Guile

I sure wish there were some music that would go with this review! Country of Origin: USA Fighting Style: Martial arts and wrestling Saying his fighting style is "martial arts" is like answering the question "what kind of car does he drive" by saying "he drives an automobile": two descriptors that mean the same thing; one just sounds fancier than the other. A martial art, any martial art, is just a style of fighting - that's literally what it means. Does he know karate? Krav maga? Judo? Boxing? Swordfighting? Tai chi? Capoeira? Pankratos? Dude is in an international Street Fighting tournament, he'd better know some martial arts! Because I don't care how good you are at calculating on an abacus or finishing drywall, it's not going to stop a Hadouken that's shooting down the alleyway at your face. Surprisingly, we never reviewed Guile from SOTA's Street Figheter line. Nor from NECA's. So other than the Street Fighter x Tekken Minimate, this is the first time we've taken a look at the character! The character who eventually became Guile was originally a former Green Beret in a commando sweater, and his name would have been Shilke Muller. You know, a completely average American name for a completely average American guy. To get an idea of what that would have been like, look no further than Rolento, who got a lot of the discarded traits when Guile's development went in a different direction. The defining feature of Guile is, of course, his stupid hair. When he was designed, when he was still Shilke Muller, his hair was still spiky, but totally vertical instead of spreading out. It was inspired by Polnareff from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but the artist creating the sprites stretched it horizontally slightly, and everyone loved it so he was encouraged to do more and more, and eventually he looked more like Stroheim than Polnareff. Amusingly, despite the JJBA connection, nobody bothered to double-check the series to get Polnareff's name; they just went by memory, and so confused Polnareff with his arch-enemy... J. Geil. Yeah, that's why this is "Guile" today. How about that! Guile is a military man, and so he dresses like an extra in Top Gun: combat boots, camouflage pants, and a tank top. Like Dee Jay, he has a real metal necklace, though his of course has dog tags hanging on it. His shoulders are very broad and sit up high, which suits the way he plays in the game. Basically, he's presented like a big dumb lunk, and this toy looks exactly like that. His shirt is sculpted with vertical ribs, and the pants have a texture so they look like cloth - only his skin is smooth. The soft, silky skin of an Air Force major. The camo paint on the pants is impressively complex - just remember that the legs are molded in the same green plastic as the shirt, and you'll see how very much work went into making these look the way they do. His skintone is bright, as is the yellow hair. He has his American flag tattoos on his shoulders, but there's a mistake there. The one on the left shoulder is fine, but the one of the right is backwards. Or, rather, not backwards: both flags have the canton (the blue section) in the upper left corner, the way the image of the flag is generally shown; however, in military protocol, depictions of the flag on uniforms and equipment should be done so that it looks like whatever it's applied to is moving forward. That's slightly confusing, but imagine a single flag on a staff being carried into battle: viewed from one side, it would look the way we think of a flag as looking, but from the other side it would be "backwards," yeah? So the fact Street Fighter II's sprites get flipped means his tattoos are right in the game, but Jada's paint gets it wrong. Jada definitely got the articulation right, though. Guile has 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. The set includes two heads (one plain, one showing some teeth) and replacement hands if you don't want fists: a left hand pointing two fingers in a casual salute, and a right hand that at first glance looks like it's giving a thumbs-up. But one of Guile's win poses sees him quickly combing his hair, so this figure includes a comb that fits into that hand. None of the other figures have had accessories like this so far! The others have had energy effects, though, and Guile doesn't break that trend. His are the twin crescents of his Sonic Boom punch, cast in translucent yellow. We also get a clear display stand to hold it up, and that probably moves horizontally just about as quickly as the one in the game does. Series 3 of Jada's Street Fighter II line was a big winner for me: we got a character who never had a toy, a character I only had a different costume of, and a character I never got in any form. After so many rehashes, this was refreshing! -- 05/09/25 What branch of the military is most likely to mess up their own tattoos? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.