Yeah Ultron isn't convincing me. Too skinny, face looks akward. Pass.

That's supposed to be Ultron Mark II, right? If so, is pretty accurate on the proportions. The Mark III was the big burly one.

Leave it to Bandai to have their products out well past relevancy

Yeah that's kind of annoying too... They did so well with the main cast IMO, but Ultron not being out until May seems odd.

BTW, Nippon-Yasan order page. Markup doesn't really seem too bad to me. Going to order.

Edit: Weeell I was going to order but forgot about having to pay now. Now I'm hesitating. :(

You have to pay now? I've made 3 Tamashii web orders since that whole debacle and chose pay later on all of them.

Ayup. I remember people (probably you) posting saying just that, which is why I thought it wouldn't be an issue. But there is no pay later option.

So I'll probably do this closer to the order cut off date (whenever that is for something releasing so freaking far in the future) or on Mandarake after the fact.

Well that puts me off ordering him :/ gotta wonder what criteria N-Y are basing these options off of. Expected popularity maybe?

Bluefin is importing Ranma in the US

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...7808916&type=3

Yeah, Den-O talked about this a few weeks ago.

Not to be that guy, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, Black Widow and Hawkeye were just as important as everyone else and they haven't been made yet (and they probably won't be).

I think Ultron looks great, and I'm buying it.

I still hope that Vision and Black Widow and Hawkey and Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver and Kiva are released someday.

I can dream, can't I?

Talked about what? I know why Nippon Yasan were supposedly dropping the "pay later" option, but the fact is they didn't - at least not properly anyway. I've preordered a bunch of Tamashii web exclusives (KR Chaser, Garo, SIC Hakaider) since the issue came up and chose pay later, yet for this figure they aren't giving customers the option.

There's more to it than simply Bandai's change of policy, otherwise no exclusives at all would have the pay later option.

Didn't he say it was based on the size (price) of the order?

NY could simply be choosing not to cross that threshold for certain months (and can therefore keep the Pay Later option on some items), but will be on others (and so removed the Pay Later option on some items).

That's great. Can we get a solid reason why preorders were pulled for a bunch of stuff due out in the next few months and why people are apparently having preorders outright canceled (as is the case of Gohan, if I understand correctly)?

Yeah the thing I outlined was simply the only explanation to their behavior, as confirmed by Sentai Tamashii's middleman service it lines up. I have no idea why they're being selective about it with items now though, but there is a yen limit now on mass web exclusive monthly orders. No idea what they're doing that allows some items to still be pay later, but frankly I doubt we'll ever really know either.

Yeah, that pisses me off, especially when I preordered him on the first day. I sent them an email and they told me they did give me the option to have my order canceled or not. BULL****!!

I have a feeling it is because the release dates were completely wrong so they just decided to cancel most of it because it was too many items at one time to just delay.

Reading elsewhere that some issue between Disney and Bandai (probably Hasbro really...) is making it so no Star Wars 1:12 model kits are going to be able to be sold from Japan internationally after September 20th. So HLJ, for example, is having a sale on them right now to try and get rid of everything they have.

Can anyone verify this? It has me pretty worried about future availability of Star Wars too. :(

That really sucks if its true.

I wouldn’t be too afraid about Figuarts. Bluefin has no intent to sell those stateside, and I don't believe Disney intends to fuck with international customer with this line, since they already have plenty of figures in the US (and elsewhere) that cover the market well enough.

Model Kits is probably something they want to do again (or already announced, don't follow this topic) so they axed the sale of the Japanese ones internationally.

Also, if the SHF line had any trouble I doubt Tamashii would just announce the new "The Force Awakens" lineup. If there were trouble, we would have heard about it by now.

That's interesting. Does Hasbro make model kits?

My Gohan pre-order with Amazon is still there so knock on wood that they don't decide to cancel all of them.

On a separate note, I just got payment request from NY for the Premium Colour Vegeta. :(

Do you guys think Bandai will ever rerelease the Storm Troopers? I really wish I had gotten 3 when they first came out, so I'd like at least one more. It also doesn't seem like Mandarake ever carries them.

