To celebrate Capcom’s triumphant release of Street Fighter IV, we have here a figure of Cammy White, the sole new challenger to have made an impact on the series. She is sculpted in 1/6 scale by Kaiyodo, who seems to mainly make Revoltech action figures these days. I bought her in early 2006, and she was one of the earliest figures I acquired. The fourth overall, I believe: Kanu, Kasumi, KOS-MOS, and then Cammy, who breaks the sequence of Ks but not the phoneme.
This particular Cammy is titled “Authentic White” which seems to be something of a misnomer, as she is not often depicted wearing white and she certainly has never had this skin color in any of the games. At least, I think this is certain; I haven’t played the Street Fighter Alpha games all that much. Kaiyodo released a counterpart figure named “Fascination Black” in which Cammy is predictably kitted out in black, and I think they later released pink and blue versions. I like the white version best because of its distinctiveness; the ganguro styling contrasts sharply with the white combat leotard and body paint and blue hat.
The plastic anime figure scene was still in its nascent stages in 2006, and it took some time for figure makers to improve their production methods and quality control practices. Cammy is an unfortunate victim of the industry’s infancy. Her lipstick looks awful, and I’m not sure what is up with her eyebrows; did she really dye them blue? Have they been plucked out and painted over with more lipstick? The paint of her outfit is uneven and strangely shiny, evoking memories of the model airplanes I tried to paint in my youth when I was clueless of the difference between gloss and matte.
She stands defiant, her dismissive gaze directed sideways. This pose makes her a bit difficult to display; I think the only two angles that work are so that she is viewed directly in front or from the rear. I choose the latter. The base is a blue disc that I’ve stained with a dark blotch sometime in the last few years.
Perhaps sentimentality overrules my scrutiny, as I still like this figure a lot. For all its flaws, I think she looks pretty damn good, particularly from behind with her waist tilted, and being that I weigh that criterion more than technical issues, that’s good enough to make me happy.
