Transformers Adventure

As we near the end of another month, we have another release day in Japan.
Along with two Masterpiece toys (to be covered later), the 21st of March saw the release of the first wave of Transformers Adventure toys in Japan. These toys are otherwise known as Robot in Disguise in the USA.

As per my normal custom, I added a slew of pre orders to my order list at a webstore in Japan and then over the next month or so made some revisions to the list. Based on what had so far been shown as toys, I had some issues with the directon that the line was taking early on - the real Transformers seemed to be limited to Legion and Warrior (Deluxe) sizes with the majority being Autobots, and the rest of the toy line were focused on easy Transformers (One Step and Three Step). Voyager and Leader sized toys were strangly absent as were the majority of the Deceptions that for the first few episodes of the cartoon appear as the bad guy for the week,

Japan with their later start of the line approached things a little bit differently than Hasbro, using the Warrior toys as the main focus of the line but at the same time adding in some One Step changers and toys from previous lines that had not been released in Japan. The result was a massive 17 figure first wave line up, along with two VS packs.

Group Shot

Rather than getting the separate Bumblebee and Steeljaw, I opted for the VS pack that had a small saving over the two singles. In this cartoon, Bumblebee is the leader of the Autobots and Steeljaw is an ex Decepticon who at the early stage of the cartoon looks to be uniting all the other Decepticons. Bee is a good toy, Steeljaw not so :-)

Grimlock just needed to be a Voyager, in the cartoon he towers over the rest of the Autobots but as a Warrior (Deluxe) he is actually shorter than Bumblebee and Strongarm. Still a great toy.

Another female character to add to the small selection of females over the years, a rookie cadet who does everything by the book. Compared to the animation, the toy is not as accurate as it could be, and there are a few issues with the backpack and arms that just get in the way.

The first of the fillers, Knockout comes from the Transformers Prime Beast Hunters series and in this decoration even looks better than the original Knockout from Transformers Prime/Arms Micron. That name is fantastic to see on a package - only in Japan could you get away with naming a toy Bloody!

The second filler, also from Transformers Beast Hunters, As with Knockout, both were added to the purchase because Decepticons are needed and I wasn't really keen on adding Underbite as a One Step Changer to the collection.

Opened!

Even more finds, with purchases

While finding all the new cars, I left my wallet in my pocket as nothing really sang out to me to purchase after having spent a large sum in the last weeks (Lego, Greenlight) and an even larger sum on Transformers from Japan.

However, in several instances I did pull out the wallet and purchased a few new finds.

First, Mix C of the Star Wars character cars appeared at Toyworld and due to a 20% of sale, I decided to purchase two cars to add to the two purchased before Christmas. Even with 20% off, the price was a tad more than the cars are worth, but I figured it could be my last shot at getting Darth Vader (one of the first to sell) and Darth Maul just looked pretty awesome.

The next purchase came at The Warehouse after checking the overstock for new items that hadn't been pegged and had some luck after spotting a 2015 Matchbox B case "hidden" between the many many 2014 L and N case cases that the store got in for Christmas. Just after spotting, an employee came into the aisle and was able to get the case down for me. Sadly there were already 2 cars missing and I only walked away with one car. After reviewing a case unboxing on YouTube, it seems as if the B case didn't really have much for me anyway.

New Hot Wheels Toys ... Finally!

It has been a long month, using my lunch hour to check in on local stores and then checking other stores further from work after hours in the vain and almost hopeless task of search for new Hot Wheels in the store.

Until this week!
The team of three (DCTV) let me know they had found some new items in their part of New Zealand and towards the later part of the week, those same items found their way down to my part.

First up, the 8 car Marvel Avengers set. This is a Walmart Exclusive in the USA, but looks to be also getting an international release (like the Mustang 50th and Star Wars cars in 2014). Price is on the very expensive side, having gone up $1 over the very similar Star Wars cars. The artwork on each of the cards is fantastic, however the cars aren't really anything special and as a result are not going to end up in the collection.

