The Energon Pub

Micron Boosters: Single, blind purchase, minicons sold exclusively in Japan

Lookie:


Do you like Skittles? or perhaps the sight of many different colors? Micron Booster packs are for you.

Enough BS though. Anyone else into these at all? I just started expanding my Minicon ranks by gathering up X-Dimension sets and now the Booster boxes.

Japan really got these right with the 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes 4th and 5th recolors of the lil guys. Expect to pay between $3-5 bucks per Minicon and understand that they've all had to be imported.

I've really gotten to like seeing how creative some of the colors are and surprisingly just how many are out there. There are official releases, store promos, chase figures, etc.

It's actually fun hunting them down too. There is an almost happy realization that there is no way to find them all, so I don't even have to try for that. Since there's no back story or required characters, I'm free to pair them up with any character etc. I don't particularly like the chase figures. Vac Metal does nothing for me and I haven't felt guilty not buying them yet.

Discuss? I know there is a lot of Minicon hate out there, which I don't particularly get. Not liking the gimmick is one thing, but there are a lot of cool robots out there, even if they are small (and weird...).

I'm working on a project now...when it's ready, I'll unleash my minicon army on you all (and holy bloody hell, there's a lot of them).

those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

The only toy that I have that requires Minicons is Armada Unicron. I went and bought the space minicons that form Requiem blaster. Also, I have the Minicons that form Star Saber. They went with the space theme and gave Unicron something to chase and eat.

All in all, I don't like the minicons, but that's only because I never got into that particular toyline. However, given my druthers, I would have a whole army of Armada Unicrons' Deadend figure. I would like to have one of those small planet dudes on every one of Unicrons' posts. However, I have yet to see a set of just that Minicon mould.

noob wrote:those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

Usually one of the teams in the booster set is translucent.

I've got the booster set with the translucent emergency team on the way (minus the chase figure, hate that chrome...)

Counterpunch wrote:

noob wrote:those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

Usually one of the teams in the booster set is translucent.

I've got the booster set with the translucent emergency team on the way (minus the chase figure, hate that chrome...)

What did chrome ever do to you, chrome hater?

Dagon wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

noob wrote:those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

Usually one of the teams in the booster set is translucent.

I've got the booster set with the translucent emergency team on the way (minus the chase figure, hate that chrome...)

What did chrome ever do to you, chrome hater?

It chips, fades, and generally looks out of place among other plastic toys.

I actually really hate that even without touching the stuff, it can fall apart or fade.

I have an RiD Ultra Magnus where the blue chrome just quit being blue. I don't handle my toys all that often and when I do, I'm very careful. I'm also a hater. I'm looking at you vac-metal chrome...

The chrome seems pretty good on the G2 minibots. No fading, just scratches.

ConDrewfus wrote:The chrome seems pretty good on the G2 minibots. No fading, just scratches.

I guess it's a different type of chrome...

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

ConDrewfus wrote:The chrome seems pretty good on the G2 minibots. No fading, just scratches.

I guess it's a different type of chrome...

It is...

I'm happy to mention that my Dinobots all still have pretty good chroming, even where you can tell there is a bit of wear.

I never knew these existed. I usually dislike blind packaged and/or small figure toy lines. Battle Beasts, Robot Heroes, MUSCLE, Pokemon, etc.. Never liked those. But I loved the Transformers PVC figures (SCF/HoC) and Kinder Surprise Eggs.

These are cool, the only problem is they don't look like they're anything new. Just repaints of minicons we already got. If they made brand new minicons I'd probably be all over this even though I don't really care for minicons. The fact that you don't know what you're going to get warps my mind and I feel like I'm playing action figure lotto. I'm not a gamblin man, but I can't resist temptation sometimes.

Where are you buying from Counterpunch? Lets see a collection photo too!

tacogrande wrote:I never knew these existed. I usually dislike blind packaged and/or small figure toy lines. Battle Beasts, Robot Heroes, MUSCLE, Pokemon, etc.. Never liked those. But I loved the Transformers PVC figures (SCF/HoC) and Kinder Surprise Eggs.

These are cool, the only problem is they don't look like they're anything new. Just repaints of minicons we already got. If they made brand new minicons I'd probably be all over this even though I don't really care for minicons. The fact that you don't know what you're going to get warps my mind and I feel like I'm playing action figure lotto. I'm not a gamblin man, but I can't resist temptation sometimes.

