God help me I agree with you. So many of the Black figures just feel nicer to me because of the cloth bits, or they feel essentially the same at lower cost. Now that's not to say all of them are good and I do still want some of the figuarts. But ultimately I'm pretty satisfied with Blacks for a lot of these characters.

I do have pre-orders for the FO Stormtrooper & the Battle Droid as well as EP 1 Obi-Wan. I May even pick up the Luke reissue. But Im not losing it over all of them like I thought I would.

The Black series is no alternative for me personally, not even close. I saw a review on the Black-series Kylo Ren and I immediately remembered why I forgive Tamashii the heavy use of plastic instead of cloth most of the time: It just doesn’t work. Capes are one thing, but hoods and robes? They never work on a small scale like that, the hood has no weight or form to fall on the head and look like a hood should look.

Capes are something where I would want to see Tamashii do more with cloth since it looks absolutely amazing on the new SHF Omnimon, but hoods and robes? I prefer plastic in this scale and price-category.

And I gladly pay import-prices for better articulation and details.

Interesting. It was actually the Stormtrooper that really sold me on the line. The finish on the Figuarts is AMAZING, whereas the finish on the SWB is plain, untouched plastic, and frankly it sucks and it makes the figure feel really cheap to me.

But, to each their own. Let me know if you decide to sell your SHF Stormtrooper, I still need a second one. I've got some SWB Stormys/Sandys I could trade.

It's funny.. I bought SHF Darth Vader & Stormtrooper- which are great. Then I got some SBW TFA.. and all of sudden I realized I really don't need SW toys. Now I'm stuck with all this stuff lol. Still, the I really like the "masked" Star Wars SHF releases. I'm not so hot on the digital paint of the others.

I'll just do any of the troopers in Black Series form since I plan to army build them. Kylo will be my introduction to the SHF line, so hopefully delivers. I will say that I do wish the robes were a bit darker in color, and that it looks like the visor is just flat and not as glossy as say, the Sentai helmet visors are, which is a little disappointing if true.

I do agree with you on the paint job. I prefer the shiny look from the Figuarts.


Oh god no. I'm keeping both because now I have four STs (2 Figs and 2 Blacks) in my collection. I still love my Figuart ones, I just prefer the Black ones.

To be quite honest though, if Bluefin were able to release them in the US, or if Disney actually brought them to the US, it wouldn't be such a big deal to me. However, I can't be up for an AmiAmi preorder every time they have one, especially when I haven't seen the new movie.

Of course, it is a double edged sword. If I don't preorder Phasma tonight and she turns out to be a fantastic character, I will regret it come Dec. I will then have to go with Hasbro's version regardless since that will most likely be the only one I'll be able to find in Dec. On the other hand, if I preorder her (which probably isn't going to happen since I work tomorrow) and she is a worthless character (like Maul or Dooku), I will be stuck with having to get her. The same goes for my Kylo preorder.

The Storm Troopers though, I am going to just get the Hasbro ones. I didn't bother to preorder them Figuarts one because I can't justify high costs for army building. I love having armies, but then down the line I start to regret it. I let my army building get way out of hand with my Cobra soldiers back in 2009 and took a huge loss when I sold everything off, so I'm trying to be careful to not let that happen again.

Things I like better on Hasbro's ST:

On screen accuracy (especially with the lower arms armor and the wider helmet)
Knee articulation
Holster on belt
Two different types of guns

Things I like better on the Figuarts ST:

Shiny paint job
Better shoulder articulation with the arms being able to go sideways
Additional hands
Scale better with Figuarts Vader and Luke

This is all getting to be too much. Listening to all of this is making me not want to get anything. Hell, Luke & Vader might be it on the SHF side. Still all of the Avengers & various Digimon to get....and my hope for the return to Sentai Figuarts.....

Fuuuuck you, Amazon!

Just cancelled my Mario Play Set D pre-order. :(

Edit:

AmiAmi scared me there, took so long to get through checkout and after just a minute Phasma's page said orders were closed. But eventually my checkout tab still proceeded and another refresh showed them open. So I did get her.

For this exact reason (among others) I never bother using AmiAmi. Always the same nuisances with this site when it comes to pre-orders.

I just pre-order from HLJ later. And no, we don’t need to talk about HLJ’s problems for two pages now, I'm well aware of them.