I hope so. I planned to pick up a second on Mandarake, but I've never seen it on there. :/

It is apparently actually Disney doing this and may extend to other items like Figuarts. :(

Breach of contract it seems...

(Edit: Ignore what you may have seen, was going off of comments there, but I can still see stuff on AmiAmi so doesn't look like anything more than models has been pulled yet.)

That sounds practically like region-locking for toys.

Ah, Disney, much as I love you, you really do enforce those annoying licensing and copyright issues.

You love Disney? I've long since lost all respect for them.

Well fuck. I hope they don't yank the SHFs.

I'm the Frozen fan, it should be no surprise. :lol I love the creative side to Disney. I love Disney Princesses, Star Wars, Pixar, countless animated movies and I'm also pretty fond of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The majority of my entertainment interests are owned by Disney.

On the other hand, their corporate side can be quite nasty and they are possibly emblematic of everything that is wrong with copyright culture. But I've long learned to never hold too much respect for the corporate side of any creative organisation. Or even the author/creator of any work. Too often they disappoint.

So yes, I love Disney as a brand, but as a corporate figure, they can showcase some of the worst aspects of corporate culture and of intellectual protectionism. Unfortunately, unlike other companies, they're very good at it and they do just enough good to not look foolish. Regardless, I still love their movies and their products and I'll giggle like a kid in any of their Disney Resorts.

Uh what? Disney can not tell stores who they can and can not sell their supply to.

I think Disney is like "We want people in the US to buy our stuff and not from other countries!".

But they can tell Bandai who they can supply, per their contract.

I hate Disney, so much. They're like a tyrannical empire that have conquered the Lucasfilm and Marvel kingdoms.

I feel the same way. Buying out both Marvel and Lucasfilm, retconing the expanded universes of both and now preventing people from getting Figuarts?

Fuck Disney. The worst part about all of this is that some people think they can do no wrong but Disney's just as bad if not worst than the others.

This news breaks my heart.

Which "news"? Everything beyond the stop put on the sale of model kits is pure speculation. Figuarts are still available, and no retailer contacted me that they can't sell them in the west anymore.

We're getting slightly off track now, but Lucas never considered the EU to be canon, he says as much in many interviews. He liked parts of it and adapted certain things into the movies, but there were massive parts of it that were made redundant with the prequel movies and Clone Wars series.

The EU still exists in the same space it always did, there just isn't a preconceived notion that "EVERYTHING IS CANON" anymore, which is good. The future movie universe would have sucked really hard if they attempted to work in crap like the Solo kids, Chewbacca's death or Luuke, not to mention any of the really stupid stuff.

I'd still like to see some actual evidence of Disney's involvement in this matter. Hasbro stopping other companies releasing competing toys makes sense, especially with how high profile the recent Figuarts announcements were, but Disney cracking down on imports doesn't make much sense. They're still being made for Japan and only being sold there, if some people are importing them from Japanese retailers, it's still money lining their pockets.

To get this topic sorted out already I've written to the retailer who started this by putting this banner up saying that they can't sell the model kits anymore, HLJ.

I still can't possibly believe that this will concern SHF's in any way, but since this topic won't stop I asked. Should have an answer tomorrow.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only reason we're getting Figuarts in the first place because Disney bought out those companies? I have some vague recollection of reading or hearing that it's because of Disney that there's been a lot more merchandise of these properties available. Not to even mention that without Disney's involvement in the MCU or the new Star Wars films figures of those things would probably never exist in any case...

Yup. the Iron Man mark 6 Figuarts was released years after Disney bought Marvel. Without Disney we wouldnt have them.

Hopefully Disney doesn't get too restrictive of what Bandai can and cannot sell internationally though if it's written in a contract that Bandai signed then its kind of hard to avoid. I'm just glad I'm not a huge Star Wars fan and have no interest in the figures so I don't have to deal with any potential headaches. Disney does also own Marvel though so if anything happens there I will definitely be on the look out.

Thor looks kind of derpy. lol. Still looking forward to him though the Figma Thor was pretty stellar I think.


In other news, I got more photos of SSJ2 Gohan to share:

http://pre11.deviantart.net/936f/th/...ue-d99e45n.jpg
http://pre06.deviantart.net/ba68/th/...ue-d99e44s.jpg