Where are you buying from Counterpunch? Lets see a collection photo too!

I'm working on it...

I takes about a month of work to rearrange my display. I'm currently through almost one of my bookshelves. I have about 25 minicons arriving next week, then there will be pictures and relief galore.

I like Minicons well enough. I have a pirate Star Saber (it's in purple colors .... I think it's a pirate of the X Dimension or whatever it's called excluive to Japan) and it doesn't activate any gimmicks so it can sit safely on Unicron's back.

I have 2 giant requiem blasters and skyboom shields ... which sit in a box doing nothing right now. Yeah, there just is no place for me to display them.

But I'm also trying to amass a Deaad End collection for Unicron. I have 6 Dead Ends. Three Armadas, 2 Energons (including the one what came with Unicron), and one Bug General. Always looking for more of those guys.

The Bug General really set me out on the Dead End hunt. He's the hardest and most expensive to get, but I randomly got him at a convention for three bucks. Having him made me figure getting a few others would be easy in comparison. He's actually really nice and is linked to Primus in Pleant mode.

Counterpunch wrote:

noob wrote:those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

Usually one of the teams in the booster set is translucent.

I've got the booster set with the translucent emergency team on the way (minus the chase figure, hate that chrome...)

Micron booster Volume 2 i believe.
Ive got that set - i randomly missed out on the chrome saber chase figure out of that one too but the translucent green emergency team, purple perceptor redeco and air military team resembling the one seen in the linkage comics are all excelent

Currently i have all the X-dimension (even the xdimension perceptor), all the micron booster (-saber but i do have the chases from the other sets) and a few exclusives like tv boy prime and some of the dvd minicons etc.


I was thinking of putting together a Minicon advent callender this year - which will be in practice a photogallery of a differnt minicon every day for the 25 days leading up to xmas. Done in such a way that suggests a blindpacked figure behind every window howing off some of the best molds colourschemes and desirable rare items
Anyone think thats a good idea?

MegaDave wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

noob wrote:those suckers will bleed you dry if you're a completist.

overseas in the asian market, there are stores dedicated to these blind packaged products, they go through their boxes and make sets which they sell at a little of a markup. sadly this hasn't caught on in the US yet.

have they been doing translucent figures?

Usually one of the teams in the booster set is translucent.

I've got the booster set with the translucent emergency team on the way (minus the chase figure, hate that chrome...)

Micron booster Volume 2 i believe.
Ive got that set - i randomly missed out on the chrome saber chase figure out of that one too but the translucent green emergency team, purple perceptor redeco and air military team resembling the one seen in the linkage comics are all excelent

Currently i have all the X-dimension (even the xdimension perceptor), all the micron booster (-saber but i do have the chases from the other sets) and a few exclusives like tv boy prime and some of the dvd minicons etc.

I'm actually amused you know their names.

Honestly, Minicon names are like the names of girls I dated back in highschool. As in "They have them? Seriously?"

As a general question to people out there. About 2 years ago, Wal Mart released a bunch of Cybertron figures that came packaged with Minicons (skyboom shield team).

I never bothered with them because off hand I thought them to be the same as the road assault team, but they were different...

Did anyone get these? Are you willing to part with them? How does the shield look combined?

Counterpunch wrote:As a general question to people out there. About 2 years ago, Wal Mart released a bunch of Cybertron figures that came packaged with Minicons (skyboom shield team).

I never bothered with them because off hand I thought them to be the same as the road assault team, but they were different...

Did anyone get these? Are you willing to part with them? How does the shield look combined?

The Linkbunny strikes again:

BWTF.com's Cybertron Race Team Gallery

IMO that team should be avoided for the sheer cheapness of it. All Hasbro did was replace the yellow of the original with red, and the grey with white. Same patterns all over.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:All Hasbro did was replace the yellow of the original with red, and the grey with white. Same patterns all over.

I know!

It's so cool.

(Thanks for the pic links. TFU.info has good pict too actually.)

I never see those sets on eBay.

I like some of the litle guys, just the ones that don't fall apart once you look at them.

My faves are Unicrons, Demolishors and Thrusts.

I wouldn't mind getting a few of those.

I never did get into minicons, mostly probably I don't like how the colors were mostly or how some of the molds looked. If CP proves these lil guys are made of win and awesome..I may have to hate him for making me buy these dudes. =\

Kanyon wrote:I never did get into minicons, mostly probably I don't like how the colors were mostly or how some of the molds looked. If CP proves these lil guys are made of win and awesome..I may have to hate him for making me buy these dudes. =\

Start saving those dollars my friend!

