Hey Man, Nice Haul

In spite of the fact that I just ripped off the title of a Filter song, I did get a hella nice haul yesterday for the first time in a long time. I haven't gotten anything "significant" in about 2 months (significant being defined as anything that isn't just snacks and a shirt or magazine) thanks in part to my having to pay an assload of extra money to get my car fixed/brought up to snuff so it could be successfully inspected. Thanks in part, too, to my wanting to be fiscally responsible.

Anyway, cutting to the chase, the majority of stuff I got was from Strapya World, and while I'm sure I've mentioned them before, I don't think I've promoted them before. It is a good - if not dangerously addicting - site that much like J-List sells Japanese goods that you pretty much won't find for sale anywhere else online. I suggest checking them out if you like character phone straps (their Hello Kitty/Sanrio section is second-to-none), stuffed toys, USB toys, small Japanese electronic gadgets, etc. A healthy chunk of their stuff is mascot-themed (which I like), and they have a ton of traditional and traditional fusion (mascots and pop-culture + traditional culture) items as well. As far as price, the items are priced just right, in my opinion. And as far as shipping costs, which are a big pet peeve of mine, they are actually often times LESS than domestic shipping. Granted most of the stuff you can order there is as small as a cell phone strap, but the flat rate of $5 Airmail up to $100 and $10 EMS (!) is great.

Being a big Hello Kitty fan, I went a little overboard this time (as you can see). Overall it wasn't bad, I spent as much on what you see in the Kitty picture as I would on a box of Chara Fortune keychains, so. I love traditional/cultural fare, so I was elated to see the Gotochi Kitty series from various regions, the first time I'd visited the site. This time I splurged on a lot of the ones I had been eying before. Another thing I've been on a run of lately is the character Mameshiba, got some (compressed) towels this time as well as another talking Kuro Mameshiba. I'm expecting two push lights later this week from J-List as well. These little guys are adorable, and are gaining in popularity, which also makes me happy.

The other stuff from Strapya included a mini stuffed anthropomorphic Fuji-san, an anthropomorphic cross between a baguette and Welsh Corgi, Kinbuta or "golden pig", Mugen Beer that electronically produces a pop top & pouring noise and an electronic LCD Jan-Ken-Pon or Rock, Paper, Scissors. I bought the Janken as a joke because it was cheap, but I ended up liking it a lot. It had that unique Japanese packaging that immediately drew me in, and then how gimmicky it was after trying it made me smile.

Lastly, I on an impulse I ordered a box of Megahouse Dragon Ball Z: Return of Cell toys. Again, the way they were packaged/displayed was impressive. Upon opening up the box, I saw 7 Dragon Balls nested inside the box in a specific way that looked very cool. And I've preserved that for posterity in a pic that you're likely staring at as you read this. So, so far so good right? Weeeeell, all wrapped up they looked awesome, opened up? Not quite as much. And it wasn't the quality, I wasn't expecting 1/8 figure quality in what are basically capsule toys. What the site that I bought them from didn't reveal (And to be fair, it wasn't Hobby Search's fault because it took me 2-3 mins of searching to find it on the actual box itself) was that the vignettes inside were made in both full color and "bronze" versions. When a company does this, it usually means that they're trying to cheap out on paint, because painting figures all one color as opposed to 7-8 colors isn't as expensive. I opened one capsule, a "bronze" version. I opened capsule number two, another bronze version, I was starting to get a tad angry at this. Not that "bronze" DBZ warriors are hideous or anything, but I was looking forward to something that didn't look like a queer trophy. Luckily the other five capsules contained full color figures. As well, there was one part in each capsule that you could collect out of all seven to build a "Tenshi Goku" or angel Goku running on the Serpent Road.My other guess for the bronzing craze would be that these are "trading figures" which are a lot of the time blind boxed - which means you can't tell what's in them until you buy and open them. This means more profit for the company that produces them if unlucky people keep getting doubles or characters they don't necessarily want & continue to buy more blind boxes. These ones, you can tell what you're getting by looking at the number of stars on the Dragon Ball capsule it comes in. If people can tell what they're getting before they buy, that means that they can collect all of them within 7 balls/capsules. This way if they bronze some and give people what they don't want, it means you may have to buy 10-12 figures before you get an entire set of full color ones and thus no loss of profit. As I said, I wasn't expecting 1/8 figure quality, and I didn't get that. =P As expected, the figure of Goku you have to collect across all 7 capsules was more detailed than the rest. However, unexpectedly the quality of the 5 normal figures varied greatly. There were 3 figures where the scene was kinda "zoomed out" and everything was smaller in scale that possessed a lot less detail than the ones that were more close-up. Making things like this smaller in scale usually results in a loss of detail, but I've never really seen such a drastic difference. I'm not complaining because the detail loss is sort of limited to parts you really aren't supposed to see/scrutinize. The one bronze figure I got looked like it would've been awesome in full color, and I really like Trunks, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

I'll be taking some more detailed photos tonight of individual items to post tomorrow, I got a little waylaid by posting ebay auctions today to do them up right for this post.