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:angry: Bastards!

So the question remains: Do they make them crap on purpose because they know collectors won't open the box? :D

I would be willing to pay high price for one that isn't going to fall apart and actually lasts, so I wish they could make high quality toys. Why don't they just do that? I'm going to save my money until all the problems are fixed, IF they are fixed.

I think by buying a faulty product you make it easier for them to continue profiting from neglect, and reward evil. It will make it harder in the long run for everyone else. What you want to acheive is to help destroy thier chance of profiting, being that they are the only ones making this toy and have leverage over the loyal fanbase. Normally competition between 2 competing companies rewards the consumers because your money will go to the competitor who is doing a better job, in the same thing; which then forces the other company to try harder to survive. But because they have full control, and being the only ones with legios toys, the only way to get what you want is to boycott imo. Once they know people are actually going to stop paying, they will put 200% more effort into pleasing you.

Don't let them blackmail you into thinking there'll never be another line of toys if you hold off purchase as a result of them failing to achieve the standard you expect, since they are probably making money on dvds/games and what not. It's all about will power, since it is only worth as much as the consumer thinks it is. But meh, fans will be fans. And that's why people with casual level of loyalty will suffer.

If this was just a case of them rushing the product (which I hope) then I would be patient enough to hold back in anticipation for future improvements they will make. But if this is an ongoing thing where the level stays about the same, it's not really worth the risk (unless prices sink right down and shops show some balls by resufsing to stock the item if price remains what it is B)) )

If people could politely email thier negative feedback and give intelligent reasons for why they think the toy sucks ass, it might help them to improve and they could take this as constructive criticism. But we can only hope the reason they suck so much is because thier skill isnt up to the task and they were too ambitious and inexperienced; ...as opposed to: them "deliberately not caring" because they simply want to save money with cheap material in order to "maximise profits" through the exploitation of fan desperation.

Thier reputation stinks yet fans continue to pay them, instead of trying to starve the beast. Why? Because the abuser knows you'll keep coming back for more bitch slappings. :D

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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For those who say some of us are being "overly critical" (some of us read = me) I would have to say that yes I am being overly critical... but it is because A) I had such high hopes for this toy, B) I only like high quality toys (and yes I dislike the 1/60 Yamatos, all the 1/72 yamatos and a slew of other toys) and finally C) some people are more forgiving of crap.

I'm getting older and let's face it, I've seen a lot in my life so far. My time and tollerance of shoddy toys with lots of issues and generally crap assembly quality is very low and I have no quams voicing my opinion of it. I also have no quams against shoving that in Toynami's face. What is this crap about "they are a small company and we have to give them slack?" I own a small business and from my experience we small businesses need to be one step ahead of the big boys just to stay in business. If I told my design teams to just phone it in and we'd "fix it in post" (the battle cry of the big houses) then no one would use us because we would constantly be over time, over budget and have terrible quality. The way my company gets work is by being faster, cheaper and better than the lumbering giants of the industry. Our clients come back to us time and time again because we bend over backward, even sometimes to the point of losing money to keep that one great client, to please them and make darn sure they are happy with our services. It seems to me that the business practices of "small toy companies" nowadays have become "well, let's just release the toy fast and dirty and fix the problems in the following releases". Well that is the way American auto makers played the game back in the '70s and '80s and look what happened to them, the small upstart import companies blew their asses out of the water and they are still playing catch-up to this day. "Accepting mistakes with the expectation of future improvement" is a cop out, pure and simple. I expect excellence up front. This toy was a far cry from excellent to me and I sure as sheep wanted this thing to be great... but the darn thing is just a mess. Gaps, poor paint, loose parts.

The more you forgive the lower your expectations become and the worse the products you buy degrade to. Always have high expectations of things, especially of things carrying unneccessarily high price tags.

We have a saying in the GD industry:

Doctors bury their mistakes, Bad product designers just put it in a flashy box.

JS: I couldn't have put it better myself.

