4th Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale!!!
November 5, 2010 - November 7, 2010
SM Megamall, 5th Floor
Megatrade Halls 1 and 2
I’ve noticed that many toy collectors go through a kind of progression when they start in the hobby. Early in, there’s the Mass Aquisition Stage, where you’ve just been introduced to the world of collecting and you want to fill up your shelves as fast as you can. It doesn’t really matter how much money you make (but of course if you have more, you’ll amass more at a faster pace), it’s just the mentality you have at this stage. You’ve just discovered the hobby and you’ve realized, “Shit. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do!”
Many would-be toy collectors drop out at this stage, realizing (in most cases, correctly) that they’ve spent tens of thousands on useless pieces of gummy, semi-synthetic organic amorphous solids. They decide to quit before they get in to deep and start spending their lunch money.
This is the stage when the big events like Toy Con are the most fun. It’s the stage of discovery, where you don’t have a lot of action figures gathering dust in boxes piled 10 deep at home. Every convention means more figures that you haven’t had the pleasure of owning.
Once you do amass that “collection” though, the conventions get less and less fun. You’re working hard, sweating it out in the mosh pit of geekery, fighting to get to the display tables, but there are diminishing returns because you’ve already bought everything that you really want.
I’m around this stage now. I enjoy toy launches more than the main conventions now because I’m gauranteed to find something I don’t already have. Another event I really enjoy is the annual Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale.
Those kids just starting in the hobby like to rant about this sale on the forum boards, saying how they found nothing, how there are no great deals here, how they wasted their time. In contrast, I’ve gone to this sale 3 years in a row and have always found something great.
You have to approach it from a certain mindset and understand something about the sale; this is a WAREHOUSE SALE.
That means CLEARANCE. It’s a chance for Toy Kingdom to clear it’s warehouse of non-moving stock. There won’t be any new stock here. The fast moving toys won’t show up. You may see some of the same marked down stock you normally see in TK branches, but don’t expect 90% off on stuff like Transformers or Marvel toys.
In 2008 when I went here I got my Polno Dianno statue. During the 2009 Warehouse Sale, I got several new figures at sale price. Sure the DCD Flamebird and Nightwing, as well as the Star Trek figures had been on sale at TK for a while, but it was here that I bought it.
The sale reminds me of the good old days going around neighborhood garage sales looking for loot. You just don’t get that feeling from the big conventions.
Some cautionary words thought; GO EARLY!
If at all possible, go on the first day, when the sale is only open to BDO and SM Advantage (may be changed to TK Amazing) Card holders. If you don’t have one of the above, but know someone who does, drag him or her along so you can get in (they’ll have to stay with you to present the card at checkout). Finish your shopping BEFORE LUNCH if possible. The normal wait in line here is at least an hour. You might also want to go just before closing, around 7pm.
I can’t wait!
Polno Dianno of Bastard!
Vinyl Statue from Kotobukiya
Originally posted at slangards.multiply.com on Dec 18, ‘08 8:28 PM
I don’t collect many statues or vinyl figures. Mainly because they don’t have alot of “play value”, but also due to the fact that they are usually pricey pieces of plastic. If you’re a Mint In Box (MIB) or Mint on Card (MOC) kind of guy who only displays toys, then Slangard’s Law of Escalation of Aqusition will likely lead you to statues. Most of the MOCers I’ve met eventually let go of their action figure collections and start buying “high-end” collectibles. For the “loose” collector, keeping things in boxes kind of defeats the point of buying toys (Don’t get me started on MIB Transformers collectors).
That’s not to say I don’t like statues. I’m tempted by these works of creative consumerism, as much as the next geek. And like the next geek, there are certain pre-requisites that are necessary to draw me away from counting points of articulation. Chief among them is that 1) the sculpture in question be based on a character of the opposite sex, 2) that that sculpture be ridiculously voluptuous, and 3) that it be either in the advance stages of undress or come with removable clothing so that you can display it in advance stages of undress.
I realize this is pervy and borderline anti-social, but geeks tend to go that way with age.
One of the statues that got a rise out of me (pun!) in the early days was Kotobukiya’s Polno Dianno statue from Bastard!. I’m not familiar with the story behind the Bastard! manga or anime and not even sure if it was a comic or a cartoon or both. I’m not sure why she is wearing next to nothing. I’m not sure why she has the silly hat. I just know that this bat-girl is hella sexy!
I saw it first when I was in high school, playing hooky in Robinson’s Metro East mall. They had this toystore on the third floor next to the arcades that sold high end toys and they had alot of them on display behind the glass. Naturally, being a teenager and this being the time before the internet and its countless terrabytes of free porn (yes, I’m that old), I drooled at the window along with all the other penniless perverts at this statue, among others. However, P5000 was way over the budget of a kid who got just enough for fare and food with a little extra for the occasional comic (remember when they were like P50? I do).
