Armor Plus stuff

Dude, I'm now your number 1 fan. Thanks!

No worries, they're fast too btw, I paid for it early yesterday and it's already been shipped.

Armor Plus Tekkaman Evil is a Tamashii Web exclusive.

RAGE!!

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Too pointy.

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[pgaijin.blogspot.com]

>Too pointy.

I LOVE pointy mecha. You may have seen the aspect influence my own mecha designs.

Just as you guys waited patiently to watch Force Five or Robotech each week, I did so with Teknoman, so I have that special connection with the designs from the anime.

But really, Tamashii web only? I could understand if it was a lesser character like Dagger or Tekkaman Sol but EVil was like one of the best things from the anime.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2010 03:53PM by Vincent Z..

Vincent Z. Wrote:
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> But really, Tamashii web only? I could understand
> if it was a lesser character like Dagger or
> Tekkaman Sol but EVil was like one of the best
> things from the anime.

VZ, I feel your pain.

Vincent Z. Wrote:
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> Armor Plus Tekkaman Evil is a Tamashii Web
> exclusive.
>
> RAGE!!

A Tamashii Web Exclusive???!!!

Bandai, your sales team members are a bunch of pig fuckers!!!

}(

Fuck. I HATE that damn web shop.

I still don't get it. Do they think that Evil wouldn't sell as well if it was a full release? I can understand that they made that bad guy mecha from Nadesico an exclusive but as I said before, Evil was a major character to the anime and they pull this shit.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Bandai makes me crazy.

The only think I can think is that Tekkaman Blade underperformed, sales-wise, but the numbers didn't come back until after they had committed to prototyping Evil.

No, that doesn't make any sense, they're doing the prototyping all in the computer nowadays..OK, that still uses resources and manpower time. Hm.

I can speculate on what the flaw in the thinking is however. With the Samurai Troopers line you can showcase a character outside of the armor ala Saint Seiya, but with Tekkaman Blade, having the armor come off is somewhat meaningless, as the 'goblin' proto-form isn't really that interesting.

What they should have done is gone GFF with this and included both the regular Tekkaman Blade look and the 'power-up' Blastor Blade styling. And MAYBE a separate D-Boy figure.

Or gone with my original fantasy idea from years ago, 'Tekkaman in Action' and just gone whole-hog wild.

So no news of further Samurai Troopers figures? Idiots. It's 'warring states' mania time, everything is samurai this and ninja that and they're not pushing this license? IDIOTS.

SteveH Wrote:
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> So no news of further Samurai Troopers figures?
> Idiots. It's 'warring states' mania time,
> everything is samurai this and ninja that and
> they're not pushing this license? IDIOTS.


turns out you can't just make a cool toy and assume everyone is going to care about the character?

not anymore at least

Well, here's the thing, at least for me.

There's no logic behind most of the recent releases by Bandai. I mean, other than the logic of "we think we can sell this" of course.

Patterns matter to me. Context. History. All that boring junk. I look back and I see (what seems to me clear and logical) patterns to releases. Mazinkaizer? Prime time to really crank out Mazinger toys. Various anniversaries of famous shows. Things like that, right?

But this past couple of years, what do we see? Cowboy Bebop. The Big O. Nadesico. Samurai Troopers. Tekkaman Blade. Full Metal Panic. Akira. Evangelion. OK, that one makes sense, new movies and all. strike it off the list.

All shows released in the U.S. during the American anime boom 1999-2005.

(yes, the bastardized American TV releases of both Samurai Troopers and Tekkaman Blade come from the early '90s, but both got uncut Original Japanese releases in the U.S. in the timeframe mentioned)

Now, I KNOW the American marketplace doesn't mean jack s**t to Bandai, and there is no possible or logical way these things were aimed at the American Otaku. And yet. And yet. Does anyone in Japan give a rat's f**k about The Big O? Nadesico used to be big with the loli crowd but there's been so much more done since then it must be but a ghost of a memory.

And where is the official SoC or Soul Spec for Gekiganger III?

It's almost as if decisions were made back in the boom years that got caught up in the usual Japanese snail's pace business decision process and nobody had the power to change direction.