As it turns out, I got to play with an Alpha POS just today, as a retailer/buddy of mine was able to put his hands on some. My own impression, as someone who works in the toy industry, is that the toy was done on the cheap(and I mean cheap!) I wouldn't say that Toynami were trying to do TOO much with the engineering, they simply let the lowest-bidder (manufacturer) run amock and unsupervised throughout production.

As a rule of thumb, manufacturers in china want to get through production runs as quickly as possible; they don't give a rat's a$$ about quality; they just want to get the stuff out as fast as possible, get paid, and get some other banal item out just as quickly, etc. The plant managers "pocket" most of the money, and hire the absolute cheapest workers they can. They'll litterally hire someone wandering aimlessly at a train station. "You, you, and you. Come with me, I have work for you" bellows the foreman on his quest for cheap labor. You then have assembly line workers who, just the day before, were janitors, now building toys on an assembly line for the first time....Aaaah, the beauty of cheap, commie labor <_<

In the end, the factories do this because it's in their best interest to make money. The true blame lies with Toynami for approving the production samples, and/or most probably NOT adequately supervising the production of the merchandise they paid to have done. You REALLY have to watch the factories like hawks, or they'll turn out garbage by the truckload the second your back is turned... And just as quickly sell extra units on the docks for cash to a shady guy in a pickup truck. Why do you think there's such a flood of "cheap" toys coming out of HK?

Alas, whether Toynami will keep making money with their flawed business plan depends on how much longer people are willing to pay top dollar for sub-standard merchandise, It may work for now, but I have a feeling that it'll run its course pretty fast.

Captain:

You are so right about the manufacturer not caring about quality. They usually run stuff for small comapnys through as fast as possible so that they can get back to work on product for big (meaning big money) companies. When a company like Bandai that does millions and millions of dollars worth of manufacturing with a company and there is a problem, you better bet that thier coporate lawyers go and have a little chat with the manufacturer. The end result of this is that larger companies get better Q.C. than smaller ones do. That leaves the smaller companies holding the bag when customers start complaining. It stinks, but it is all about the money.

This is another reason that the Alpha isn't all that it could be, and if Toynami wants to stay in business then they need to find another manufacturer or learn to deal with the one that they have. Like I said earlier this line will either be great or horrible depending on what happens next..................

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Hi Felix. Absolutely true.

The good thing is, if you take a typical HK toy manufacturers catalog (it's litterally the size of a LARGE phone book) and are willing to make a few calls and request a few samples, they could most certainly find a manufacturer that could deliver the quality at a reasonnable price and deadline; they really DO have the pick-of-the-litter in that respect :ph34r:

The tooling portion of the toy actually seems reasonnably-well executed, it's really the carelessness in the assembly and painting that ruins the toy's potential.

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Hi Felix. Absolutely true.

The good thing is, if you take a typical HK toy manufacturers catalog (it's litterally the size of a LARGE phone book) and are willing to make a few calls and request a few samples, they could most certainly find a manufacturer that could deliver the quality at a reasonnable price and deadline; they really DO have the pick-of-the-litter in that respect :ph34r:

The tooling portion of the toy actually seems reasonnably-well executed, it's really the carelessness in the assembly and painting that ruins the toy's potential.

Captain:

My international law is a bit fuzzy, but aren't the toolings, in fact, owned by the people who created the intellectual property? (Or at least the rights to authorize their use?) That would mean that Toynami could find someone else.

As far as the toy's potential, I agree. There are many things I really like about it that are innovative. I just don't like worrying about any damage I might cause transforming it. Which is a shame........Oh well......Let's hope Rook's is better.

JsARCLIGHT: (forgot to mention this earlier)

You are so right about putting inferior product in a cool package. I can't tell you how often I see stiudents try and make up for a poor prototype with a slick presentstion. I always tell them that the box should be like icing on a cake. Just look at those old Takatoku boxes. I use an origional Taka Valk, its box, decals, instructions, and catalog as an example of how to put a whole package together right. (Including the styrofoam trays. And NO I don't let the students touch it......)

