July Transformers

Another month comes to an end, and as per the norm, more new Transformers for the collection arrive from Japan. July marked the start of the Japanese versions of Titan's Return, however Japan is continuing the line under the ongoing Legends banner that it has been using for "CHUG" toys since 2014.

The new robots mark the company's return to Headmasters, where every figure released in this line now comes with a Headmaster (or Titan Master in the west) - even if the figure was never a headmaster originally. As a collector, I have never had an interest in anything -Master, but I will give these new robots a shot - plus it also allows new additions to the CHUG collection.

Since the blog post is late, and these have been in hand for a few days - I have already managed to open them and I have to say that I am rather impressed with the figures. The Headmaster gimmick is not overly intrusive (though Galvatron's face mask thing does not work at all) and the toys are quite solid.

Lego Pickups

Thanks in part to pre school holiday sales, I was able to add some more Lego sets to the ever growing collection.

Both of these City Fire sets were store exclusives here in New Zealand and took awhile getting into stores after January 2016 releases in other parts of the world.

This Creator set was a must have as soon as I saw images at New York Toy Fair, and for a while I considered getting two sets in order to have both the campervan and boat on display, however the expensive nature of the set put and end to that thought very quickly.

Finally, two sets I secured via a layby arrangement at my local Toyworld store. I was especially fortunate to get the VW Bus as it had gone out of stock around Christmas 2015, but had been left in another layby that was forgotten.

Amazon Japan (again)

While taking another look at Amazon Japan, I checked in on my wish list and saw that one item had been released, and another had received a small discount. As a result I found a few other items I was interested in and made my third order. Thanks to fast shipping and quick turn around time, I had a parcel at my door by the end of the week.

After seeing the Tomica Limited Vintage Neo Silvia Super Silhouette pre orders around the place, along with images of the item in hand I knew at some point I would break down and order it. As a result, it sat in my wish list and saved cart at Amazon Japan where I would check in on its discount level and hope it would actually sell out. Sadly for my wallet, it went on special before it sold out and ... so I purchased one. This is one again possibility the beginning of another slippery slope in collecting Tomica Limited Vintage and Vintage Neo (though thankfully, not too many cars actually stand out for me as must purchase). At the moment this will also go down as the most expensive 1/64th scale car I own and in person it is easy to see why it cost so much as the painted details are very well done (both on the car, inside the car and in the engine area).

Added to the order was another Tomica Limited Vintage Neo item, a Skyline 2000 test car. The reason for this purchase was mainly due to the cheapness of the item at Amazon at over 60% off retail. The book collection packaging is fairly interesting, though hard for me to fit into any collection.

Via TakaraTomy YouTube videos, I was introduced to a new Tomica item that combines my love of die cast with Transformers; a Tomica vehicle that transforms. Part of the on-going Hyper Rescue figures, this new vehicle has a standard Tomica car, and a larger vehicle that combine together and then transform into a humanoid robot. There are additional figures (sold separately of course) that allow the robot to have additional arms and legs, and coming in the future is a blue police version.

It wouldn't be an Amazon order without more Kyosho, so one additional car was added to the order - the cheapest available on my wish list.

Thankfully for my wallet, that may actually be the end of so many back to back Amazon Japan orders. While there are plenty of additional Kyosho cars on the wish list, Transformers will dominate future purchases for the rest of the year due to the insane number of items being released between July and November.

Mighty Ape Misc Haul

Mighty Ape is New Zealand's own version of Amazon; started with books and then computer games and now basically stocks anything you can think of. Thanks to their fantastic online ordering system and the ability to order and spread the payments over time without paying interest or penalties for doing so, I was able to build an order of one item into an order of a dozen items.

On Christmas Eve 2015, while looking at early Boxing Day sales, I spotted a pre order for an imported G1 Reissue Platinum set due for release on the 1st January 2016. January turned into March and March turned into April before the item was finally released. Because I was heading overseas, I got in touch with the store and asked them if I could hold it shipment until I got back from the holiday and they agreed. Never had the G1 "Conehead" seekers as a child, and as Takara only released them as expensive reissues once in 2003 it was hard to even get them as an adult.

2 days before I left for overseas, Mighty Ape advised me of a price drop on a Lego Creator set I had been looking at for some time. With a very tempting price and a note to say they only had one left, I added the item into my ongoing order and made a payment and left another note with the store that I would pay it off when I returned from overseas. Eventually I look forward to the day that I can actually build this set - I plan to display it as a truck and trailer unit rather than the made up carnival.

In early June I was again advised by Mighty Ape that they had put some of the Marvel Universe/Marvel Infinite I was after on sale, and while I couldn't afford to get everything I wanted, I did manage to add a few to the ongoing order.

While looking through the coming soon/new release and clearance sections of Mighty Ape, I notice that they had some 4 inch DC Multiverse figures on clearance. Much like Marvel items, because I had to import my collection of these figures never got started. However several years later .. I can finally start, though as the line has already been discontinued, getting some figures may be harder than others.

With the order almost paid off, I took another spin around Mighty Ape to see what I might be tempted in and found myself looking at some Hasbro Transformers I had been looking at in local stores - these were Transformers that Takara had not yet released and were significantly cheaper than any local store.

Transformers from Japan - June 2016

Another month, another few Transformers from Japan to pickup.

June saw the release of UW-07 Bruticus, which had a couple of significant changes over the Hasbro released version. The most noticeable change was a brand new casting for Blast Off; while Hasbro used one of the Superion Jets, TakaraTomy did an actual space shuttle. Vortex also received a change and received an extra few helicopter blades to make his alt mode look slightly more military.

June also saw the release of another large Optimus Prime figure, though this time not exclusive to Japan. Looks impressive in person, but sadly in reality is just big and simple - though perfect for children!

Added to the shipment were a couple of restocked Q-Transformers that I ordered several days before a sale made them even cheaper.