#OR. I start collecting other starscream merch and just do a little starscream display

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Now that I 100% know I can have starscream anime girl in my life, I’m really torn about what other Transformers figures to get. I don’t really love the Megatron or the Bumblebee (my expectations for the Bumblebee were REALLY HIGH from the silhouette and I was kind of underwhelmed by the prototype). I like the Optimus a lot, especially the mask face, but I would feel weird just having Optimus and Starscream? I think I need to rewatch transformers to decide what to do

[bwprowl]

Toy Nerd Super Bowl weekend hits and leaves me with the biggest amount of stuff I have to write about all year! The one-two punch of Toy Fair and Winter WonFes bring a boatload of reveals of all kinds, and I'll be running down everything I thought was remotely cool or interesting (and I'll still probably forget a few things along the way). Don't worry about overhyping ourselves too much on the distant future though, since I'll also get a look at some stuff you can pre-order right now, including Kirbys, cartoons, former exclusives, and a little video game you might have heard of called Overwatch. Then we finish this round of exciting drinks with a classic Iron Man chaser. So get comfortable friends, because it's the biggest Tuesday Night of the year for Toys!

New Stuff: All's Fair

Toy Fair was first up on Saturday this weekend, and it felt a little bigger, like there was more cool stuff that appealed to me at this one than last year. As I did then, I'm just gonna go off piecemeal about each cool thing I saw in no particular order:

QMX, whom I mostly know for those little chibi figure things, are expanding their licenses from superheroes. This will include a nice statue of the Planet Express ship from Futurama, as well as a Q-Fig of Pinky and the Brain (who don't have enough modern merchandise)!

The Loyal Subjects also look to expand their tiny-toy lineup, in this case doing Mega Man figures, and miraculously NOT just starting with the MM1 cast! As well as Bass and Treble, they'll also be doing X (in armor) and Sigma.

Speaking of that sort of branching out, Cryptozoic will be doing Street Fighter figurines in the style of their mini-DC-Bombshells, and this will include a few non-SFII characters. Most notably this includes Ibuki, and makes me excited for who else they might get to.

And while on the subject of Street Fighter, Bluefin was also their doing their part to show off Bandai's import lines (Bandai notably doesn't have much of a presence at WonFes, so don't look for them below), including Tamashii's expanding SF Figuarts line. This includes Rashid and Cammy, thankfully branching off the previously-unsurprising Ryu and Chun-Li. They had a poll up on their web-site, apparently, for the next one, and you know I'm crossing my fingers for Karin.

Mezco's One:12 Collective line had plenty of their always-tempting stuff on display, most importantly their anticipated Popeye figure, who cuts that perfect blend of detailed and cartoony that Mezco has nailed on other toys like their Space Ghost.

Big Chief Studios will notably be releasing replicas of the puppets from the original Thunderbirds, a series that I'm continuously surprised always seems to get merch of some kind out.

Marvel Select had the main thing I wanted to see from them: Their GOTG2 Star-Lord. There are a ton of different versions of this guy coming out thanks to the hype for this movie, but after hearing about this, I figured it would probably be my definitive choice, and seeing it in person did not disappoint.

Marvel Select will also be doing their own version of Spider-Gwen, but...see below before you make a decision on that one.

They'll also be putting out a Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, and she looks...not as affected by the Bishoujo line's stylings as you might have feared. Seriously, she clearly has a spine and everything, she looks pretty great and adorable!

NECA had one of the most absurd reveals of the weekend, announcing that they'll be selling a puppet version of Ash from Evil Dead! This thing is unapologetically done up in the recognizable Muppet style, and even sports the adorable moniker of 'Ashy Slashy'. I'll always appreciate how (not) seriously this series takes itself.

Playmates showed off their impressively-expanding Ninja Turtles line, including that they're finally doing Usagi Yojimbo! They also had Turtles in samurai armor, which mainly just served to give me traumatic flashbacks to Ninja Turtles III (handily NOT the best thing to wear the subtitle 'Turtles in Time').

The big thing I was looking forward to seeing from Playmates was more of their Voltron line, and it did NOT disappoint. First things first: They are doing action figures of ALL of the Paladins in their armor, along with Zarkon! They look great, and I'm probably going to get all of them. I really hope they get around to Allura and Coran afterwards. There's also a figure of the second Robeast (that rad laser-eye chameleon guy) coming out, as I'd hoped. 

