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