Also Gazer looks NICE and happy to see they included the Suel version head

Got in preorders for Drive, Build and Zi-O on Amiami once they went up.

These 5 getting reissued tells me there's no renewal plans yet, so I'll gladly get these and sell off my originals the month they drop. Though in Zi-O's case I'll have to swap parts around since mine has the SHFU sticker upgrades.

what's the difference of the rerelease geats and the old one from earlier this year? beside from the hiking the price from ~3800 yen to ~6600 yen.

Nothing. The 3800 is the "special" price for first edition release

This is incredibly kind of Bandai. It’s smart too, because it gives a nice little incentive to people who might already have these figures without the weapons.

I have the best selection of the build figure, and the ichiban kuji clear version of it; and I’m tempted to get this rerelease because of the weapons.

Edit: It’s kind of fun to look at the pictures all lined up and see the evolution of the waist and leg connections over time. The Ghost one looks pretty bad to me, and Ex-Aid sort of went back to a similar style as the Drive figure.

I always have the feeling that anything after Gaim won't get renewal treatment.

Quick questions:

1. can the weapon included for build be found in the original bike set?
2. for the original releases, which figure(s) include the weapon for ZiO?

Build's weapons do come with his bike + Zi-O & Geiz's weapons both come with their bike.

It will happen in time, the line is constantly evolving.

Yes, the Machine Builder comes with the gun and the sword.

Same as Build, the weapons came with the bike.

Thank you so look like ZiO is the one I need to pick up if I really need to.

Funny part is that the Ex-Aid figuarts lone uses the same engineering style used for the seihou line. Such as the hip/leg joints

Bandai decided to reserve that engineering for that line and went back to the hip joints engineering you see with Ghost, Build, and onward for the main line

Same engineering for the Drive figuarts as well as stated

Yeah, technically Gaim, Drive and Ex-Aid all use early versions of the hip joints we'd see with Seihou releases while Build and Zi-O retain the drop-down design.

Personally I'd want them to keep using the hybrid style they used for Zenkaizer where applicable, I love how his hips look and function.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...207_Chrome.jpg

This could be a problem.

For big sites like ZenMarket that directly latch onto PB and act as a proxy? Maybe.

Middleman services shouldn't be affected, they are basically the secondary market, not much Bandai can do about that. Middlemen are paying customers, Bandai won’t care what they do with the figures they already sold.

I was able to purchase Rider 2+1 from anime-export, and it was also offered on Hobby Genki. So yes, middleman are still an option it seems. Although the more obscure stuff could be harder to track brand new

Definitely and they certainly used the seihou style for Zenkaizer and reverted back to the drop down method for the new standard Sentai releases.

They seem more willing to pump out more Sentai releases using the drop-down method because it took them a while to confirm Gokai Red for release imo so I hope we do see or get more legacy Sentai announcements.

Come on Dekamaster you would definitely benefit from a Seihou style body

Welp, that sucks. Time to use middlemen services.

Otherwise, it's off to Yahoo Auction or Mandarake, but, well, that's a whole other ballpark.

Oof, hope that Hobby-Genki and similar websites aren't affected.

If I had to guess PB had an issue with proxy sites promoting and thriving off of their entire catalogue. I never used stuff like this before but in some cases you literally open the whole website within the proxy.

Middlemen are essentially just re-sellers, so in PB' eyes: Paying customers.

I know Hobby Search has been affected.

Well, hopefully they start using P Bandai US more to sell to their overseas customers more. Especially with their Kamen Ridr SHFs. It's good that they started selling them with Geats, so I really hope they keep it up.

I will never understand the utter contempt Bandai has for the rest of the world.

Reviews are in for the new SHF "Goku" Effect Set. And uh, if you were planning to get it to use with other figures, be very careful. Alot of the effect parts are very fragile and prone to snapping if you don't soften or oil them up first.

That sucks, saw some pictures and they looked good on Riders.

