S.H. Figuarts Blue Beet Official Images
 

The official images are up, and he's still looking beautiful.

Tamashii web exclusive in January, 5184 yen.

Full story & images

Looks beautiful, I pre-order him the moment he’s available over at NY. It’s a good thing I found my vintage toy of this guy again, will be cool to make some comparison shots.

Gotta love the Magnum sidearm though – "Dial 1337 for aim bot!"

Blue Beetle looks like something I might have to pick up. Anyone know if these shows have ever been subbed?

They haven't really. Maybe a handful of episodes for Juuko B-Fighter & B-Fighter Kabuto. I have a full set of the raws though and enjoyed the hell out of them.

Cannot wait to have this bad boy. Always loved the B-Fighter designs and they look gorgeous given the SHF treatment.

So what's the best way to get ahold of this? Should I wait and see if it's released as a Beetleborg, or jump on this some other way?

He looks even more glorious.

Can't wait for this to go up for pre-order! Though I'll probably have to middleman it.

N-Y started taking orders for it (and Pine/Mango and Amazon/Jungler) last night, if you're interested.

Time to ask the questions that has been asked a thousand times

1) Do you have to pay immediately? If not when do they ask you to pay?
2) How good are they as a site?

Right now Bluefin isn't even convinced there's enough demand in our market for them. So people need to get out the word on social media to them that they DO want these released in North America.

1) You do not have to pay immediately. I get notices from them two weeks prior to release to remind me if I haven't paid. They're deadline for payment is, I believe, 48 hours prior to release. If you don't pay, they cancel your order and threaten to delete your account. They don't do it on the first infraction, though. At least I got away with it once when I screwed up my first order there.

2) I have never had a problem with them. I know some people had issues with Kyoryu Gold and others hate the fact they aren't allowed to cancel orders anymore. 90%+ of my pre-orders are through them and the worst experience I had was when they got the Chogokin Hello Kitty four days later than everyone else. They aren't a huge business, so sometimes they lag a few days behind larger retailers. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. Oh, I should warn that, unlike AmiAmi, you're locked into the shipping option you choose when you pre-order.

So you have to have an account to order? It isn't like other sites where you can order without the account?

What's the option and how much would/does it usually cost for a Figuart? Once again I know I'm asking quite a bit of questions but I've never ordered from them and thus want to familiarize myself with them as much as possible in terms of information.

I think an account is required to be able to pay later. I set up an account before I placed my first order so I can't entirely speak with any surety to that. Sometimes their prices run a little higher than others, sometimes they're right on par. Right now Blue Beet is priced at ¥5,700. You can change the currency to dollars, which locks the price as it is today or you can leave it as Yen, which means you'll pay whatever the conversion rate is when the figure is released.

Shipping option estimates for Blue Beet right now are:

Economy (I think this is what they call SAL for foreigners) - $6.64
Economy Registered - $10.65
JP Airmail - $11.14
JP Airmail Registered - $15.15
EMS - $16.42
FedEx Express - $22.92

So $55.69 + $6.64. That isn't too bad. I could easily do that and just pay for it when it comes to the deadline.

Just to spread some additional fair warning in case I muddled things up a bit, that $6.64 rate is SAL, no tracking number. But I love N-Y. If they carried narikiri goods, I probably wouldn't order anywhere else unless I had to.

Well what's the cheapest one that comes with a tracking code? I've done SAL on sites before and don't mind it. But I may as well ask.

Eco Registered is the equivalent of SAL with tracking, so $10.65. Not too big of a difference.

Alrighty then.

He does look great. I will likely pre-order him off from CSToys if Bluefin does not release him. CStoys is the best place to pre-order web exclusives in my opinion.

I like CSToys, but they tend to charge full retail. That combined with EMS shipping only and payment up front, relegates them down the list for me. Great folks to do business with otherwise, though.

In an attempt to stay somewhat on topic, didn't the Space Sheriff figures have issues with the metallic paint flaking to some degree? I hope it's a resolved problem. Or am I crossing my wires somewhere?

It won't surprise if that's true seeing that Shout! Factory never bother to finish the show on DVD due to poor sales. Showing support to Bluefin on Facebook and Twitter is nice, but too people on those pages always spamming for stupid stuff like Super Godzilla and Bagan.

I heard about the chipping as well. I hope it's resolved as well, especially for these two guys.