Next up, the Marvel Character cars appeared in local stores for the same price at the Star Wars Character cars. After not getting any of these cars in New Zealand, it is good to see that Mattel are offering some more variety. Like the Star Wars versions, some will eventually come home with me as the design looks very attractive but due to their high prices (even more expensive than Retro Entertainment), the actual purchase will take some time.

And finally, some new track cars - Zip Rippers.

I wonder what this week will bring - I hope some 2015 F, G or H case basic cars!

Storage Cases and Opening Greenlight

A question to my loyal readers (and YouTube followers) - when you open a die cast car, what do you do with it then. Do you have space to display everything you open, or do you have to use some kind of container for the cars that don't fit in a display?

Due to my recent Greenlight arrivals, I needed to make some changes on how I was displaying the cars that were not on display as I was running out of room.

When I started collecting, I picked up two Matchbox 40 car collector tins at Kmart on clearance (in early 2011, New Zealand Kmarts stopped selling Matchbox), and they have been ok. They didn't really stack at all and some larger cars didn't fit in the compartments.

I recently moved over to another case sold at Kmart, a generic 8 compartment storage case for anything. They just happen to fit "most" 1/64 die cast cars and it allows me to stack the cars on top of each other for roughly 16 cars per compartment, for a total of 128 cars per storage case. There are some exceptions, that don't fit well, which does reduce overall capacity.

With the recent arrivals, I am now using 6 storage cases for my collection
1 - Hot Wheels and Matchbox that I opened before implementing the front and rear painted details rule
1 - Hot Wheels and Matchbox that have front and rear painted details, along with Hot Wheels Retro Entertainment
1 - Misc Hot Wheels
1 - Misc Other Brands, including M2 and Maisto
1 - Greenlight Racing and Police Cars
1 - Greenlight "Everything Else"

With a decent amount of space left over in each case for more purchases over the coming year.

With the recent purchases of Greenlight from Toyworld, along with recent arrivals from the USA, it was time to OPEN all of these Greenlight cars and put some into a display rotation (while the rest joined the others in storage).

The resulting waste from opening all these cars, my only complaint with Greenlight is the amount of wasted plastic that has to go to the dump/landfill.

Sadly, shortly after opening these cars I dropped one ... and it broke
Bringing my number of broken Greenlights to four :-(

Angry Birds: Transformers

In late 2014, the next version of Angry Birds was released, this time featuring Transformers. Of course I downloaded the game and played it and then they updated it .. and broke the game. I could still collect the free coins every four hours and the occasional free gems, but playing the missions would result in an instant application crash.

Eventually the issue was sorted and a new version of the game was released allowing playback. Roughly around the same time, the first toy was released in New Zealand: Bumblebee Bird Blast. Checking with Toyworld, they informed me that Hasbro New Zealand didn't have any other Angry Birds: Transformers items planned for release which was slightly annoying as Australia received the single and verses packs along with another playset.

Over the last few months, I have been grinding away by collecting the coins, leaving up and eventually reached level 120. This opened up the world some more and as part of the reveal were two new characters in the game - High Octane Bumblebee Bird and Goldbite Grimlock Bird, each requiring 2500 pigs to unlock. Obtaining 2500 pigs takes a lot of work and then I remembered - the one toy that New Zealand received has those two characters in the box and due to the use of the telepods system you can beam them into the game. An easy way to save more grinding to get 5000 pigs, aside from one problem, the actual cost of the set was $49.99 which was far too expensive for what it was. So it was back to plan A and I began to grind away..

Until today, walking in to Toyworld to ask about the progress of the Greenlight order and also to see if any Mattel (read Hot Wheels) items had come in, I was surprised to see a number of items on sale, including Angry Birds: Transformers Bumblebee Bird Blast for $24.99. So I grabbed it.

