The Energon Pub

[Hero Alpha]

The last one looks to be the best of the three.

None of them are acceptable with those paint flaws though. Last one was the best, but that long line on the left side of his nose just kills it for me.

Do u plan on selling the bad looking ones cheap?

[Seibertron]

Keitai70

That one has a flaw on its chin as well as other imperfections on the lower right side of the face (dirt/bumps in paint). You can see it best in these photos, though the pic is a little out of focus.

http://ameblo.jp/kurihujannpa/image-12236291957-13841134057.html
http://ameblo.jp/kurihujannpa/image-12236291957-13841102699.html

[DedicatedGhostArt]

The last one looks to be the best of the three.

None of them are acceptable with those paint flaws though. Last one was the best, but that long line on the left side of his nose just kills it for me.

Think of it as battle scars.

Anyhoo, Brainstorm overall looks really dang good. Might get me one. The coloration works way better in my opinion than the Hasbro Walgreens one.

[Seibertron]

The last one looks to be the best of the three.

None of them are acceptable with those paint flaws though. Last one was the best, but that long line on the left side of his nose just kills it for me.

Do u plan on selling the bad looking ones cheap?

I plan on selling them, but at regular retail price. Some collectors aren't as concerned with imperfections as I am due to macro photography.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Keitai70

That one has a flaw on its chin as well as other imperfections on the lower right side of the face (dirt/bumps in paint).

Ok, 3 out 4 with imperfections... Gosh, getting a perfect one seems really hard to do. Isn't there an import store one can visit that has that figure? Gives one the chance to carefully examine the head as it's visible through the window.

[Hero Alpha]

The last one looks to be the best of the three.

None of them are acceptable with those paint flaws though. Last one was the best, but that long line on the left side of his nose just kills it for me.

Do u plan on selling the bad looking ones cheap?

I plan on selling them, but at regular retail price. Some collectors aren't as concerned with imperfections as I am due to macro photography.

Understandable, just had to ask. I also am picky about stuff like that as I take a lot of photos too. What I was going to do though was put the Hasbro Brainstorm head on the Takara body

[DestronMirage22]

Isn't there an import store one can visit that has that figure? Gives one the chance to carefully examine the head as it's visible through the window.

Do such stores even exist? I've searched like crazy, and for the life of me can't find a single store that caries these products.

[fenrir72]

Isn't there an import store one can visit that has that figure? Gives one the chance to carefully examine the head as it's visible through the window.

Do such stores even exist? I've searched like crazy, and for the life of me can't find a single store that caries these products.

None

[Seibertron]

Isn't there an import store one can visit that has that figure? Gives one the chance to carefully examine the head as it's visible through the window.

Do such stores even exist? I've searched like crazy, and for the life of me can't find a single store that caries these products.

None

There are none in the Chicago area surprisingly, at least not that I'm aware. I'm interested in pursuing that option though if I can figure out how to switch to having a brick-and-mortar store from just an online eBay store. Can't believe that America's 3rd largest city doesn't have an import toy store.

[Cyberpath]

Guess vho?






It's Mindvipe!

[ScottyP]

There are none in the Chicago area surprisingly, at least not that I'm aware. I'm interested in pursuing that option though if I can figure out how to switch to having a brick-and-mortar store from just an online eBay store. Can't believe that America's 3rd largest city doesn't have an import toy store.

I can. Very hard to scale to a viable point. Astonishingly tough to compete with online vendors on price, plus Bluefin keeps upping their footprint and selection at Barnes and Noble and TRU.

[SW's SilverHammer]

You know what's weird, Portland a city with a massive tie to pacific trade and import, doesn't have a impport toy store either. The closest are the comic-book shops that order certain import items from Diamond Select's catalog.

[fenrir72]

You know what's weird, Portland a city with a massive tie to pacific trade and import, doesn't have a impport toy store either. The closest are the comic-book shops that order certain import items from Diamond Select's catalog.

Diamond via comic book shops are the closest. Trouble is, my experience when I used to pre order via their "PREVIEWS" catalog, it based on "luck". If available, then you are lucky. If not, just cry in a corner. Now with online stores like Amiami, hobbysearch and hlj, you have a 90% 99.99% chance of acquiring one.