Further, they're gonna be doing smaller, die-cast-constructed toys of the Lions that combine, so if the giant/expensive Legendary Lions were too much for you, these should be a delightful desk-size alternative. I'm even more excited for this line than I was a few months ago.

Along with their Power Rangers stuff, Bandai dropped a big surprise: Dragon Ball Z Dragon Stars, a western-focused line of 6-inch detailed DBZ figures. That's right, it's Dragonball in the Marvel Legends model, complete with a Build-A-Figure Shenron, and they look pretty good, all told! They'll be starting with the usual lineup of a couple Gokus, a couple Vegetas, and some bad guys (or whatever Beerus is now), so nothing I'm chomping at the bit myself (though a cheap Final Form Frieza is tempting), but there's a lot of appeal in wondering where Bandai of America will go with these if the line continues for a while. They certainly seem more likely to give us guys like Yajirobe or the Ginyu Force than the Figuarts line.

Hasbro's Star Wars line was there gearing up for Episode VIII at the end of this year, but understandably couldn't yet show off anything too specifically from that movie. They did have some new figures on display (Thrawn getting a release in the 3.75" line is certainly notable) but the most interesting tidbit to me was the Black Series line going to vintage-inspired cardbacks. I've always liked this packaging, and they look pretty darn good in this case. Certainly more eye-catching on the shelf than the, well, black packaging.

The 'Bro's Marvel lineup was also looking pretty great. They had their newest Legends lineups, including one with Jim Lee Cyclops, Disco Dazzler, and friggin' Shatterstar (god I am such a 90's kid). 

They also had a Spider-Man Legends lineup that included Tombstone! Their 3.75" line included such gems as the current (awesome) Spider-Man 2099 costume, the new Wolverine, and even a comic version of Jessica Jones (still need to watch that show). They'll also be putting out a pack with the classic versions of the Sinister Six!

And then of course there were the Transformers reveals. The Last Knight looks more and more like a movie I hope is good, since there's a lot of cool toys in there. We're getting a new Voyager-class mold for Scorn (one of the more memorable Dinobot designs from the last movie) as well as a retooled Drift, a new Hound, and new prospective money-making mascot Sqweeks. I still hate that name with a fiery passion, but I'll be damned if the little bastard's toy doesn't actually look pretty cool! 

The biggest reveal in the mainline though, and one of the surprise winners of the whole show, was actually the Leader-class toy of the new Megatron design! Turning into a big, badass jet and sporting a sick-looking sword, a flamethrower with attachable fire effects and some amazing detailing including a flip-up faceplate, this thing quickly shot to the top of my need list. It's just such a well-realized design that also works great as an actual toy. I hope the 'street date' for movie toys actually works out this year, since I could need to get one of these things on day one.

They'll also be releasing these Tiny Turbo Changers, little blind-packed SD figures of various movie characters that transform. There's a Starscream. I'm going to need it.

The RID15 line also packed a few surprises, surprisingly! The Team Combiners, like the ones we saw teased of Bumblebee's team and what appeared to be Menasor, will feature figures that all have individual transformations, simple as they are, and combinations that I *think* have some auto-transformation to them, similar to the Crash Combiners that just recently came out. They could end up like advanced versions of the ol' Power Core Combiners, and will even feature a Robots-in-Disguise-style Cyclonus turning into Galvatronus, which I guess is just a thing Cyclonus does now!

Finally the Generations reveals. Hasbro's really going all-out on us this year, knocking Titans Return even further out of the park than they already had, somehow. The big revelation was seeing Trypticon in person, and finding out everything he does. This includes Full-Tilt being a fully-fledged Deluxe figure now (and a Headmaster to boot), to his vehicular altmode being reimagined as a Nemesis-style starship, to him having a delightful Titan Master 'eating' gimmick that actually deposits the little dudes in his tummy jail, which is way more fun a thing than I was expecting!

We also got to see Overlord, finally, looking as bulky and boxy as I could hope (and even more extensively retooled from Black Shadow than I expected), and got confirmation of the long-suspected Octane and Blitzwing retools of Optimus and Megatron, respectively. They look great, Octane's actually got a lot of new parts (those wings) and Blitzwing gets his sword (which I was worried he might lack after Megatron didn't have it), and they look terrific together. Hasbro sold it well, having them stood together with the recent Astrotrain. There are more Deluxes and Legends on the way too, with Twin Twist expectedly retooled from Topspin (Wreckers fans rejoice!) and a whole-new mold Titan Master Windblade, with some rad-looking swords. Along with that there's the new Seaspray, who looks pretty much perfect, shipping with a rerelease of the exceptional previous Cosmos mold. All this plus a really cool retool of Shuffler into Ram Horn!