That store eventually closed, and took with it it’s stock of packaged pervy perfection. Eventually, I did start collecting again and every once in a while I’d put up a post on the online bulletin boards that I was looking for this particular statue. I never got a nibble. I learned about Greenhills and the other specialty shops that carried these forbidden treasures, but there was never a sighting.
Then after about three years of toy collecting, sucess! I was at the Toy Kingdom Warehouse 2008 Sale and there she was, in all her MIB glory. Apparently, Toy Kingdom couldn’t unload them (big surprise) so they had like pallets of boxes of these jewels stashed away. Since they had to get rid of them to make shelf space for stupid stuff like the new Marvel Universe line (argh! hate! rage!), they were selling Polno Dianno for only P1000! WIN!
Thing was that even though this figure was like now 10 years old now and demand was like virtually nil I’m sure, there were still hoarders/re-sellers going after it in hopes of selling it to some sucker on ebay who’d fall for the “HTF” (hard to find) next to the subject line. I couldn’t believe this guy who was loading up carts (that’s right plural) with boxes of them. Like any good collector, I had already spent my wad on other toys before coming to this area. Rats! I vowed to get cash that night and come back the next day first thing in the morning and get one. Luckily, aside from that one guy I saw the day before, demand proved to be low. Apparently, parents don’t like to buy plastic representations of half-naked women, no matter how artistc; who’d have thunk?! I spent a while looking the remaining boxes over and I scored one with decent paint.
There’s nothing to really “review” with statues like this. It’s a very Rubenesque bat-girl, in a rather R-rated pose, with very little clothing. It doesn’t move, there are no action features, there are no playsets. It’s got one accessory (the hat is removable) and a stand to make sure she doesn’t fall over. If you see it on shelf, you might want to check to see if the paints are passable. That’s it.
Either you like it, or you think guys who collect things like this should be locked away and registered as sex offenders.
One look at it should be all you really need to decide. Happy Hunting!
The Stars My Destination
“Why? Why reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?
“Because you’re alive, sir.”
- Gully Foyle in The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Despite being a sci-fi nut since grade school, I’d never heard of Bester until I spotted this book in the bargin bin at National Bookstore, Morayta. At only P30.00, it was a steal (especially since I saw the same book in Megamall for P395.00). It’s a nice paperback edition from Gollancz SF, an imprint of Orion Books in the UK, and part of the Masterworks of Science Fiction series; 10 titles by authors like Pohl, Dick, and Vonnegut. The three I found look great on my shelf…
The book stayed on my shelf for a few weeks before I finally decided to read it, but When I started, I couldn’t put it down. From the book’s opening lines; “This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice… but nobody admitted it,” to the end the book speeds along at a frightening pace. The raw charisma of unambitious everyman Gully Foyle sweeps you into the story from the moment he’s introduced as a nobody, a man not worth noticing, until his transcendental end.
In today’s age of planned obsolecense, science fiction can become real in a matter of months. unlike most books from the 50’s though, The Stars My Destination doesn’t feel dated. Bester’s prose encompasses many topics that go beyond gimmicky tech. His future’s economic collapse due to the introduction of “jaunting” (teleportation through the power of the mind) for example, is just as plausible today as it was 60 years ago. The collapse, not the teleporting. The amorality that pervades Foyles world is also familiar; corruption and greed are universal. I feel Bester’s lines are insightful and pertinent in any decade.
The Stars My Destination reads like a film noir. I can’t imagine why the studios took so long to optioned it (though last I heard it was still in pre-prod for a 2012 release). Instead of Jumper (actually influenced by Bester’s idea of teleportation) last year, they could have done an adaptation of this book and killed. I can just imagine the opening scene of Foyle curled up in his coffin aboard the Nomad, or the Burning Man blinking through time. Plus you could play up the revenge angle to get a great noir flick where you’re rooting for the bad guy all the way home. Forget Watchmen. I want to see this on screen!
Iron Man Armored Adventures Crimson Dynamo
Toys are for kids.
At least that what everyone keeps telling me. I guess it’s good then that Hasbro likes to run multiple concurrent lines, some geared for them there young ‘uns and some for us craggy, old farts. The Spider-Man Fiercest Foes line and many of the large scale Iron Man toys aren’t really meant for collectors.
The Iron Man Armored Adventures line is one of those Hasbro lines geared towards a younger audience; specifically, the kids that are watching the cartoon of the same name. The line was released in September of 2009 and Wave 1 had 5 figures (3 Iron Man variations and 2 enemies) and 1 vehicle (a 4×4 truck). It ended there, though a second season is supposed to start this month, so hopefully there’ll be more.
