This has been a long time coming.
Country of Origin: Jamaica
Fighting Style: kickboxing
Dee Jay is a Jamaican kickboxer who fights with musical rhythm and is known as the "Southern Comet." He challenged and defeated Adon, who uses rival kickboxing style Muay Thai. After defeating him, Dee Jay set his sights on The God of Muay Thai, Sagat. Sagat didn't take the cheerful Jamaican seriously. Dee Jay managed to defeat Sagat, adding to Sagat's losing streak at the time. After Dee Jay's victory over Sagat, M. Bison took an interest in him and offered him a position in Shadaloo, but Dee Jay refused. After the tournament, Dee Jay returned to Jamaica and created some new music that was inspired from his earlier battles. His new tunes caught the ear of a record producer, who eventually offered Dee Jay a record deal.
During the development of Super Street Fighter II, there were plans to introduce four new challengers: Cammy, Thunder Hawk, and a pair of
twins inspired by Bruce Lee. Capcom US's James Goddard pointed out to the Japan team that adding two characters with the same moveset was a dumb and boring idea, so they were combined into Fei Long and he was made responsible for coming up with a replacement. Thus, it was Goddard's idea to have Dee Jay be a happy, lighthearted guy rather than dour and serious, and that it would be better to make their new black character one of the good guys instead of a villain.
Much like the Mortal Kombat kombatants were based on famous
martial arts stars, Dee Jay is based on Billy Blanks. If you only know Billy Blanks from his Tae-Bo workout tapes, that's kind of like only knowing George Foreman from his grill; apparently he was a nationally ranked competitor before becoming an actor and then a fitness host, so Dee Jay was inspired by his role as the villain Khan in 1990's King of the Kickboxers. At least, his physique and haircut are; his personality is entirely different.
Considering how many of these Street Fighter toys
are shirtless men, it's frankly surprising that none of their torsos are reused. Sure, Ryu and Ken are identical, but they're Ryu and Ken: they're supposed to be; everybody else is unique. Dee Jay's chest is broader across the shoulders, with a lot of its bulk nearer the top than the bottom. His smiling head has his braids hanging over his shoulder, while his laughing head leaves them behind his back. Both have the M shaved into the sides of his hair as a paint mask, rather than trying to sculpt stubble around them.
When there's a toy I know I want to get, and therefore want to review, I'll often start doing reasearch ahead of time; so I don't forget any of it, I'll even go ahead and write it down way before anyone will get to read it, meaning I've got sentence fragments here for reviews you haven't even conceived of yet! And as mentioned, in the Chun-Li review, reviews being written in 2025 are put into the same file that was being used in 2005, so when I say that I've been waiting literal decades to tell you the word "MAXIMUM" written down Dee Jay's pantlegs was originally going to say "MANTIS," but was changed so all the letters would be symmetrical and thus still look right when the sprite was flipped, you know I mean it. I learned that and was going to share it with the SOTA figure's review, but that was cancelled, so unpublished it went. But hey, knowledge waits. As for precisely why it was going to be "Mantis" in the first place? Eh, you're on your own for that one.
His articulation is as good as the rest of the figures: swivel/hinge ankles, swivel shins, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs,
balljoint hips, a balljoint waist, balljointed chest, swivel/hinged wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, pectoral hinges, balljointed neck, and barbell head; and if you don't want to display him with fists, you can replace them with a pointing hand or a thumbs up. As Hasbro preps to raise its prices again, never forget that Jada, a relative flyspeck of a company, is offering just as much articulation, unique sculpts, alternate heads, alternate hands, and translucent energy effects with display stands for the same price, and then the next time somebody tries to claim "prices are just going up because that's how much it costs to make toys now," laugh in their face and call them names.
Dee Jay's blast is a crescent of orange flame,
similar to Guile's Sonic Boom. Hold Back then press Forward and Punch, and he calls "max out!" while performing the Air Slasher, an uppercut that sends a horizontal shockwave across the screen. The piece can be fit on the stand in either horizontal or vertical orientation, which also allows you to display him as if he's doing his Super Street Fighter IV Sobat Festival, which is a whole series of moves that ends with an Air Slasher uppercut. The figure also includes a real metal necklace, packaged separately in the tray so it doesn't get lost during shipping.
All the Street Fighter figures Jada has released so far have been really great, but they've all also been rehashes of characters SOTA made. But while Dee Jay was planned for that line, he never made it to production, so this is the first fully original release, which is pretty awesome. We'd really love to see someone reach SOTA's goal of doing every character who ever appeared in a Street Fighter game, and with the release of Dee Jay, Jada has taken the first exciting step beyond the limitations of what was made two decades ago.
-- 03/12/25
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