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.

Amazon Japan Round 2

After making my first order via Amazon Japan, and ending up with a rather sizable wish list for subsequent orders; I decided it was time to do some planning. With help of the online Kyosho catalog for Kyosho Beads/Originals, I started working out what exactly I wanted from Kyosho's racing line up and then crossed checked my wish list against what Amazon Japan had in stock. Eventually I had refined the order down to something I could actually afford (and wouldn't go over the local customs limit) and placed the order.

The focus of this order was to obtain Kyosho castings (in racing liveries) that I did not yet have, and thankfully I was able to add a decent majority to the collection (although there are several castings that still elude). I also added in the another Nissan Z, this time a 2007 version after noticing a very subite casting difference between the 2006 and the 2007 model years.

While searching, Amazon also offered up suggestions for other purchases and one image got me very interested and so began another slight detour away from Kyosho and into Rai's 1/64 Police Cars. In hand, the amount of detail on these police cars is insane and I am very glad that the rabbit hole of getting more Rai's Police 1/64 is that big as Rai's mostly focuses on the 1/43 scale.

Once again I am incredibly happy with my new arrivals and have already made a third order...

CM'S Rally Cars

Coming back from Hong Kong and after having found some more CM'S Rally Cars, I found my hunger to add more to the collection was reignited. So for many hours, over many days I combed random websites and eBay looking for the best deals on cars I was interested in from the known line-up (and also the unknown line-up) and started putting together various combinations of potential purchases. However either my wish list from one seller was too much for the budget, shipping for multiple items was being over charged or I just generally had a bad feeling about the purchase .. so I kept on backing out. That is until I found one seller who had a nice selection and very reasonable postage.

Four days after making the eBay order, I had a parcel on my front door step and I eagerly tore into it.

The bulk of the parcel were three Peugeot's from the 8.5 series of the blind box series.

The other item was an unknown listing containing two Ford Focus rally cars. When the box was opened, I was disappointed to see that the bottom car was rattling around in the box, but on opening I was very thankful that the car hadn't received any damage. A quick tightening of the screw had the car back of the base and aside from the cut tape of the box, you wouldn't know it had been opened.

All of these cars are superb, for small little cars the attention to detail on each is outstanding and it is such a shame that the company went bankrupt and I have taken a while to get back into the hunt