Edited by Felix
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JsARCLIGHT - Actually, my comment about objectivity was NOT directed at you at all... In fact, I think that you complains are legit... albeit very spirited, but legit nonetheless... I am mainly addressing the people that just seem to get on the complaint band wagon just for the sake of saying.. "YEAH... WHAT HE SAID!" and not really having anything to complain about other that a tiny paint smudge.... As I've said.. I realize that there are some major problems with this toy, and some people got some real lemons... And so, again I'll just let you know, that at least my comment was not directed your way.

I agree with what the Captain and Felix are saying as well about lowest bidder manufacturing facilities.

So to wrap up... I was just trying to say that the people with the little problems should should try to remain objective and not add any unnecessary fuel to a fire that's already as hot as the sun. It's just overkill and starts to sound like.... WAH WAH WAH... and the people with legitament complaints get grouped in with the whiners and the true complaints get diluted. If we really want Toynami or any other company to listen to the fans about quality and the like, then our complaints and suggestions should be as concise and objective as possible, instead of just bashing Toynami just for being Toynami.... I hope I made myself a little more clear. ;)

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Hi Felix.

The tooling (dies) are usually owned by whoever paid to have them tooled. In 99% of the cases, that would be the toy company/liscensee (Toynami.)

Toynami most probably own the tooling, so it's just a matter of taking it from the current factory to another; this actually happens a lot in manufacturing. However, taking the tooling to another manufacturer and then having them learn all the ins & outs of properly pigmenting the plastic, assembling things in a specific order, painting, etc, etc can be more of a headache than it's worth ( longer ramp-time.) The quality on subsequent releases will most probably be better (as was evident with the VF-1 series), simply because after you produce so many, you eventually work-out the little bugs during production and "get the hang of it." This is why I personally never buy first-run items. Early releases are ( as we've all seen) usually plagued with horrible QC. I really can't understand why lower numbers are worth "more", when the higher serial-number items are usually much better quality...It pays to wait, you see B))

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I tend to agree with Captain America. I just like to point out two things which I think has to be considered.

First, Toynami has elected to go for a "limited" production run, which basically means the blue Alpha will be the blue-headed stepchild with QC problems, but subsequent Alphas are likely to be much better.. Tough luck for the folks who liked only the blue Alpha.

Second, and perhaps more related, is that the labour pool is not the most talented in the world (you don't need to be really), and that it churns fairly quickly if what Felix said was true.

This means while the production foreman might build up the necessary knowledge to work out some of the bugs in parts production, the assembly line workers may simply not be around long enough to learn to avoid assembly mistakes.

This implies that the design may get better, but the odds of getting a badly assembled Alpha in later batches are, in the best case, merely decreased.

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I tend to agree with Captain America. I just like to point out two things which I think has to be considered.

First, Toynami has elected to go for a "limited" production run, which basically means the blue Alpha will be the blue-headed stepchild with QC problems, but subsequent Alphas are likely to be much better.. Tough luck for the folks who liked only the blue Alpha.

Second, and perhaps more related, is that the labour pool is not the most talented in the world (you don't need to be really), and that it churns fairly quickly if what Felix said was true.

This means while the production foreman might build up the necessary knowledge to work out some of the bugs in parts production, the assembly line workers may simply not be around long enough to learn to avoid assembly mistakes.

This implies that the design may get better, but the odds of getting a badly assembled Alpha in later batches are, in the best case, merely decreased.

Yes I have to agree captain america has the upper hand over felix. He sounds more experienced.

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This means while the production foreman might build up the necessary knowledge to work out some of the bugs in parts production, the assembly line workers may simply not be around long enough to learn to avoid assembly mistakes.

This implies that the design may get better, but the odds of getting a badly assembled Alpha in later batches are, in the best case, merely decreased.

I don't have any experience in industrial management, but it seems there may be ways of improving the output quality even if the assembly line worker pool isn't very talented/conscientious.

First, every toy could be inspected carefully by trained QC testers before shipping. I have a feeling this might be expensive, but it is an option.

A less expensive approach would be to group units in batches (a "batch" being a set of toys assembled by the same person or team) and then randomly sample from each batch. At the moment, the defect rate is high enough that a problem could probably be detected by examining about a dozen units out of every batch. Problem batches could then be examined more closely (one by one) and/or the workers responsible retrained or replaced. Granted, retraining/replacing only makes sense if you expect to retain workers long enough for them to make more toys after the first QC test. But zeroing in on problem batches and looking at them carefully could significantly reduce the rate of bad toys reaching the consumer.