Sadly, we probably won’t see them here in the Philippines.
The first wave has stagnated on the shelf since they were put there a while back. The stocks I’ve seen at Megamall (the main Toy Kingdom branch so a fair measure of the market) did not dwindled at all. It could be because the characters have all got that Japanimation look to them. It could be because articulation has been nerfed big time compared to the Marvel Universe or Iron Man 2 lines. It could be because they were Php 50 more than other comparable toys from the same company. It was probably all of the above.
I myself passed on them for the above reasons, only giving in when they were marked down to 50% off.
The package is about what you’d expect from Marvel/Hasbro by now; carded bubbles, with a plain photo of the suspiciously nicer looking prototype in the back, with an assortment line up near the bottom of the card.
The front of the card isn’t much better. It shouts, “EXTRA POWER SMASH!” there in the corner, but I’m not sure if it’s grabbiing anyone’s attention on the shelf.
The blurb in the back talks about how Ivan Vanko was an astronaut, caught in the corona of the sun and left for dead. He got out and comes back for some good, old fashioned vengence.
The figure is pretty bulky, which is why it’s the one I chose to get over the others. I just love the big characters in comics; Hulk, Juggernaut, Abomination, Wink, Venom, etc. Size matters when it comes to toys, even in 1/18th scale.
The heft isn’t really there. Most of the toy is hollow, which I suppose is to allow for the spring assembly inside. It kind of feels like a Happy Meal toy.
It comes with one “accessory”.
It’s nothing of the sort, in my opinion. It’s a weird backpack/propeller/fin thing. It’s triangular in shape and has a post that fits into a hole in his back like a GI joe. The fit isn’t perfect, there are gaps between it and the figure, but it does stay where it’s supposed to and that’s all that really matters to me.
Sculpt is a far cry from the comic version of Crimson Dynamo, the one I’m more familiar with. I like the Astronaut-Out-For-Revenge twist instead of the Russian-Physicist-Out-For-Revenge better,but the old version looks more like a proper arch nemesis. This guy looks more like an arch nemesis flunky.
I do like it though, since it looks like one of those space robots those old scifi movies. The cyclops “eye”, the “headless” torso, the over developed arms and spindly legs. You have to admit it’s a pretty striking design, even if it departs from the Marvel Superhero style.
Paint though is almost non-existant. Aside from the red stripes, there’s nothing here. The rest of the figure is cast plastic. The main figure is made of a sturdy, hard material, while the backpack/propeller/fin thing is of a softer, more pliable plastic.
Articulation leaves something to be desired though. He’s got hinge shoulders, hinge elbows, hinge hips, hinge knees and… that’s it.
To make things worse, his legs are slightly preposed with one in front of the other. Pair that with an obviously top-heavy toy and a small footprint, and you get one that tends to fall over.
Then again, it is made for the kids, who would most likely use their IMAGINATION to fill in the gaps here. I’m sure I wouldn’t have minded the lack of points of articulation back when I was wearing hot pants, knee socks and fitted tees (for those I know personally - there’s a mental picture that will haunt you).
Till next time.
Iron Man 2 “Armored Assault” 3-Pack
If you’re a member of Cybertron Philippines, then you’ve already heard me rant a bit about this Target exclusive 3-pack. You can probably just skip the rest of the text and just look at the pictures.
The rest of you PAY ATTENTION! Reading is good for you.
If you’ve been following the Iron Man 2 line, then you probably don’t have the Air Assault or Weapons Assault Drones either. These sons of bitches were harder to find than the 6″ War Machine and it doesn’t look like they’re going to be included in the next assortments either. It sucks that they are so scarce since I’m sure there are more than a few people who want to recreate that great Sam Rockwell scene in the film:
Scene from Iron Man 2, Paramount Pictures
The rarity of the 2 single packed drones here has made that 8 count for each of the 4 types of drones a far off pipe dream for most. The fact that to get either the Sea Assault or Ground Assault Drone you need to buy a 3 or 4 pack respectively makes that dream seem even farther off.
I’ll be picking up the “Fury of Combat” box set (yet another exclusive, this time for Toys ‘R’ Us) in a few days, but I’m not too bothered by that one. At least that has 2 drones and a Nick Fury to balance the repainted Mark VI.
This one, on the other hand, I can’t help but feel a little taken advantage of.
The “Armored Assault” 3-pack is a set consisting of a Mark V figure with the suitcase and missiles, a Whiplash figure with charged whips, and 1 Sea Assault Drone. The reason for my irritation is that we’ve got both the Mark V and the Whiplash figure in the main, numbered line. The Mark V was number 11 in wave 1 and the Ivan Vanko was number 14 in wave 2.
