Our last appointment of Toy Fair was with Toynami. We love meeting with Toynami because it is obvious that they are such fans of Japanese toys, and are one of the few companies at toy fair that really "get" what we are all about. We often spend more time just going insane over toys in general, than talking about the current product line.
This is, unfortunately, what happened at Toy Fair.
The big news out of the Toynami camp is that the Toynami/Tamashii partnership is a done deal. Official. Signed, sealed, delivered. 2009 will bring lots of Bandai Tamashii product to the US, and many of the lines you love will be available domestically.
So here's the deal. Soul of Chogokin, Chogokin SPEC, Soul of Sofubi, Tamagoras, SIC, Robot Soul and others are definite. Bandai refers to Robot Soul as a "Revoltech Killer" and from the samples, we saw its obvious why.
Also on display from the Bandai camp was SH Figurarts, Saint Cloth Myth, and Twist Action Form. These aren't guaranteed for the American market at this point, but you never know.
From the Toynami side of things they had the new Robotech Cyclone, which looks great, and is shipping now. All of the Beta fighters are on display and George said that the factory that did the Beta Fighters now have all the molds for the Alpha, and will tooling them from here on in. There is a possibility that we will see all plastic giftsets that include an alpha and beta in matching colors.
The 1/55 valkyries with the re-tooled heads are on hiatus, due to a licensing issue with Big West.
Toynami is throwing its hat into the vinyl game with a 9" vinyl Voltron, which looked very nice. When asked about the possibility of a vinyl Invid, George said "Maybe...."
The plastic Voltron sets continue to sell like crazy.
We were invited out to Japan at the end of the month to the Tamashii Nations event in Akihabara, and after about 30 seconds of deliberation, we accepted. So CollectionDX will be covering the event next month, live from Tokyo!
So here's the deal. Soul of Chogokin, Chogokin SPEC, Soul of Sofubi, Tamagoras, SIC, Robot Soul and others are definite. Bandai refers to Robot Soul as a "Revoltech Killer" and from the samples, we saw its obvious why.
Also on display from the Bandai camp was SH Figurarts, Saint Cloth Myth, and Twist Action Form. These aren't guaranteed for the American market at this point, but you never know.
From the Toynami side of things they had the new Robotech Cyclone, which looks great, and is shipping now. All of the Beta fighters are on display and George said that the factory that did the Beta Fighters now have all the molds for the Alpha, and will tooling them from here on in. There is a possibility that we will see all plastic giftsets that include an alpha and beta in matching colors.
The 1/55 valkyries with the re-tooled heads are on hiatus, due to a licensing issue with Big West.
Toynami is throwing its hat into the vinyl game with a 9" vinyl Voltron, which looked very nice. When asked about the possibility of a vinyl Invid, George said "Maybe...."
The plastic Voltron sets continue to sell like crazy.
We were invited out to Japan at the end of the month to the Tamashii Nations event in Akihabara, and after about 30 seconds of deliberation, we accepted. So CollectionDX will be covering the event next month, live from Tokyo!