Roo

*extremely "Chocolate Rain" voice*: "Streets of Rage!" Take on a mob of Kung-Fu creeps and axe-hurling fiends. Get ready to control the chaos and master the streets! The original Streets of Rage was a typical '80s action story (released in 1991) about the mob infiltrating the ranks of the police, and three ex-cops who had to stop them. By the time we got to Streets of Rage 3, the plot involved nuclear bombs and robot duplicates. Among the Syndicate's forces was a circus clown who had a kangaroo sidekick; defeat the clown before defeating the kangaroo, and it would run away, only to become a playable character in the next level. Roo (originally named "Victy" in Japan) is part of the same Walmart-exclusive Sega toyline as Altered Beast's Werewolf - not that you'd know it, since the only thing any Walmart anywhere in the land has is dozens and dozens of Super Monkey Balls, so nothing else can show up. But Roo showed up on their website recently and was eligible for free shipping, so now I don't have to worry about finding him in stores. Now, obviously Roo isn't going to be an anatomically perfect specimen of a kangaroo, because even the humans in Streets of Rage were stylized - pixel art can only do so much, you know? Real kangaroos have a fairly narrow chest, thin arms and shins, and compact but huge thighs; this one has a broad chest, muscular arms, and shins that are nearly as large as the thighs. For want of another term, it's all very "human" (yes, even with those giant feet and permanent squat). His ankles are taped up, he's wearing boxing gloves and shorts, and has a collar and chain around his neck - a holdover from when he was still working for the Syndicate, and an indication that he was never willingly helping the bad guys. Roo's fur is a uniform yellow-brown, without the mismatched colors the Werewolf suffered from. We do get a little bit of shading to bring out the detail in his muscles, and his big, deadly toenails are painted black. The wraps on his ankles are a brighter white than the hems on his periwinkle boxing shorts or the upper edge of his gloves. The gloves themselves are a slightly orange tint, rather than being a pure red. There's black detailing to break up the silver of his collar, and the nose, eyes, and interior of the ears get their own paint apps to keep him looking right. The Sega figures are in a 4" scale, which means that Hasbro and Super7 are definitely cheating you when it comes to their smaller-scale toys: these figures retail for ten bucks, yet Roo moves with swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a swivel/hinge/swivel tail with another swivel out near the tip, balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/​hinge shoulders, pectoral hinges, and a balljointed head. Again: ten dollars. Jakks is selling these for $10 (which is certainly what they're worth), while other companies try to charge twice as much for less toy. One side of the hinge at the base of the tail is is really blatant and ugly, just a big hollow space, but at least that can be blocked by his leg most of the time? Roo has his own attack animations, rather than just being a direct copy of any of the other four characters. And since he's wearing boxing gloves, he can't pick up any of the weapons you can find laying around in the stages. So what can they give this toy as an accessory? Well, the marketing copy says "includes the Grand Uppercut Effect accessory to replicate Rage Roo's devastating signature move," which is wrong on two levels: one, that's just copied and name-replaced from the text for the Axel figure, and two, Axel's signature move isn't the Grand Uppercut in the first place, it's the Ground Uppercut, because he drags his knuckles along the ground while he's doing it. Anyway, Roo comes with a translucent orange impact burst that can fit onto his left hand, so show he's just punched someone. I really would have preferred if this figure had appeared in stores, rather than functionally being an online exclusive, but that would have required Jakks to have not shipped multiple solid cases of Monkey Balls to every single brick and mortar Walmart in creation. Or for even one of those Monkey Balls to have sold. But Streets of Rage Roo is an even better figure than the Altered Beast Werewolf was, so it's good he wasn't cancelled. -- 12/03/25 Did you also think this was a Tekken figure at first? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.