[william-james88]

You know what's weird, Portland a city with a massive tie to pacific trade and import, doesn't have a impport toy store either. The closest are the comic-book shops that order certain import items from Diamond Select's catalog.

And then you have Canada who has at least one in most of its major cities. One of its best is in St Catherine, Ontario, which has a very small population.

[Cobotron]

In the late 90's early 2000's Chicago had a good import shop, and a shop in Portland was one of the few online places I could find TFs and Microman stuff. Times have changed.

[Seibertron]

In the late 90's early 2000's Chicago had a good import shop, and a shop in Portland was one of the few online places I could find TFs and Microman stuff. Times have changed.

Are you talking about JP Gift at Mitsuwa? They also had a store near Wrigley Field for about a year around 2004 or 2005 before the owner went cray-cray. I live about 5 minutes away from Mitsuwa now. I still think that it can be done or else things like going to conventions to buy Transformers toys wouldn't still be a thing to do. Just have to learn how to cater to the market AND manage the online aspects of it.

What I think is dead are stores that just have merchandise in a store in a city somewhere but don't have those products online. Someone in some far off land wants that unique item and it seems silly not to try to capitalize on both markets. The products should be in store for non-Internet savvy folks and impulse buy folks (but have the prices reasonably priced so that people don't just use you as a toy showroom like Best Buy and Amazon) and the products should also be available online. It's something I've wanted to do ever since the days of Mitsuwa and after coming from Michigan where stores with import or collectible toys was not a rare thing back around 2000.

[Cyberpath]

Someone (who?) translated my scans of the LG33 manga so it's easier to follow the story --

Papika, the girl who cried Weirdwolf.

[fenrir72]

With the dialogue, it's even more funny!

[DestronMirage22]

Hilarious.
I love these comics. It's a shame that a collection of these hasn't been made, or that official translations haven't been brought to other languages. I'm sure there's a good audience that would gladly pay money to have these. Oh well, one can hope.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

*groans* I just realised why Hardhead calls Cargo/Karugo a "slug" (蛞蝓 or ナメクジ namekuji): Es-Cargo-t. Even fits the overall look of the tank mode

And I love the provided translation note about Weirdwolf. A "Wolf" indeed.

[Overcracker]

Ginrai finally arrived, and I finally got some time with him today.


There's things I like, and things I dislike. But overall he's a cool figure.

Box, less collector friendly than I expected, but still friendly enough I did not have to destroy it to get hm out, and it still exists in one piece should I want to put him back in.

Front of the box

Truck mode is awesome. no complaints there. The Cab is very nice looking. Very G1. The trailer comes together nicely.

items in box

front of truck

comparison

Tiny ginray is very nicely painted cindering he's so very wee.

tiny robot

Noe the Large robot mode. Elephant feet in the room.

Its a strange set of swivels and joint, and one major issue the red heels fold up, so while they offer some support, any amount of pressure backwards and they'll collapse and cause the fire to fall back. Not sure why they did it that way.

Otherwise, he stands o.k once you get the feet and heels in the proper position, but there's no tabs or clicks of indication its just by feeling. And the instructions are not useful at all. Just a couple of arrows indicating how to turn the feet, but nothing else.

large robot

All guns attached:

Guns

His rifles are very flat and hollow, they do look nice from one side, but the other side is a mess. The tab together horizontally into flat double barrelled weapon that can't really be held in any convincing fashion.

Looks like its more meant as a gun emplacement for Base mode though have not tried base mode yet.

Head is, well Prime. Should look fairly nice on the ConvoBat or even on the Voyager Octane-Prime.
Helmet is exactly the same as Hasbro's.

unhelmeted

helmeted

Their inner selves:

Inner Selves

All in all its nice figure. I would not say its $80 nice. But for the $50 I preordered him for, its great.

[Nemesis Destron]

Thanks for sharing Overcracker!

[Nemesis Destron]

Might we expect Triggerhappy in the LG line...anyone?

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Might we expect Triggerhappy in the LG line...anyone?

Anything that isn't a retool or redeco is fair game. So expect Triggerhappy, Hot Rodimus, Doublecross, Perceptor, maybe Chaar and maybe Topspin (depending on how their pretools turn out) to make an appearance.

[Nemesis Destron]

That's awesome...Thanks Jelze.