The past year has been a shaky one for me with regards to Pop Culture Shock Collectibles, as I feel like the customer service went down the tubes greatly in 2017. In fact, I ended up cancelling all my orders with PCS. But I had one final statue left on order, and it arrived earlier this month. It took nearly two years from the pre-order date, but my 1:4 Street Fighter V Ken Blue Version Statue finally arrived! Am I blown away by what could be my final PCS Street Fighter Statue? Read on for my full review and photos…
Disclaimer: Alright, I’ve never had to do this before, but let me start with a disclaimer: I have not been pleased with Pop Culture Shock Collectibles for the last half-year. I’ve always been a vocal advocate for the company, but during their change in ownership and move to a new office, PCS’ customer service frankly went to total crap.
It took nearly have a year for me to get a replacement for my P2 Blanka statue that came damaged, with the most frustrating part being that PCS was failing to reply to E-Mails for months at a time, and their management was just ignoring me on Facebook.
What bearing does all this have on the statue review that follows…? Zero. As always, my review will be fully honest–I call ’em like I see ’em. But—! As other collectors may see my review and want to order PCS Street Fighter statues of their own, I do think it’s important to be forthright regarding my experiences with defects and customer service from Pop Culture Shock Toys so that other collectors can be prepared to deal with similar circumstances.
The Right:
Alright, now that all that baggage is taken care of (and I do apologize for it), let’s get on with the review of the actual Street Fighter V Ken Mixed Media statue that I received!
My first positive reaction to this statue occurred as soon as this Blue Ken statue showed up on my doorstep. In an age where collectors have less and less storage space remaining and statue boxes seemingly just get bigger and bigger, I was really pleased to see that the box for this statue is, well… pretty small!
I love the way that PCS Collectibles packages bases or other extra pieces in separate compartments in the styrofoam to keep boxes compact when possible. Space is a big issue for me at this point, and PCS gets mad props from me for keeping box sizes reasonable.
The actual art box for this SFV Ken Mixed Media statue is similar to previous boxes and looks attractive. The box shows off the Player 1 Red Version of Ken, and has a detailed bio for the character on the back of the box. I like the lengthy blurb on information about Ken on the box back, and though simple, the packaging still looks nice.
As usual, a signed certificate of authenticity is included. I don’t display these personally, but they’re always welcome additions to a piece that I know many collectors care about more than I do. The edition size on this Ken is just 120 pieces, which is crazy small. I love P2 variant colors, and I’m thrilled Pop Culture Shock Collectibles continues to produce them, even if they can only sell such low quantities.
The actual Ken statue comes in six pieces in the box: main body, left arm, right arm, serious Ken head, smirking Ken head and display base.
I’ll talk about the default serious head later (uh-oh), but I really like the smiling head. It has a real confident, cocky feel to it, and is spot-on to the artwork in Street Fighter V. This EX smirking head is a winner. In addition, the bright yellow hair is on-point and accurate to the source material.
Because this statue is specifically based off of Ken’s SFV costume, it may throw gamers who haven’t played the latest Street Fighter game for a real loop.
I wasn’t a fan of this look for Ken AT ALL when we first saw it, but after playing many hours of Ken in Street Fighter 5, this non-classic look for the character has grown on me more than I expected.
The only parts of this mixed media statue that are actually fabric are the pants and the belt. Both of these fabric items looked great on the prototype, and thankfully, they look just as excellent on the finished product. I’m not a huge fan of soft goods on statues, but the ones on this PCS Ken statue are basically perfect.
The upper body for Ken looks completely authentic to the game, with the detailed texture on Ken’s black shirt looking exactly like it does in-game. The blue lining has been painted on masterfully, and the sculpted upper body complements the mixed media lower body fantastically.
The iconic “come on!” pose on the statue clearly captures Ken’s attitude, and was a good choice for a statue that’s not just in another generic battle stance. I really like the creative direction on this statue.
The black, oval base for this statue is simple, but saves space and looks classy. The etched design going around the outside of the base looks good, as always.
The Wrong:
Based off the various unboxing photos I’d seen online, I was feeling pretty optimistic that this Pop Culture Shock Toys Ken Player 2 Blue Statue just might be perfect. Unfortunately, having unboxed him myself, Ken falls a little bit short of that high mark.
My single biggest disappointment with this statue is that—again—I got a broken one. Compounding the problem, the default head on my 1/4 P2 Ken Statue is apparently defective in not one, but two ways.
First, the ponytail is broken off Ken’s head. This is a bummer, but not necessarily something I couldn’t fix myself if it were the only issue. Unfortunately, that’s not the main issue. Somehow, the inside of the head is warped or malformed somehow, and as a result this head won’t attach at all.
It seems like a random, fluke accident, and I’ve requested a replacement from PCS CS already—but given it took nearly half a year to get a replacement the last time I had a defective piece, I’m feeling pretty disheartened to get another broken statue right after the last one. I’ll update this review with photos of Ken with the default head on when (okay, if) I get a replacement head from Pop Culture Shock.
Beyond the defects, however, theres’s something else about this piece that caught me off-guard: it’s out-of-scale with the most recent PCS Ryu 1/4 Statue. It’s not a huge difference in scale, but it’s noticeable enough to be jarring that Ken is overall somewhat larger than Ryu in almost every way. It makes them look a bit weird next to each other, which is a bummer since they’re oriented so well to face off.
One other very minor disappointment with this statue is that it’s another one where the Player 2 variant doesn’t get a unique art box—just a sticker saying “Player 2 Blue Version” on the lid of the box. I know printing 100+ art boxes for each color variant would be costly—and I can live without—but it would also make the color variants feel a bit more special if they got matching boxes.
Overall: Despite the fact that I got a defective one (again), this is overall a really solid 1:4 Ken Masters Statue. Both heads are in-line with the SFV source material, the soft goods pants are very nice, the magnets holding the statue together are all strong, and the paintwork is flawless.
I’m very disappointed that Ken’s scale seems to be off from the most recent 1/4 Ryu PCS Toys released, and disheartened that the heads are seemingly fragile enough to be defective in multiple ways. That said, I’m happy with this piece as a Street Fighter V Ken representation in Statue form, although I am still feeling very wary about ordering direct from Pop Culture Shock Toys.