Oh wow that sucks to hear

I really appreciate having a direct buying option for Rider but I have beef with P-Ban's tax and shipping that ends up costing more than importing it directly myself

Yea, the shipping and handling from PB US is kind of absurd.

That and their pricing is already inflated to probably accommodate the import fees which is why their pricing doesn't match up to other regions' P-Bandai website prices or even middle-men sites.

Not trying to sound bitter or complaining but P-Ban US total pricing doesn't stand out from other US middleman sites like Tokullectibles.

BBTS is in their own category with their prices lol

I have the effect set and it's been fine for me. The breakage is most likely from how the connection pieces attach to the effect parts, via ball and socket joint that needs some pressure to pop into. It comes down to how you plug things in, so if you don't adjust or apply pressure in the right way, it's easy to see how they can break.

I have not done extensive research on what the JPN pbandai prices are, but my understanding is if something costs 9,000 yen on jpn pbandai, they will make it cost $90.00 on US pbandai. An exchange rate of 100 yen per dollar, whereas in real life it?s been 140-130 yen per dollar.

So, if they are doing that, then it?s definitely gonna be a big increase in cost.

Also an absolute shame for all the countries that don?t have their own pbandai.

I am only speculating that they Pbandai US set the exchange rate at 1:100 because they don't want to constantly adjust the price if there is a currency fluctuation. More $ margin to them and it looks better pricing something in the incremental of $5 (ie $80, $85, $90 etc) instead of $67.79 on the webpage.

I am happy that there's pbandai in US, but I'll still shop through hobby genki/kuramatoys/ninningame/okiniland before buying it through pbandai US as a last resort. I am based in nyc too so it's 9% tax on top of figure plus $10 shipping so most of the time middleman sites are the best to buy from.

Tokullectibles/BBTS for pbandai items are even crazier so only if it's sold old everywhere.

Oh yeah, if I am trying to convert the currency in my head while watching a show, I will do the 100 yen per dollar thing too. Can’t be dividing by 140 in my head! It’s cool to see that a big company like bandai can be as lazy and bad at math as me.

Pbandai US charges me sales tax and shipping, so the prices on tokullectibles (which does not charge for either) end up being pretty competitive. BBTS though, haha.

SHF Upgrade is doing a V2 of their Kuuga LED heads.

https://tokullectibles.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1690830007

They're also making new style pose hands to make them more screen accurate, which is cool and all, but I don't really feel the need for them.

https://tokullectibles.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1690830424

It?s cool and all but I?m hoping for more Geats upgrades preferably for Buffa and Tycoon.

Hand options are cool, but are definitely less needed compared to stuff like their Decade, Vice and Geats ones.

Just waiting on their Buffa and Tycoon heads and any upgrades they do for them. Preferably a wired Buffa skirt and some sort of universal leg wrap for Tycoon.

Oof, so I just checked the P Bandai US website and decided to compare when the preorders open up there to the time that the Tamashii Web one lists their preorders opening. And it seems like most of the time they're a 1:1 opening window. But for whatever reason, they haven't put Gazer's up, even though they opened preorders for a Zelgoog Robot Damashii that was revealed at the same time.

Soooo that's not a good look for the future of Kamen Rider SHFs stateside. Hobby-Genki seems to be unaffected still, since I can see Bandai preorders still popping up there.

Presumably the resellers that aren't directly affected are just going to be (even more) over-subscribed instead? I.e. everyone who previously used proxies will now have to compete with the rest of us for limited pre-order allocations.

Good motivation to scale back my collecting, honestly.

They aren't wasting any time with Blazar stuff :lol

https://www.tokunation.com/forums/at...1&d=1690884431

nice

Ooohhh! Garon looking good.

Looks better as a toy, than on the show? I like both, but dang, nice figure.

Will it be oddly heavy like Sevenger or oddly light like King Joe STORAGE ver?

Anyone know if Earth Garon will get a US release? It seems like SHF Ultraman could be becoming like SH Monsterarts where they do retail releases in America for even PBandai Japan items.

Or at least that’s my wishful thinking based on what happened with the Metron rerelease.