Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Feature of the Week: Gundam "Seed The Hyper" Hybridmode figures!!! Review and Gallery

Winsum over at Anime King on eBay and I are becoming fast friends. I'm his friend because I keep sending him money. He's my friend because some of my best recent toy purchases have been from him. Great prices, awesome selection and he always has complete sets of the trading figures I want. If you collect toys, and especially trading figures, you owe it to yourself to check him out on eBay. My latest purchase from Anime King is this set of four Gundams including Strike Freedom, Infinite Justice, Destiny and Akatsuki Gundam. I've been seeing pictures of these bad boys in the hobby mags, but never saw even one online, let alone an entire set for such a reasonable price. I think I paid $30 for the entire set of four (4). Not bad given the size, quality and paint of these figures. I could hardly wait until these little guys showed up. I was pretty anxious to get them out of the box and displayed on my desk. They come in four or five pieces already pre-painted with limited articulation which is ok because they are already in these really cool poses. Each comes with a stand so they look as if they were mid-flight in space. I love how each figure is so different including their own unique weapons systems. Destiny Gundam has a giant plasma sword and those very cool red translucent wings. Strike Gundam with the blue wing-like structure. Infinite Justice Gundam is my least favorite partially due to the weird color, but it does wield a Darth Maul plasma staff and shield. My favorite is definitely Akatsuki which must be a close relative to Hyaku Shiki. He glimmers in gold with the double-ended plasma sword, shield and jet wings on his back. They are all incredibly detailed, meticulously painted and beautifully sculpted. These guys are one of my favorite sets period. I have they keep this series going cause I could buy a lot more of 'em!

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Ryukendo Toys Commercial

Japanese Commercial of new Ryukendo toys coming out. Looks pretty cool. I want some!

New Escaflowne Trading Figures Preview

Sources say that Kotobukiya is going to be releasing this set of Escaflowne One Coin Trading Figures in July. If you haven't already, Escaflowne is not a bad bit of anime featuring warring clans with these giant mystical, transforming mecha, robot guys. Worth a rent fo' sure. I like these mini figures very much. The designs are slightly organic, but not over the top like Guyver. $64 for a set of six which is a bit high considering a couple of them look like the same mold, but different colors. Check 'em out on the ActionHQ link in the sidebar...

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Appleseed The Movie Figures

I was the "boothbabe" at a recent software show in downtown San Francisco recently and while on my lunch break, I decided to go to the Metreon which has a couple of Sony Stores including the Playstation store. They also have a cool Warhammer store where you can play the game and check out these guys painting these incredibly detailed teeny tiny, ultra mini, mini figures. Even though I don't play, I have been tempted more than thrice (yes, more than twice) to purchase a couple of these pre-painted Warhammer figures to have on display. However, my real reason for making the walk to the Metreon is my guilty pleasure of going to "Things From Another World" store which is chock full, and I mean chock full of toys. You might be familiar with it's online parent TFAW.com which sells all manner of geek sundries including comics, t-shirts, DVDs and yes, toys! My problem with TFAW is that I hate the UI. If you want to put sales prevention tools in place, a really bad User Interface on your e-commerce site is a great way to go about it. The TFAW retail store, on the other hand, is not subject to the same navigation problems that plagues it's online parent. TFAW at the Metreon is small, but it's aisles are easy to navigate and carefully "search" (get it?)for the perfect toy to pick up. The store is also managed by your stereo-typical comic store guys who can be overheard arguing with one another or another geeky customer about the pros and cons of Next Gen vs. Deep Space Nine. That's Star Trek Next Generation for you lame non-geeks people. Actually the guys are very cool and since I gave them some of my first run, limited edition toybot studios trading cards (really business cards with my toy photography on the back), hopefully they are reading this post and chuckling whilst pausing their game of City of Villains or whatever the kids are playing online these days.

So in a very long, round-about, this brings me to the subject of this post which happens to be located in the "Japanese" toy section of TFAW. I've seen these figures many times online and at various stores, but for some odd reason (probably cause I couldn't find anything else to buy), these little guys stood out. They are the Appleseed mini figures from the movie. I first noticed Briareos and thought the paint scheme looked exceptionally well. Better and more detailed than I've seen before. Whoever the Chinese artist that painted this one is did a fine job. There's not much articulation, but does come with his giant laser rifle. Since I hate buying figures by themselves, I had to pick up the sassy Deunan Knute as well. Her figure is slightly less cool and has this kinda lame pose, but the clerk told me I was lucky to find her there. I was really hoping to find the white mecha "Landmate" suit that the good guys where, but the clerk laughed at me when I asked if there were any in the back. He said they only got like one with the case. What I really, really want is somebody to come out with action figures of the all the mech suits including Deunan's special version, and the bad guys too. What's up with that? Why not make them? Well, no sooner said, than do I find these pics from MSHP Specials from Wonder Festival Japan 2006 showing Deunan's special Landmate resin garage kit model selling for some un-godly price of $250!! Were talking paying $250 for the rights to build a resin kit and then paint it to make it look this good. Wow!



So if you missed my earlier post on the subject, Appleseed the Movie is one of the best Anime out there period. Don't believe me? Check out the trailers

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