You might ask, “So? You’ve bought repaints before, Slangards. You’re a repaint junkie!” While that would be somewhat true…
I try buy repaints that are distinctly different from the previous versions. The two above are almost exactly the same as the old ones.
Start with the Ivan Vanko figure.
The figure itself is just like the one I saw and passed up numerous times at the toy store. I still think this thing is ugly. I mean the character is ugly, it’s supposed to look that way, but the design is just very unappealing.
To be fair to Hasbro, I don’t think they could have done any better. The coveralls that Ivan is wearing would block the hip movement no matter what they would have done. The only way around it really would have been to make it out of some kind of cloth and at this scale, that would have looked terrible.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a very fun toy. If you really want to use the figure, it’s necessary to slide off the shirt portion of the coveralls. It’s fairly easy, and I didn’t have any trouble sliding it down over his legs. You can get it back on the same way.
Once it’s off, you can use his hip joints. He can now pull off some convincing action poses.
He comes with 2 energy whips, which is a change from the first release which just has metal coils, more suitable for Omega Red. They do look better than the old ones, but I’m unconvinced that they are worth having to buy a second Whiplash figure to get. The character just isn’t that interesting in this scale.
The second repaint in the set is the Mark V Armor, which Tony Stark used in the racing scene in the movie. It’s painted red and silver like the Silver Centurion armor in the comics, but the first release was a little off model in the placement of its colors.
This one is a bit closer.
As you can see, the silver on his torso is a little wider, the hands and biceps are also painted silver, and… well that’s about it.
Don’t know about you, but under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t buy another copy of this toy for that.
“But it’s got an accessory!” you say?
Yes it does, but it’s the exact same one I already got with the other one. Come on, Hasbro! I’d liked to have seen a second head maybe, or some rotocast race car parts. SOMETHING to make this seem less than a complete rip off.
I mean those rotocast car parts would have gone well with the race track back drop they come with.
Now the good news. The Sea Assault Drone.
FINALLY, I’ve got one of these things. I’ve been looking all over, but I was always a step behind when they were stocking these. Even at the last event, I went to lunch, I got back and heard they’d restocked while I was gone and I missed out.
Argh argh.
Now that I have one, I’m kind of wondering if I should have bothered.
It looks pretty good, but…
I remain unmoved. I’m not feeling thrilled when I play with it. It took me awhile to put my finger on it (I was thrown off by how cool it looks), but I think I’ve worked out the reasons.
First off, the limited articulation:
The hips are very limited. The legs can’t move forward because there’s a sort of skirt that covers the swivel hinge joints and prevents you from moving them forward or back. The limit is what you see above. They can move towards the sides, and there’s a thigh swivel , double hinge knee, and swivel hinge ankle to help with stability, but like I said… it’s limited.
The arms are the same thing. The shoulders and elbows are both swivel hinge joints but they’re blocked by the loads of formed plastic around it. sigh.
Unlike the single pack Drones, this one doesn’t really get accessories in the strictest sense. What it has are attachments; two shoulder-mounted missile pods and a backpack. The back pack has a peg that fits right into a hole in the back of the figure GI Joe style, but the pods are another story.
These things are basically just big, hollow shoulder pads. They’re made of soft plastic that basically just sits on the shoulder, held in place by two bumps on the bottom edge that fit in groves on the figure’s shoulders. It’s not secure at all. They always fall off. sigh again.
Despite the problems, like I said, it looks very nice. Even if the missile pods have a hard time remaining on, they look very menacing. This was my favorite drone when I saw the movie, so I was very excited to see how the toy turned out. It does do a good job of reproducing the blocky robot.
Another plus here is the heft of the figure. It’s a solid hunk of plastic. It looks and FEELS bigger than the Iron Man figures and much heavier in your hand. I think the plastic they used for this is a little denser than the one used for the rest of the line. It feels similar to the material they used for the 6″ War Machine.
One other thing that dampened the pain of dropping Php 1,500.00 (about $30 - $35 depending on what our exchange rate is at the moment) for these 3 figures is the fact that NONE of them is a must have.
Now you may be going “WHAT?! Slangards, how is that a good thing?”
Well, let me tell you. Retail exclusives are naturally harder to find than regular releases. There are fewer units in stock and if there isn’t a Target, Walmart, Toys ‘R’ Us or Randy’s Donuts near you, chances are you’re shit out of luck. Hence, when Hasbro makes something like 6″ Mark IV (a must have if ever there was one) a retail exclusive, it feels as if someone has just shoved a 12″ dildo, covered in cayenne pepper, up your ass, force-fed you a bottle of laxative, led you at gunpoint into the middle of your old high school auditorium which is filled with all your old classmates and co-workers, and hands you a bucket.
At least this time I can tell you “this isn’t worth the trouble” and you won’t feel like killing yourself.
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Slangards
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