Your pathological need to contradict me notwithstanding that's clearly not the case here. So I don't know why you went off on a tangent ranting about the backpack as an exclusive when your own post said it was included.

I don't know what you're talking about now.

My original point was that I disagreed with your assertion that Kiryu HAD to include the backpack. I mentioned two hypothetical scenarios of Kiryu including no pack at all and then making the Tokyo SOS version of weapons an exclusive. You then claim it's an essential part of the character that is always included with him, so I had to be wrong, and specifically mentioned merchandise. My reply is that you are incorrect, Kiryu's been depicted without the backpack plenty in toy form. Bandai 8", M1, Ultimate Monsters, Bandai Creation 11", SD, West Kenji, Banpresto... etc.

This is S.H. MonsterArts, the toyline where the only way to get Godzilla's iconic form of attack across nearly 60 years of film is the first-edition release of one of his Heisei incarnations. You give Bandai too much faith to think they couldn't have gone the Tamashii Web route for accessories when their history among numerous collector lines says otherwise. This time around, we happen to be lucky or blessed.

I never said that he had to, only a lack of surprise that he did, especially given the price. The Hesai MG having Garuda as a web extra made sense, doing it here would have been less so considering the alternative of simply going a bit higher on the price and getting everyone in one purchase.

Whatever, you're right, let's move on to speculating about the support jets being web exclusives or not.

Another thing I thought of when I was driving in this morning -- do we have any idea how well the Garuda sold as a web exclusive? The Hesai MG is not paticular popular nor was his film particular successful. Selling the add-on to a not-that-popular monster as a web exclusive might not have yielded that much money.

Kiryu was popular enough in his original form to have a sequel made with him (like the original MG), but the second film with him did not do nearly as well, to the point that the third film teased at the end of Tokyo SOS did not get made. (At the time the speculation was that it was going to be called Godzilla x Godzilla and feature a clone of G'54.) So maybe the inclusion of the backpack (as well as the Absolute Zero Cannon instead of the Triple Maser, although really I don't remember them looking all that different, honestly) is to specifically tie him to GxMG instead of Tokyo SOS.

The problem is, the pack is pretty much worth $40 on that guy. It is nothing more than guns.

Ah, see, I misunderstood what you originally said, leading us down this unnecessary tangent. Sorry about that ljacone! And damn, you reminded me of the White Herons... totally forgot about them. Now a vision of a real Tamashii Web Exclusive pack is back in my head! :lol (Not a problem these days, just hard to overwrite instinct.)

We'll never know exactly how well Garuda sold because web exclusives are made-to-order and Bandai has no incentive to release production numbers on them. There's far less of them in the world than there are Heisei MGs, since we didn't have Bluefin importing exclusives then. The difference in money is that Bandai doesn't have to offer wholesale prices to retailers and can charge almost whatever they want.

GxMG Kiryu is probably more popular than SOS Kiryu, with the advantages of being first and having the cool berserk moment, but that might has more to do with the bland silver of the SOS backpack and the asymmetrical transforming right hand than the movies.