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Sorry, I was referring to the thread I made in the Wanted section asking for MPC Alpha's below 3,000 that were in good shape with no bad paint, loose, or broken parts.

I think I'm also having good luck because I'm used to dealing with the IMAI Legioss kits. The only other toy I own 3 of is the 18 inch Spiderman.

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JsARCLIGHT - Actually, my comment about objectivity was NOT directed at you at all... In fact, I think that you complains are legit... albeit very spirited, but legit nonetheless... I am mainly addressing the people that just seem to get on the complaint band wagon just for the sake of saying.. "YEAH... WHAT HE SAID!" and not really having anything to complain about other that a tiny paint smudge.... As I've said.. I realize that there are some major problems with this toy, and some people got some real lemons... And so, again I'll just let you know, that at least my comment was not directed your way.

I did not take anything negatively it's just that despite my initial and ongoing violent displeasure at this toy my seething feelings on this matter for some reason keep flaring up every time I read another "accept the bad, forgive the mistakes and buy the next one because it will be better (cross fingers)" on here and on a lot of other boards. To me, the majority consensus on this toy seems to be a little too forgiving rather than feeling the righteous indignation of let-downedness and rip-offity that some of us very vocal minority feel.

But as with all things this issue is just like any other issue in the world, there are the two verbal minorities on the far ends of the poles and the silent majority who seems to all agree this toy is very flawed yet they for some reason are content with that. You'd think I'd have a problem with the people that just gushingly love this toy but instead I just can't understand how others see all the bad issues and yet somehow still smile. Some of these toys must have been laced with liquid zoloft as the final paint coat and prolonged handling of the toy makes it enter your bloodstream and soon you find youself spouting things like "The toy is kinda crappy... but... maaaaaaaaaan... it's like... duuuuuuuuude... wicked awesome..." :p

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Just received mine from Vermillion One today and it's number 230. No defect to report here. I actualy like the little sucker a lot. I'd trade this over any Yammie 1/60 any day without any hesitation. I've stickered it all up this evening while my son was having his birthday party. All his friends were all over it saying whoa ! geez !! I wish my dad had these things man.... LOL !

Now lets go kick some invid butt !

yipeee !

Edited by Montarvillois
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Yes I have to agree captain america has the upper hand over felix. He sounds more experienced.

I never intended to say either Captain America or Felix "has an upper hand". I think both of them are right about the issue here, just that each is contributing his own experiences to the discussion here.

First, every toy could be inspected carefully by trained QC testers before shipping. I have a feeling this might be expensive, but it is an option.

I personally work in IT Quality Management, and I can honestly tell you most upper management view QC measures as a necessary evil... something they don't want to spend effort on, yet is forced to do due to company policy. Of course, politically they smile and wave and cheer whenever a QC initiative kicks off...

Given what Felix said, it's highly unlikely a Chinese manufacturer taking on this job as a part-time filler will be willing to expend much on QC measures, and probably will negotiate harshly with Toynami to reduce these as low as possible.

The sad part about these kind of outsourcing is that the manufacturer simply takes no pride in the work they do; since they change the products they manufacture in a regular fashion, and also in this case they are unlikely they will ever get to buy a MPC Alpha for their children, it is reduced to a matter of numbers. As in, number of dollars earned per unit produced, and number of units produced. No need to involve pride or work ethnics here.

I'm starting to ramble about the evils I see in my work, so I better stop. :p

Back to the issue on hand. As a consumer, I don't really think too much of the Alpha at this point in time. To me, my understanding of the situation points to a few areas which I feel are weak:

1. The charging of such a high price for what is in effect a low-to-mid quality product. This reeks of pure commercial greed on either HG or Toynami's part, which is stupid considering that you can rely on volume rather than pricing. (Of course I cannot substantiate this...)

2. It also implies that Toynami may not have sufficient contacts in China to get a good factory, or have good negotiators that can push through a decent contract.