Not that any of these toys were horrible releases (altho flawed, flawed in some odd way, like The Big O and its important accessories being web-only items, or the lack of retracting landing gear on the Swordfish II when the cheap PVC toy could do it, etc) but holy cats, $130-some for the SoC Big O and it doesn't even come with Roger's CAR for god's sake?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

You're just overthinking things.

This is just Bandai learning the limits of 90's nostalgia since that whole decade was 10-20 years ago.

The 90's lack much of the reverence of the 70's series.

And most of them don't connect back to an 80's series, you know the ones that managed to forge real franchises.

votoms is kind of amazing in that regard since it managed to stick around from ovas and video games alone.

plus the economy is still sucking so that doesn't help

I'm surprised they didn't do more Frontier figures, you'd think they'd crank them out. I wasn't too impressed with Alto (mainly because I was unfamiliar with the series and was expecting a more stable "chair mode") and wouldn't have gotten others, but isn't the time for that franchise now? What is the next Armor Plus? Are they starting up with random stuff, like Shurato?

I don't mind random releases of main characters from different anime series, but to make the other stuff web-exclusives... argh.

Borgman would be perfect for the line.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Vincent Z. Wrote:
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> Borgman would be perfect for the line.


I'm thinking Southern Cross myself, or a way for Bandai to resurrect Spiral Zone.

Garo

Wouldn't Armor Plus Garo just be like a scaled-up version of the Armor Transform Garo?

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

I'd like to think it'd be a bit better than the Armor trans version. Plus we'd possibly get the other characters.

Any Armor plus Kamen Riders would be awesome. And I totally agree about Garo. I loooooves me some Garo.

The next Armour Plus will be Mazinger Z.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2010 12:20AM by RainBot.

You're a day too late on that.

[www.bigbadtoystore.com]

AH HA HA GFYS Bandai.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Go Find Your Sandwich?

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[pgaijin.blogspot.com]

Oh now, THAT is just absurd.

Of course the AP Tekkaman Blade seems to be already discontinued (and only 7500 Yen!) and Tekkaman Evil was a Tamashii Web exclusive, I guess Bandai is just interested in more and more 'narrowcasting' or something.

Can you imagine if they actually went to BBTS and said "um, guys, we put all this work into this and just can't figure out how to sell it, do you want it?" and BBTS jumped on it?! 200 bones for a figure from a show only about 50 people care about, and it's from the last 10 or so episodes to boot?

I mean, yah, I'd be stupid enough to buy the damn thing if I could, that's one. I think Vince, even with the outrage might bite if it was $100 and not $200.

I've got a hunch the Armor Plus line died a screaming sad death, I've not seen any news of new figures (mainly more of the Samurai Troopers cast).

wow, what a perfect expression of failure mode thinking. Looks like they did a nice job with the Tekkset crystals I have to say.

ETA: And you know what? Bandai makes it REALLY F'ING HARD to find stuff on their Tamashii site. I look up Armor Plus and it only mentions the existing figures. I look up Tekkaman Blade and it gets me mostly talk about the Soul Spec Blade and Pegas. I finally plug in Tekkaman Evil and get a blog post that links to the sales page which is NOT on Tamashii...

[p-bandai.jp]

And Blastor Blade is a 8,925 Yen toy. So, yeah, both the customers AND BBTS is getting super boned there.

Abayo, Armor Plus line.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2010 08:20PM by SteveH.

I'm regretting not getting the Armor Plus Tekkaman Blade when it came out. It didn't even last half way in the year before being sold out pretty much everywhere.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Yeah, it's a shame. I think it would have been nice if they had included a posable D-Boy figure (so the inclusion of the two Tekkset crystals in the Blastor Blade set made sense), as of course when you strip the armor off the Blade figure all you get is the 'changling goblin' and not a human (unlike Ryo and Alto from the other AP toys) but that inclusion would have likely pushed the price to something like 12,000 Yen knowing Bandai.

Funny thing, there's not too many of the AP Tekkaman Blade showing up on Yahoo Japan. LOTS and LOTS of the Soul Spec Blade+Pegas set, and a smattering of the old plamo. Take that for whatever it might mean.

i think it would be nice if companies did what i want too

VF, I'm sure you can convince someone at Bandai to hire you as the new gaijin CEO. It works for Hobby Link Japan, why not Bandai?

