[TheJaz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

Personally, I expect something like Genm and Calibur from him. But time will tell.

This is what I would have thought if he was getting a separate release, and it's still very possible that's the type of character we'll get... But him being a pack in with the combo belt/holders set makes me think he'll be a bit more of a focus.

Genm didn't get any proper DX release until Dangerous Zombie was released months into the shows run (with Dan's other 2 gashats both being campaign items), and even that was pretty memorably under-produced (I remember my HLJ pre-order being delayed and having to email HLJ bc it had been so long and them being like "bandai sent us waaaaaaay less than we expected, and are only drip feeding us new ones") until it got a rerelease later, so to me it feels like Bandai didn't see Genm as a big selling point or major enough character until later when Dan exploded in popularity.

And Calibur's belt was released fully stand alone... And Calibur was just kind of weird all around in terms of the suit's use in the show itself

So something about Buffa having pack-in items in a version of the base belt just feels different, makes me think he'll have a lot of extra focus... The items packed in with the "bigger" belt set are usually reserved for items that belong to the protagonist or a secondary rider, so I really do think it may be meaningful that Buffa got this position... The only real exception I can think of is Cheetah coming with the progrise holder set, and while she's not the secondary rider she is a very major character in the show for sure.

Not to mention that Buffa is the largest silhouette on the poster and is right next to Geats seemingly implying a level of extra importance, or at the very least potentially an earlier appearance than other characters... (though admitedly Genm is in a very similar position in the Ex-Aid poster lol)

Personally I'm still expecting him to be villainous based on his design, but it would be interesting if he's a very focussed on character right from the start of the show... Maybe he'll be the reigning champ of the game or something like that and be seen as a big obstacle by everyone participating? Though it would also be really fun if he's not a villain at all and he's just a well meaning guy who happens to have a terrifying looking Buckle

Mostly I'm just curious why he's getting the toy spotlight over all the other riders...

But who knows, the thought on Bandai's part might just be "let's toss in an extra rider to increase the value of the combo set and potentially increase sales numbers" and Buffa shows up early so they picked him, it could be that simple and mean nothing really

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

For some reason, many see Geats as a connection to Kabuto, so maybe the situation with the secondary rider will be similar and in the first quarter of the show Tycoon (or what is his real name?) will be an ally without armor / weak player in basic form, and just before Christmas becomes a full-fledged rider.

I could def see this being the case! More recently Build was a bit like that where we saw Cross-Z on some of the earliest posters, but it took like 2 months or so before Banjo ever henshined

But I still just hope it's not exclusively a campaign item, I really don't want to pay hyper inflated prices for it, I've done that in the past and it's never fun