And of course there were those multi-packs we all heard about. There's two to start, and they're completely nuts. The big one is the Chaos on Velocitron set, which includes a Nautica figure retooled from Blurr. She looks very good, as she should, since the whole point is to convince MTMTE comic fans to buy the set for her. Fortunately, the rest of the set looks pretty neat too, including as it does a Rodimus Prime Titan Master head, a whole-new-mold toy of Clone Fastlane, a G2 Laser Prime-accurate redeco of the Voyager Optimus mold, and Six Shot done up as Autobot Six-Changer Quickswitch (who actually DID have a submarine mode!). The other set, Siege on Cybertron, doesn't include any comic-book darlings, but does include Takara's Super Ginrai mold (called 'Magnus Prime' here, and hopefully we'll find out what THAT'S about!), appropriately accompanied by Metalhawk made from Triggerhappy, plus Broadside recolored as Armada Tidal Wave, another new mold as the Clone Pounce, and a Titan Master of Thunderwing's head. Whew! I don't know exactly when these things are coming out, but I'll be totally ready to break the bank for them.

Really feels like Hasbro pulled out all the stops on these, they're practically BotCon level!

And that was just the first half of Saturday! After that, the evening brought WonFes, and all the surprises it could bring. There's likewise a ton of stuff here, and I know I'll miss some stuff, so let's just get on to it:

Oh god where do I even start

I don't fully know what this Dark Advent thing from Alphamax and Saitom is, but it's giving us this rad posable toy of this girl with a big smashin' arm, so I'll take it.

F-Toys will be releasing a line of various nudibranches! They actually look really pretty and well-detailed!

Alter will be doing a statue of Nikumi from Food Wars, a character it's really stunning I don't own a figure of myself yet (still holding out for a figma, really). This one looks good though, I at least like it better than the earlier Kotobukiya version.

Similarly, Di Molto Bene has a statue coming out of the only Girls und Panzer girl that ever caught my eye, Anchovie! She's eatin' spaghetti!

Anchovie's also getting a Cu-Poche. I'll have to go in for a toy of this character at some point, I guess.

The Super Master Stars Piece line of Dragonball statues will be doing the main characters, and they all look pretty standardly nice but-WOAH! This 2D style Vegeta is something else, something worth keeping an eye on.

Craneking appears to be making prize figures based on those infamous 'cutaway' images of the various classic Kamen Riders, starting with #1 (can't wait to see this one painted).

We're also getting a line of 'Cuter's' Rider figures in SD style, including #1 (or it could be #2) both by himself and on a bike, along with perpetual Mr. Popular Den-O, and current main Rider Ex-Aid.

1000Toys will be releasing this robot that turns into a box, appropriately named 'Robox'.

Megahouse's Desktop Army line is one I haven't kept up with, but the newest set, Dragoon, looks very appealing to me. I might like to get at least one or two from this one.

Speaking of build-up boxed toys, Aoshima will be releasing the 'DJ Booth Collection', letting you construct your own mixer and turntable setup. Depending on the scale (can't quite tell from that image there) this could be a useful thing for various figures.

Sentinel's Mega Man line, not to be outdone by a dang candy toy, will finally release a Volnutt Mega Man from the Legends series. I predict that this will do...quite well, at least amongst the people I know who talk about Mega Man.

Sentinel also showed off that they'll be doing a new, amazing-looking version of Machine Robo's Baikanfu in their Metamor Force line. I still need a version of this thing someday, maybe this could be it. It could hang out with my Revenge of Cronos bots when they're not being Go-Bots.

Azone's PureNeemo character doll series will be doing at least a couple New Game characters, starting with a nice-looking Aoba they were showing off and continuing later with Hifumi (who seems to be popular with everyone except me). Hopefully they'll also get to Hajime at some point, since it's still an absolute crime that the toy-collector character doesn't yet have any toys made of her.

Azone also had a bunch of new Assault Lily figures on display. Those new brown coats are really cool looking.

The AL girls were also being used to show off Little Armory's newest releases: 1/12 scale squirtguns! Nice to see even they don't take themselves too seriously, and these look like they'd be pretty cute to have around for your figma and the like.

