Mattel to send “basic” MOTUC figure to subscribers as apology for Frosta

December 6, 2012 | Poe

In what amounts to their second “apology” offering (the first being Glow-in-the-Dark Slimer), Mattel is atoning for the long delay and reversed arms of Frosta by sending subscribers a free “basic” figure with their December subscription shipments. It’s unclear what “basic” means, but my guess is it will just be a random existing MOTUC figure, not a special or unique new one.

I didn’t receive the email announcing this, as usual. Thanks to all of you who sent me a copy, and to Clayton Shackleford for this hilarious response:

Anyway, the official email text is after the jump. (more…)

Toy Aisle Trolls > Part Man, Part Machine, Anorexic

December 6, 2012 | Poe

Toy Aisle Trolls is a feature highlighting acts of vandalism to in-store toy items. If you find a ruined package, a stolen figure, a swapped-out figure, or any other such acts, take a photo (cell phone photos are fine if they’re not blurry) and email them to poe@poeghostal.com.

Submitted by: 3B

“From my local TRU. I don’t think he has a spring-loaded anything.”

Odds ‘n Ends > Dead Toy Soldiers, No Figma Samus either, Lego Serenity, Disney Combiner

December 5, 2012 | Poe

–ODD–

Ron English is an artist of many mediums whose work includes a number of vinyl figures and toys. One of his upcoming toy lines is “Dead Toy Soldiers,” which features what looks like typical plastic toy soldiers, but they’re, well, dead.

Benny Kline at Tenacious Toys has a thoughtful post where he discusses his internal debate about whether to carry these in his store. (more…)

Master Chief (Halo, Play Arts KAI, Square Enix)

December 5, 2012 | Poe

I’ve now played through and beaten every Halo game except ODST (which I’m sure I’ll get around to someday). Halo 4 came out just last month, and represents something of a new direction for the franchise as it begins to explore the “Ancient Aliens” origin of the Halo megastructures. It also begins to (finally!) develop the characters of the franchise’s hero, the Master Chief, and his artificial intelligence-based guide and love interest, Cortana.

I’m not going to pretend that the Master Chief is some sort of deep, memorable character. He’s basically just the most prominent iteration of the Doomguy, only less expressive since you can never see his face. But nonetheless I’ve had an affinity for the Chief since playing through the first Halo. (more…)

Dead Link – Figma Link not coming to the U.S.

December 4, 2012 | Poe


U.S. fans who were eagerly awaiting the green tunic of Max Factor’s Figma Link to complement their red holiday bows have some bad news coming their way. I had one on pre-order, and I just received this email from BigBadToyStore:

Diamond Comics Distribution has just informed us that they have failed to secure the licensing needed to bring the Max Factory Link Figma into North America. Diamond has completely cancelled all orders for the Link Figma for all retailers and distributors in North America, including a massive order placed by BBTS. We are extremely upset with them because they are forcing us to disappoint you and so many other people on this item. Diamond officially solicited this item to us back in September and our orders have been in place with them for months, this news was shocking and extremely disappointing to us. Diamond apparently did not have the licensing deal fully worked out at the time of solicitation and in the past few months some sort of problem arose and the deal with Nintendo could not be worked out. We wanted to let you know about this as quickly as possible so you can try to secure an order with international/other vendors.

We have quickly checked with several distributors in Japan, and all of them are completely sold out, as is Max Factory. We are going to explore more options on possible supplies around the world, but at this point it honestly does not look good. We will leave all preorders open in the meantime in case we can find some sort of solution.

We again are extremely sorry about this, we did not expect Diamond to fail us on this item.

Two things: 1.) Bummer. 2.) This does give an interesting look behind the scenes at how these import licensing deals work – and how they can go wrong. There are often very cool toys available in Japan that can’t be sold here, either because there’s a U.S. manufacturer with the domestic master license or for other reasons. (For example, Tsuburaya Productions refuses to export certain Ultraman figures to the U.S. due to a long legal dispute with the Thailand-based Chaiyo Productions.)

It does raise one question for me, though. If this deal just fell apart, it would seem there should have been plenty of Links ready to ship for the American pre-orders, and they were due this month. So how could Max Factory be sold out? Where are those Links that were produced and bound for the States? Or was there going to be an even greater delay while they went back into production? The answer is either that, or Diamond and Max Factory have known about this for months.

For those of you who want a Link, he’s still available at AmiAmi as of this writing. Be prepared to pay international shipping costs, however.

New List at Topless Robot > Ten Video Games that Should Have Gotten Toys

December 4, 2012 | Poe

I missed the fact that my (possibly final) Topless Robot list went up yesterday (thanks to PrfktTear for pointing it out to me.)

Ten Video Games that Should Have Gotten Toys

I don’t know yet whether the Bricken-less TR will want to continue the lists, so as of right now, my plan is to start doing the occasional list right here at PGPoA. They’re great for traffic and fun to write.

Oh, and for the record, it wasn’t my idea to create a graphic that gives away the whole list before the page-turn. But I’m using it here because you’re gonna see it anyway when you click, but you can still go enjoy my lovely prose.