As the box yells, there are two ways to play the game, using the Transforming character toys to interact with the mobile game using the Telepods system and then using a launcher to launch one of the small Transformers into a large Bumblebee figure who then converts as well.

Opened up, the box is rather empty and the included play features take up less than half of the remaining space in the box. Two instruction sheets are included, one telling you how to add your character into the game along with transformation instructions and the other showing you how to use the playset features of the set.

Opening the app on the phone, the process to add the character into the game was straight forward enough - hold the Telepod over the front facing camera, and then place the toy on top making sure that the QR code lines up with the small hole and is magnified into the camera. The game will confirm that the character is unlocked and you can then play a special Telepod mission - though it does not seem to add any coins/pigs when completed. The characters do seem to be added to the game as normal, and I was able to start spending coins to level the characters up immediately. However the capsules on the game map allowing you to spend 2500 pigs on unlocking the characters remained, so I am not sure if that is a bug or intended design. EDIT: The characters are only available for 24 hours, after that you need to scan them in again or unlock them by spending pigs.

The toys transformation is simple, press on the head and let the toy flip open (though Grimlock does need to be pulled backwards a bit more) and to convert back to vehicle, just press down to collapse and let everything lock into place.

The play feature is .. "fun"
Press the spring back on the launcher, sit the small vehicle in and aim at the large Bumblebee. Assuming you hit the front bumper, the large Bumblebee will spring open. The trigger on Bumblebee seems to be very sensitive but it did take a few tries for a successful spring and Grimlock is next to useless at activating the gimmick due to his vehicle design.

Massive, Insane Greenlight Haul

Early in March, I noticed a seller on Trademe (New Zealand's version of eBay) had listed a bunch of new Greenlights. Checking the distributors website, I was shocked to see that the number of available and shipping now products had almost doubled.

I worked out what was coming - Muscle Series 9, 10 and 11, Country Roads Series 12, Motor World Series 12 and 13, Film Reels Series 1 and 2, Hitch and Tow Series 1 and the Army Jeep series. Naturally - due to the way the supplier works - not all cars from the series were available to order, so I broke down the lists into what was available and what wasn't and then decided what I wanted to add to the collection from what was going to be available (making sure I wasn't going to be purchasing the same car for the 10th of 20th time in another colour). Armed with the list, I walked into my local Toyworld and asked if they could place an order for me.

The manager was away at the Melbourne Toy Fair, but the staff took my order and early this week I was informed that they had ordered and due to the suppliers location, they were expecting the order in the next day. The next day arrived and I popped in at lunch time to see if anything had arrived - they had just come in but the staff was in the process of sorting them out, adding them into the system to sell and then sorting out what I wanted from what came in. I was able to go through the box of arrivals to add more to my order and .. I was glad I did (more on that later).

After work I visited the store again and 15 minutes later and a lot of dollars lighter, I walked away with a large bag of new die cast goodness!

As you can see, I managed to purchase quite a few cars along with an older release that was on special to make way for the new releases.

From GL Muscle Series 9

From GL Muscle Series 10

From GL Muscle Series 11

From Motor World Series 12

From Motor World Series 13

From the "Hobby Only" Army Series

An older release

Earlier I mentioned being able to look through the all the cars that had arrived, and due to that search I was able to find a couple of "special" cars to add to the pile to purchase later.

That is right, I was able to find a couple of Green Machines. Sadly these are not the double Green Machines that I wish to collect, rather standard green wheels/base Green Machines. As a result, they will be added to the trade pile in order to try and get something I want, but it sure is nice to find in the "wild". Due to how the distributor selectively chooses the cars for sale in New Zealand rather than offering the entire series, I was concerned that Green Machines would be left out of the available cars since they would not match the listed colour of the car. With this find I know that the Green Machines that have green wheels and bases are left in the assortment, but I am still concerned about the double Green Machines since a green car is clearly not a blue car.

There were a few other cars that I would have loved to have picked up, but I decided to leave them for another day, and maybe (hopefully) a sale.