I wasn't quite right when I hypothesized that the next in the Figure-Rise Mechanics line would be Cell in his science tube, but I was close! It's Trunks's time machine, and it includes the hatched-out husk of Cell's first larval form.

We’ll also be getting a model kit of the AT-AT from Star Wars, and it'll notably be 1/144 in scale: just the right size to fight your Gundams!

I'm not familiar with this Aria on the Planetes thing (I'm just gonna assume it's a dating sim) but the girls being done up as statues from it sure do look pretty, so here they are.

In the spirit of Armor Girls Project, Cross Frame will be putting out a GaoGaiGar girl figure, showing that even the most hot-blooded of mecha series are not safe from the siren song of moe.

On a similarly-styled subject, I'm not sure what this VLOCKer's thing is, but the design is neat and the modular part-swapping looks fun.

Kotobukiya is going to continue their line of Pokemon statues, seemingly in no particular order, as the female Trainer from Black/White 2 is up next, and will apparently be followed by the Trainer from the FIRST Black/White. Your guess is as good as mine.

Along with whatever THIS cool-lookin' figure is!

We got to see Takara's new Big Powered GV from their Diaclone Reboot line in prototype form, and it's more huge and glorious than I could have imagined. I can't wait to see everything it can do/turn into.

The Powered Suits are also powering along with some new accessory options!

Megahouse will be doing additional Drifters in their Super Action Statue line, revealing Nobunaga and Yoichi, at least allowing you to complete the power trio of the series. Japan always needs more stuff based on Oda Nobunaga!

Kaiyodo will be partnering with Union Creative to release figures of various animals, including this great-looking posable polar bear.

Kaiyodo also had one of the stunners of the show, with the revelation that the next in their Amazing Yamaguchi line of Revoltech-jointed Marvel figures would be none other than Spider-Gwen, and an incredible version of her at that! This caught everyone off guard, and looks like it'll turn out just as amazing-looking as their Deadpool, Spider-Man, and Venom. I already know it's probably going to be my definitive version of the character.

Megazone 23 must have picked up some steam for an older series, because it seems like more companies are taking a crack at its main mecha, the Garland. Arcadia will be putting out their version, affordably competing with Art Storm's ridiculously expensive premium release.

And Good Smile will be doing a model kit as well, which could end up even more reasonably priced!

Ah yes, Good Smile. They had a TON of cool stuff revealed to show off. Starting with Nendoroids, there was Lum from Urusei Yatsura, proving that not everything they do is flash-in-the-pan currently popular stuff.

And then more expectedly, Akko from Little Witch Academia, which while not surprising, was still nice to see.

They did reveal just before the show that they'd be doing a full line of Disney-based Nendos, thankfully not letting Frozen monopolize that corner of the line. I'm glad to see Rapunzel in there.

They're also going all out and doing a TON of characters from currently-airing series BanG Dream, which I hear ended up not being all that worth watching so far!

They also confirmed (again, unsurprisingly) that there will be more Overwatch Nendoroids after Tracer, with Mei and Mercy up next.

The Nintendo toys are continuing as well, with Lillie from Pokemon Sun/Moon (awesome) and Kirby in his robot from Planet Robobot (also awesome).

All that plus an absolute truckload of moeboats and swordboys, and that's just Nendos!

Figma side was a bit lighter, but still had some very cool reveals.

Continuing with Overwatch, Tracer will also be getting a figma, as will Genji (hey, nice that a husbando gets some love alongside all these waifus), and in this case I hope they eventually just make the whole damn cast.

More video game figma were revealed as well, including a full look at Odin Sphere's Gwendolyn, and she's looking as appropriately pretty as she should from that game.

The Persona 5 protagonist is rather expectedly getting a figma. Less expected is the Pixie Persona getting one, alongside what is *apparently* a giant figma of Mara. Yes, that Mara!

About the furthest thing from a schoolgirl, Max Factory, dang.

Most surprising, but welcome on this subject though, was the reveal of King of Fighters figma! They'll be starting with Kyo and Iori, of course, but I have to assume Mai will be in there soon as well. There's another one where they could just make the whole cast and I'd be happy.

No new Monogatari figma at this one, but there is a new figFIX of Senjougahara's Second Season look, and I'll get it just to be able to add that short-hair head to my original Hitagi.

time for crab

Last notable figma actually shown off were that memetic classical Japanese painting for the Table Museum line, as well as a prototype (outta nowhere) of Hinata from Haikyu! Will this include a volleyball net to let your figma play? I hope so, but even if it doesn't it's a dang Haikyu figma! I'll probably need it.

