S.H.MonsterArts Burning Godzilla
Due 11/12 for 7,140 yen (U.S. price to be determined)
This figure, based on the Big G’s appearance in Godzilla vs. Destroyah, features an entirely a mostly brand-new sculpt and translucent orange parts (corrected because a few small parts like the claws may be re-used).
One of the most talked-about toy lines of this year is Diamond Select’s Battle Beasts. There’s been a lot of speculation about this line, how it came to be and where it’s going, but the buzz is growing: a new comic book from IDW based on the property is already in stores.
I got in touch with Zach Oat, Marketing Supervisor at Diamond Select Toys, to find out more about what the future holds for Battle Beasts.
1.) Let’s start with the obvious: what led Diamond Select to pick up the Battle Beasts trademark, and were you concerned about the fact that you would not have the rights to the original toy designs?
We were brainstorming new concepts for toy lines, and we started thinking about similar toy lines that had experienced success in the past. Battle Beasts came up, so we did a little research and saw that the trademark was actually available. It’s such a great name, and it went well with our Minimates mini-figures, so we acquired it. The name was what we thought had the most value; we already had a lot of ideas for what we could do with the fighting animals concept, and the original toy line was known more for its gimmicks than for its characters and storylines, so we weren’t too worried about not having the rights to them. (more…)
I took this shot while working on a review of the Leonardo Classic Collection & Nickelodeon TV figures, but the main reason for taking it was to participate in this week’s assignment for CoolandCollected’s League of Extraordinary Bloggers.
You can see C&C’s own entry here, as well as a list of links to other entries in the comments for that post.
So, BigBadToyStore has put up their 2013 MOTUC pre-orders. Some of them, like Jitsu, are already sold out, and that’s a good sign. The more pre-orders they sell, the more subscriptions BBTS may buy before the August 6 deadline and the more likely the subscription is to hit its target. If BBTS can, say, sell enough Ram Men at a higher cost, it can offset the extra Netossas and possibly Fighting Foe Men they’ll be sitting on (though I think the FFM will prove to be more popular than people expect).
So if you’re a cherry-picker and you want any of these characters – or a subscriber who doesn’t want two subs, but might want, say, two Fang Men – I recommend pre-ordering them ASAP.
BBTS also sent along a few other updates:
A Poester writes in:
I was chatting to a friend of mine today [who owns a specialist collector toy shop in England] – mostly Transformers, Star Wars etc. We where chatting and the whole situation with MOTUC came up, as I know he collects them. During our conversation he told me that last year, he contacted Mattel and wanted to be a supplier for MOTUC in the UK. They replied and told him that unless he was willing to purchase $55,000 worth of each figure, they would not supply him. Realistically he was willing to spend £500-£1000 on each figure, but he said there was no way he was going to order $55,000 worth of one figure.
It puzzles me they would turn down a retailer willing to spend £1000 on one of their monthly figures, yet they are claiming there is not enough support. Mattel must really want to keep retailers and customers away from their products.
Obviously this is entirely unsourced, so it’s nothing but hearsay without actual corroboration. Still, it doesn’t sound made-up to me, and it also sounds entirely plausible. (more…)
The Four Horsemen have been asked by Mattel to intercede on behalf of Masters of the Universe Classics. They posted the following on the He-Man.org forums today:
Hey, all of you He-Fans and She-Ravers!
As we’re sure you’ve all heard by now, the number of subscribers to the 2013 Masters of the Universe Classics Club Eternia at Mattel has dropped drastically from last year to this year. This has put the future of the line in danger of being cancelled altogether.
We’ve seen a lot of the discussion on various message boards and blogs surrounding this issue, and many people have commented that this may be some sort of ruse by Mattel just to sell more subscriptions and that there’s no true danger of the line ending. Well, you should know by now that we’ve always tried to be as open, honest and transparent with the fans as we could possibly be, and we’re telling you now that the Masters of the Universe Classics action figure line IS currently in danger of ending sooner than expected because of a sudden and drastic drop in the number of subscriptions to the line.
Continued after the jump… (more…)
 Collection Photo Contest Check out our Facebook page and enter a photo of your collection for a chance to win up to $500 store credit. Be among to the top 5 collections to win. You can vote once a day until the contest ends on August 7th. Collection image must be approved before it will show up in the contest. Entries after 3PM CST will be approved first thing in the morning the next business day. |