On a separate note, I think we (in America) are entitled to have equal access to the web exclusives...I mean, we did invent the internet, it's like a birthright.

So...did they completely abandon the other Samurai Troopers in the AP line? Hope not, I was looking forward to Shin or Rajura.

RedAleseides Wrote:
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> VF, I'm sure you can convince someone at Bandai to
> hire you as the new gaijin CEO. It works for Hobby
> Link Japan, why not Bandai?
>
> On a separate note, I think we (in America) are
> entitled to have equal access to the web
> exclusives...I mean, we did invent the internet,
> it's like a birthright.
>
> So...did they completely abandon the other Samurai
> Troopers in the AP line? Hope not, I was looking
> forward to Shin or Rajura.

Hey, who knows? I'm just one of those foolish internet people with that scary thing, opinion backed with history and stuff. According to some I shouldn't even be allowed to live, let alone talk about things.

I think the fact they haven't even made the obvious variant of Ryo (doesn't he get white armor later in the series?) is a telling point, and it's very sad to see.

See, with Samurai Troopers they had a lot of potential. As much as I like they did make some Tekkaman Blade figures, it's really not something that needed the removable armor gimmick. Honestly, something in the Robot Damashii (or Super Robot Damashii) line would have made more sense. Or of course, as mentioned long ago, the 'In Action' line even tho the rubber dog chew toy nature of the plastic and the (expected) floppy soft crap weapons would have been sadness plus.

So, has the Armor Plus line been snuffed out? Gee, I don't work for Bandai so I can't possibly know. But I do wonder if it's a clue that there's been nothing announced for general release since Tekkaman Blade, and the only way to find the Tamashii Web exclusives is to dig into the blog archives..Hmmmmm, what could that mean? WHAT?

SteveH Wrote:
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>>Hmmmmm, what could that mean? WHAT?

that you like to speculate wildly

a lot

If we have no answers, all we can do is speculate.

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[pgaijin.blogspot.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2010 12:39PM by hillsy.

hillsy Wrote:
> If we have no answers, all we can do is speculate.

Actually, our other option is to shut up and show some patience, before proclaiming every shift in a toy company's strategy to be a cataclysm leading to the impending death of our favorite product line.
But I guess if we did that, we wouldn't be fanboys.

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

hillsy Wrote:
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> If we have no answers, all we can do is speculate.

I liked your first response better.

>> See, with Samurai Troopers they had a lot of potential.

No they didn't.

Toro_Plus only bought this toy because it was 1300 yen on Amazon. Link courtesy of VF5SS.

[oniityan.blog.so-net.ne.jp]

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2010 04:16PM by asterphage.

Is there a reasonably highly articulated figure of Tekkaman Blade that doesn't have removable armor?

MechaBlazeEagle Wrote:
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> Is there a reasonably highly articulated figure of
> Tekkaman Blade that doesn't have removable armor?


Yes and no. The old snap-fit kit of Tekkaman Blade from 1992 is pretty good, but it's a model and not a toy.

OTOH, so what? It's an easy build, you don't even have to paint it, it poses really well.

Painting makes it look better. There's some slight things wrong that can be fairly easily corrected with just a minor amount of skill. Of the 4 kits released (Blade, Evil, Sol and Blade Blastor) Tekkaman Blade is really the best looking out of the box. (Sol Tekkaman is pretty much a trainwreck and takes a massive amount of work to make it look right).

I wish Bandai had done more kits and put a bit more work into them. I wish they had come out with the transforming Pegas kit.

I had a snap fit kit of Blade that I built years ago but not sure what happened to it. Is that one of the kits your referring to by chance?

MechaBlazeEagle Wrote:
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> I had a snap fit kit of Blade that I built years
> ago but not sure what happened to it. Is that one
> of the kits your referring to by chance?


Obviously without seeing it I can't be 100% sure but probably yes. 1/16 scale, mostly white with red and clear green parts, polycaps for the joints.

I liked it alot. It has a waist joint and everything.