Koto to focus on other products. Now, that's not to say Koto is finished with BioWare entirely. There are plenty of other licenses in BioWare's library for the manufacturer to explore, and we hope to see some movement on that front over the next year or so.

Beyond the statues, Kotobukiya is also set to release two model kits for Metal Gear Rex and Metal Gear Ray later this year. Neither had a release date or price point in place at Toy Fair, but both models will offer articulation and arrive already colored correctly. It's another big year for Metal Gear Solid, and these models are perfectly scaled for desktops, which should make fans of the series happy.