There were a ton of just-announce figma as well. The BIG news for me was that they'll be doing one of Red in his FRLG look (probably my favorite design), something I've been hoping they'd do for aaaaages. I hope it's not just available through Pokemon centers.

There was also an announcement for a figma version of Priss from the original Bubblegum Crisis, and if the picture is anything to go on, will include her bike as well!

That's a lot of announcements that cater to me specifically, but if you're still looking for Sonoda stuff to make, Max Factory, might I suggest...Gunsmith Cats?

Aside from their big collectible lines there, Good Smile also has a statue coming out for Ramlethal from Guilty Gear Xrd (more standard look but less-space hogging than the FREEing version), as well as even newer character Jack-O.

They're also making one of Marie Rose from Dead or Alive 5 in her secondary costume. It's not my favorite costume, but it's nice to see anything DOA, and I do like Marie Rose in general.

Oh, AND they've got kits coming out for adorable little Scopedog and other mechs from VOTOMS, as well as tiny little Mechatro WeGo kits!

Oh, and you can't buy it anywhere, but check out this sweet garage kit of Wheel Gator someone had at the show!

So be good and know what to wish for, and maybe Santa Saber will bring you what you want!

And I think that might be everything! Holy cats, that was even more to write about than I thought it would be! Hopefully with me gushing about all that, you saw a few things in there that caught your eye too!

Wishlist: Deja Vu

So yeah, if you existed in the general vicinity of the internet last week, you’ve already seen that Overwatch’s Tracer is getting a Nendoroid. You’ve seen everything about it. I’ve got nothing new to say on the subject, I already talked about the other ones coming out up there, you got me. She’s up for pre-order, she looks really cute, you’re probably gonna buy it. Cheers, cavalry, etc.

Pre-orders are up for Funko’s Rick and Morty figures, adding another facet to this show you can indulge yourself in during the eternal wait for Season 3. If the toys look pretty simple, that’s at least in line with the show’s aesthetic, and they come with parts for a Build-a-Figure Snowball, which looks pretty great. Even if that does kinda throw a wrench into the Mr. Meeseeks figure, who is technically an army-builder.

These cute little Kirby stacking figures are coming out too, including Kirby, a few different Waddle Dees (apparently out to prove wrong my earlier statement that he doesn’t get as much merch) and even a star block and Maxim Tomato! These look like an adorable addition to your desk clutter.

And in a surprise twist, Sentinel’s previously ‘Con-exclusive Miku-styled Mechatro WeGo is up for pre-order at general Japanese retail! If you weren’t able to get this thing originally, it’s not going to get any easier than this. Hell, for that price, a cool-colored Mechatro with an oddly-Adventure-Time-based Miku is even tempting to me. Jump on it if you want it.

On Desk: If I Only Had a Heart

Well after hammering out a wall of text like that, best thing to do is unwind with some comfort food, er, plastic. The 3.75” Marvel Legends original Iron Man was a total indulgence purchase for me last week, and I’ve enjoyed having him within arm’s reach since. I’ve always loved the old ‘tin can’ design (equally so the movies’ outstanding take on it) so I’m glad Hasbro’s never been too shy about making toys of it.

This version uses a really nice deep metallic grey plastic to simulate the metal coloration of the suit, without worrying about silver paint and the chipping thereof. There’s plenty of details sculpted into his shiny surface, but not too much, so it doesn’t break up the simple roundness of the whole design. They’ve also included an added piece around the neck that  fills in where the head connects and adds an antenna, which is a nice bit.

The articulation is a bit limited, but not in a bad way given the design (the Mark I was never the most mobile mecha design in the world). His legs have great range of motion, with double-knees and universal ‘ball’ hips (which I’m normally not a fan of, but they work well on this design). The arms are a bit more restricted, only having the one elbow hinge and not being able to bend much past 90 degrees, but again, it works for the design and it all looks good. The hands are on swivels, and the odd pointing gesture the left is in is just more amusing for poses than anything else. I don’t know why they did it that way, but it turns out fun, at least!

He’s a good little toy, overall. The sort of thing I’ll probably keep within fiddle range for quite a while. This line is nice enough that I wish they made a few more that catered to me specifically like this.

Well I don’t know about you, but all that was a ton of fun for me! I’m gonna take a well-deserved rest everyone! Let me know what your favorite stuff of Toy Fair and WonFes was, be sure to have fun, and I’ll see you next week!