Given that they already produced a significant quantity of MPC, this implies they are actually swapping production facilities and may not have bothered to build up a proper relationships with their vendors.. which from experience, is a darn stupid way of doing things.

I dunno, all told it seems that Toynami either made some policies and didn't bothered to review according to the situation, or is suckered into a contract that is unfavourable to them -- and end up passing the pain on to the consumer.

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Yes I have to agree captain america has the upper hand over felix. He sounds more experienced.

I never intended to say either Captain America or Felix "has an upper hand". I think both of them are right about the issue here, just that each is contributing his own experiences to the discussion here.

First, every toy could be inspected carefully by trained QC testers before shipping. I have a feeling this might be expensive, but it is an option.

I personally work in IT Quality Management, and I can honestly tell you most upper management view QC measures as a necessary evil... something they don't want to spend effort on, yet is forced to do due to company policy. Of course, politically they smile and wave and cheer whenever a QC initiative kicks off...

Given what Felix said, it's highly unlikely a Chinese manufacturer taking on this job as a part-time filler will be willing to expend much on QC measures, and probably will negotiate harshly with Toynami to reduce these as low as possible.

The sad part about these kind of outsourcing is that the manufacturer simply takes no pride in the work they do; since they change the products they manufacture in a regular fashion, and also in this case they are unlikely they will ever get to buy a MPC Alpha for their children, it is reduced to a matter of numbers. As in, number of dollars earned per unit produced, and number of units produced. No need to involve pride or work ethnics here.

I'm starting to ramble about the evils I see in my work, so I better stop. :p

...

QA from the get go (checking the molds, tooling, plastic quality, pigments, fit and finish of prototypes) and QC during and at the end of production go hand in hand.

I fully blame Toynami for the complaints thrown at them. They have enough experience to know how much QA/QC is needed (5 veritech revisions) and absolutely know if they were either willing to pay for it and take in less profits or raise prices to compensate, or just don't give a poo and blow out the product as is. I say its profits and don't care.

Also, NO Chinese factory takes pride in their outsourced work and most don't care about their own work. Its all about who will pay that 0.03 - 0.05 USD OT to ensure proper QA/QC since the tooling is own by the design company. I mean, the factorys already house and feed the workers picked off the streets. Really.

My experience tells me Toynami either looked at their profit margins and / or have poo management that didn't / couldn't neogtiate better terms for their own products. The MPC Alpha was not designed to be a sub 20 USD RETAIL toy but was made just like one. Greed and management ineptude reeks here. I only feel bad for the designers that got duped into the project. They must be pulling their hair out like the fans here.

Bottom line: Toynami had a choice to make a better product with thier design. They could have contracted the same factories Bandai, Takara and Yamato used earlier this year or last year. Its too late now cuz most Chinese plants are in their peak manufacturing to make xmas and won't be able to take on new projects.

Advice to Toynami : Move your tools to a new factory, pay for the QA/QC or lower the price of the product before you get hit with markdown charge backs which will kill you.

Edited by Neova
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I think I'm also having good luck because I'm used to dealing with the IMAI Legioss kits.

Pat,

Can you do a side by side comparison of the 1/48 Imai Kit vs the Toynami? I have the Imai kits also and wonder if I should just stick with them and add mods or really consider the Toynami Alpha and attempt to fix the problems.

Which one looks best in fighter, gerwalk and battroid mode? Fit and finish (I know the Imai is more delicate) and overall details?

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I think I'm also having good luck because I'm used to dealing with the IMAI Legioss kits.

Pat,

Can you do a side by side comparison of the 1/48 Imai Kit vs the Toynami? I have the Imai kits also and wonder if I should just stick with them and add mods or really consider the Toynami Alpha and attempt to fix the problems.

Which one looks best in fighter, gerwalk and battroid mode? Fit and finish (I know the Imai is more delicate) and overall details?

he did . look at earlier posts.

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The MPC Alpha was not designed to be a sub 20 USD RETAIL toy but was made just like one.

