Shaggydog

Just as a heads-up: if you don't like the annoying removable-thumb hands on the DMZ, you should know the Yamato has the same problem. In fact, I've had more trouble with the Yamato thumbs falling off. Both great toys. I'd give the DMZ the edge, but I'm glad to have both.

With all due respect, no one with chimpanzee IQ or higher should be even a little bit surprised by the price. Not that you have to LIKE the price, but acting surprised by it is either the epitome of disingenuousness or the pit of stupidity.

Actually they did report it, on Feb 3. The battle-damaged RX-79G looks awesome, but I think the regular RX-79G just comes with some optional parts (seen on the sprue in one of the pix) that allow you to customize the 'clean' version into the 'damaged' version. Presumably you'd have to paint it yourself.

Is that a crack I see on the fuselage???? Kidding.. looks great..

Aye, so true.. and they could do them cheaply, as 'superposeable' toys, since they don't transform.. if only we ran the toy companies.

More mixed messages: word from collectiondx is that Toynami is just 'gauging interest' in the beta. They mentioned a possible price of 150. Looks like more waiting-and-seeing for us. TOYNAMI: I'M INTERESTED !

Well, according to figures.com, they're finally going to release the beta later this year: http://www.figures.com/databases/action.cg...le=109&nl=1 usual disclaimers: figures.com sometimes pulls stuff out of their asses, and even if Toynami is really saying this, it don't mean it'll happen. Believe it when you see it. Call me a sucker, but I'm a little more hopeful now (as an aside, JoshB at CollectionDX.com had an interview with Toynami yesterday, so I'm hoping he'll give us all a scoop on the Beta situation sometime soon)

Yeah, CAD is good, I agree. I think good design is possible without it, but it helps. That's the minor point I was making earlier.. the alphas were hindered by bad design more than anything else.

Better material usage? How long can people keep saying that? How many crumbling shoulders and snapped connectors and stress-marked clips does Yamato have to make before the madness comes to an end? There are two ways to measure 'material quality'. The first way is the subjective measure of 'how a material feels'. The second way includes hard evidence, like arms falling off. One of those two measures is more important than the other. Do you want civil engineers to start building bridges with stuff that 'feels high quality' to them?

Heh. OK. The definition of 'quality control' is obviously not important, nor (evidently) is it widely agreed-upon in these parts. In my original post I just tossed in a tiny aside about quality control vs. design issues, it was a minor point and not really relevant to my main point. I apologize that it turned into some internet-standard retarded argument mess.

Um.. when did I say that? Are you reading what I'm writing? My point is that the alphas were a disappointment, but the rest of Toynami's products have been relatively good, so people shouldn't give up on Toynami just yet. Is that difficult to understand?

I had hoped the uppercase 'CONTROL' would be noticed, but evidently not. 'Quality control', as I understand it (and I'm no businessman), is a measure of how accurately each unit that is manufactured meets the specs of the design. Thus, 'quality control' measures how successful a company is at weeding out manufacturing errors and random 'noise' in the production process. By contrast, a toy can also have 'quality' problems (as the alphas do) if the design itself is flawed. In that case, it's not a matter of the factory failing to meet the design specs, it's a matter of the design sucking. IMO, the alphas fit better in the latter category, since I bought quite a few of them and NONE of them really transform well. This leads me to believe it's not some random production errors at fault, but the original design of the toy. Of course, as others have said, this is not a very crucial point.

Like I say, I can totally understand that people who only bought alphas would be reluctant to buy more Toynami stuff. The alphas were a big disappointment to me personally. That said, it's a little like refusing to move to the U.S. after visiting Detroit. A single data point isn't a good basis to judge. Probably the smart thing to do would be to wait for a few fools like me to buy one, and then read the reviews. I promise I'll be honest if it sucks.