I've always liked Minicons and thought they were a pretty cool idea. If Armada's big figures were as articulated and as detailed as Cybertron's figures but used Minicons instead of the Cyber keys, they would have had the best line ever. The only X-dimension set of Minicons I have though is the X-Dimension Sea team (Knot, Float & Sail) to go with my Micron Legend Shockfleet (Tidal Wave). One thing that I do like seeing is that they are now including the figure exclusive Minicons (Crumplezone, Incinerator, et all) in those blind packs. I hope Hasbro will eventually release them seperate in the future. Hey CP, how are the molds holding up with all of the repaints? Are they getting too loose?

SnapTrap wrote:I've always liked Minicons and thought they were a pretty cool idea. If Armada's big figures were as articulated and as detailed as Cybertron's figures but used Minicons instead of the Cyber keys, they would have had the best line ever. The only X-dimension set of Minicons I have though is the X-Dimension Sea team (Knot, Float & Sail) to go with my Micron Legend Shockfleet (Tidal Wave). One thing that I do like seeing is that they are now including the figure exclusive Minicons (Crumplezone, Incinerator, et all) in those blind packs. I hope Hasbro will eventually release them seperate in the future. Hey CP, how are the molds holding up with all of the repaints? Are they getting too loose?

Takara blame hasbros cybertron minicon two-packs for destroying what was left of the armada era minicon molds.
Otherwise the mold quality seems fine on all the ones ive encountered.

The Xdimension see team matches micron legend shockwave perfectly i would have to agree.

Unfortunatly i doubt the partner minicons being reissued without the larger figures. The reason the ones like incinerator and crumplezone were released seperatly is because surplus were produced on the same mold sprues as buzzsaw, blur, longrack and runabout when they were remolded minus their minicons for the galaxy force line

SnapTrap wrote:I've always liked Minicons and thought they were a pretty cool idea. If Armada's big figures were as articulated and as detailed as Cybertron's figures but used Minicons instead of the Cyber keys, they would have had the best line ever. The only X-dimension set of Minicons I have though is the X-Dimension Sea team (Knot, Float & Sail) to go with my Micron Legend Shockfleet (Tidal Wave). One thing that I do like seeing is that they are now including the figure exclusive Minicons (Crumplezone, Incinerator, et all) in those blind packs. I hope Hasbro will eventually release them seperate in the future. Hey CP, how are the molds holding up with all of the repaints? Are they getting too loose?

Not at all. They're still tip-top.

MegaDave wrote:Takara blame hasbros cybertron minicon two-packs for destroying what was left of the armada era minicon molds.
Otherwise the mold quality seems fine on all the ones ive encountered.

Unfortunatly i doubt the partner minicons being reissued without the larger figures. The reason the ones like incinerator and crumplezone were released seperatly is because surplus were produced on the same mold sprues as buzzsaw, blur, longrack and runabout when they were remolded minus their minicons for the galaxy force line

Awesome info.

Where did you read that?

(and for the record, the worst quality Minicons are the Cybertron 2-pack ones. I don't know why...they're just weak.)

Counterpunch wrote:Awesome info.

Where did you read that?

(and for the record, the worst quality Minicons are the Cybertron 2-pack ones. I don't know why...they're just weak.)

Depends what part of the info you mean but like most of my info on the subject of minicons i get my info from a seller in japan who makes it his buisness to trackdown the store exclusives and chase figures and sell them on for a profit.

You said about knowing the names of the micron booster packs that can get really confusing given that the japanese names have been mostly overwritten by the bios given by the transformers fan club - Frenzy is the combined form of the 3 minicons in vol2 the fan club renamed it as heavy metal, for example

thanks for the info Megadave, that was what I was wondering since the Cybertron 2 packs seemed to be substandard. Also it makes sense about the minicons and their larger partners being from the same sprues as the Cyb release being overstock. Good point.

Those blind packed figures are ju7st too damn hard to track down, unless you want to buy a whole lot of them all at once.

I still think Hasbro should have done a similar thing with them in the West.

You know those machines that have the little toys in them for a couple of Dollars? Bigger versions of the lolly(candy for those in the US)machines. They could've done that with individual Minicons...