*Muses* Methinks that it might be better off for Toynami to simply produce the parts, pack them in a nice box, and then market the set as an advanced kit for modellers to put together.

Do that, cut the pricing down to say, $40~$50.. lower, probably, especially if you dump the "limited edition" BS, and the Alpha will probably take off.

A lot of us here have modelling experience and have little or no fear of putting together/ taking apart "toys".. so it's not a bigger for us to assemble an Alpha (and bypassing the wonky PRC assembly lines).

Heck, with half-way decent instructions we probably would do better than the factory! :)

Of course we still have the material problem, but the design is okay to good, it's mainly the assembly issues that are killing the Alpha.

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Just an update for those who care:

I started hounding Toynami (per Opus) to get some info on when my replacement will be sent and I finally got a response from them this friday. Their response pretty much says "we have received your exchange item and it is in the process of being fullfilled, it will be processed in the order in which it was received. Expect your replacement to be mailed in approximately 5 to 7 business days."

So if I miss my mark they are telling me, in not so many words, that their exchange department is potentially flooded with people returning their toys for exchanges... either that or they only have one guy working on this and he has to share that time with his other duties of answering calls and emails.

So hopefully I will get a less flawed toy back sometime next week or sooner.

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Just an update for those who care:

I started hounding Toynami (per Opus) to get some info on when my replacement will be sent and I finally got a response from them this friday. Their response pretty much says "we have received your exchange item and it is in the process of being fullfilled, it will be processed in the order in which it was received. Expect your replacement to be mailed in approximately 5 to 7 business days."

So if I miss my mark they are telling me, in not so many words, that their exchange department is potentially flooded with people returning their toys for exchanges... either that or they only have one guy working on this and he has to share that time with his other duties of answering calls and emails.

So hopefully I will get a less flawed toy back sometime next week or sooner.

You are lucky, I haven't gotten my response yet. It has been 2 weeks...

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I took apart the ower leg and to be honest, this thing has ridiculous articluation. In the foot alone there are 7 points of articulation. If you take into account the rest of the leg, there over 10 points of articulation.

IMO this toywas brilliantly designed (except for the use of glue instead of screws in several places) and poorly made.

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Just do like I did. Opus kinda sorta let on that the only reason he got a response was because he kept emailing them about the issue so I just sent them an email a day until they got back to me. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Actually I only had to email them once. They sent my replacement the day after they recieved my return. What's strange is that I remenber you saying they had recieved yours before they had mine. I wonder what the delay is. I think they might be farting with you or we just got two extremely different CS reps.

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They most likely received mine because I shipped it before you, I was barking down their door a few short days after getting mine. I also shipped it priority and they had it in <3 days.

Mine might be receiving "special attention" (read = extra delay) because I went from nice to very angry in my tone with them. My guess is they are holding off on the "very angry people's" orders so they can either A) pen a sweetly worded corporate letter with a rubber stamp signature from the president to be enclosed with my replacement telling me how this is not their fault and they strive to ensure high quality or B) just just want to piss us off even more. It has been my experience with several other companies and stores that the more mad a customer is the slower it seems to get their issue resolved. The typical "well you walked in here with an attitude" excuse comes into play.

My guess is when this is all said and done I will either have to return my return due to more crap or I will just give up and say "fook it" and throw the thing in the bottom of the closet like I was planning from the beginning. The driving force that keeps the anger running through me with this issue is that toynami has had several chances to either make good on their mistakes or comb my raised fur back into place with a gesture and they have done neither. My ranking for them as a company are Product: crap Customer Service: crap. Man... if I was Donald Trump or some other richer bastard than I am now I'd do all in my power to buy out this company and burn it to the ground just to watch the flames.

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Is anybody else having trouble with Toynami customer service?!?! They suck and their damn product!

LOL!!!! the latter half of your sentence is blatantly stating the obvious.

and not sure if you been around here long, but yea their qc and customer service is crap. And no boys dont rag on me for giving toynami crap, if you been here long enough you know what the hell i am talking about. By all means they arent perfect hell even yamato and bandai aint, but toynami being the DOMESTIc company of the three, it can be agreed unanimously that they really need work with their relations.

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