The Toynami Alphas had widespread minor quality problems which were annoying. (These problems aren't exactly 'quality CONTROL issues'. They're 'fit and finish' issues that are probably due to flaws in the design.) Other than that, Toynami does not have a quality problem. Period. I own all of the MPC VF-1's, 2 Voltrons, many of the superposeables, 2 of the 1/100 VF-1's, and all of the Alphas, so I know whereof I speak. Also, I'm an avid Japanese toy collector, and I own many toys made by Bandai, TakaraTomy, Aoshima, Yamato, Max Factory, Kotobukiya, Kaiyodo, etc. Although the Toynamis are not without glitches, overall they compete fairly well with the Japanese collector toys. Compared to Yamato's recent quality problems, Toynami is practically golden. I don't know where the 'Toynami quality sucks' meme got started. I think some folks had to justify their hatred of Toynami somehow, so they invented crap like 'plastic feels cheap' for the MPC VF-1's. If someone has only bought the MPC alphas, then I could understand their disappointment. Otherwise, it makes no sense. I'm hoping Toynami will put all of this to rest by continuing to release good quality toys in the coming year. But if a person is religiously inclined to hate everything Toynami, then no amount of physical evidence will change their mind. Look folks, no one is forcing anyone to like certain toys. If you don't like the looks of the MPC toys, that's fine. Those cyclones look a bit mis-proportioned to me, too. But 'looks' are not the same as 'quality'. Unless Toynami screws up like they did with the Alphas (and no toy company is immune to screw-ups, not even Bandai), I have every confidence that the Cyclones will be high quality items.

Yeah, a wait-and-see attitude is definitely called for. I don't think they would have bothered to show it if they weren't at least considering mass-producing it. But, this wouldn't be the first toy shown at toy fair that never got made. For example, Bandai showed a ton of zeta gundam toys for the domestic market a few years back, and many of those disappeared into the void. I'm happy to see it again! Looks great to me! (unlike those minibikes that pass for cyclones )

Did you read the post immediately above yours?

Hi Graham, are you still planning a full review? I, for one, would love to read it. Thanks

Well, the EMiA line is a relatively short one (so far), so we don't have a lot of history to look at. However, they did release repaints of both of the entries that have 'common' or obvious repaints (gundam mkII titans1/titans2/titans3/aeug, zaku II green/char). So, yes, I think it's almost certain they'll release an emia gelgoog in mass-production colors. Of course, there are exotic repaints that could be made for the other emia toys as well (rx78, zeta, etc) but none quite so common as the ones above.

um.. so.. you would prefer if hlj refused to sell it? You do realize that hlj doesn't get much say in the price, right?

Hi, has there been an explicit rundown of the diecast in the toy yet? I don't mean 'seems light' or 'seems heavy', but an actual list of where the diecast is, and how much in each place. I assume Graham will include that in his comprehensive review, but I'm wondering if we already know.. Thanks

I'd love Mospeada toys, since Toynami's Legioss/Alpha toys were disappointing (and I'm normally a Toynami defender). I don't know how worthwhile it is to parse Graham's wording closely, but in my view, Mospeada would not be referred to as a 'popular' anime in Japan (some would say it was a failure, some would say it did ok, but I've not heard anyone say it was very popular). But, like I say, parsing the words so closely is probably a waste of time - 'popular' is an ambiguous term (for example, 'popular music' refers to a lot of stuff that ain't so popular), and maybe he just meant 'popular in America'. That said, new Dorvack toys would also rock, as would new Orguss toys. This is good news almost any way you cut it, assuming that the shoulders on whatever-it-is don't immediately break

Great to see the MPC's getting some much-deserved love. I hope over time more folks come to appreciate these fun toys. Rock on Jenius

I realize it's pretty standard MW procedure to obsess over stuff like this, and the neck is undeniably long. However, I just got my VF-1J, and it's an awesome little toy. With this series the quality seems greatly improved - all the joints are very tight, and nothing falls off. If you're looking for a cartoony valk that you can have fun with, this is your guy. And the neck isn't that noticeable if you tilt his head a bit. I think this line of toys has surpassed Takara's Actic Gear line in terms of quality, although it's not quite up to the level of HCM Pro.

Yeah.. what kind of bastard company keeps releasing slightly larger, improved versions of the same old characters? oh, wait...

The nomination period is over, and y'all are cordially invited to vote for Japanese Toy of the Year, over at http://toty.waist-joint.com/. This is the heir to the fabled Toybox DX TOTY, and the rules are very similar. You'll have to register an account (only takes a moment), and there's a short visual quiz about Japanese toys preceding the voting, all in good fun. Don't get annoyed if you don't know the answers. Thanks and good luck to your candidate!