I can't believe that it's actually been so very long since I last had a blog entry with more than 3 Transformers toys being featured. Being a Transformers fan first and foremost, this is rather sad actually. Perhaps I was really jaded with the obscene amount of TF toys I had in recent months that I practically gave everything of no importance a miss. That of course, is set to change end of this month with lots and lots of Transformers goodies being released, details I will not divulge in right now.

Anyways, after 9 long months being kept MOSC, I finally got around to opening up both Henkei Exclusives Dirge & Thrust. The fact that they were far more expensive than the original Seekers Thundercracker & Skywarp played a big part in my wanting to keep them brand new. Both Dirge & Thrust, as well as Thundercracker & Skywarp were exclusive to Japan Ganbo Store. So with them finally out and about, I have every single Seekers mold in the Henkei line up, with the last Ghost Starscream due out end of this month.

Both Dirge, as well as Thrust have been designed to resemble their G1 appearances, so unlike Thundercracker and Skywarp, which were straight repaints of the existing Starscream mold, these two babies were retooled to be different from each other. Dirge is long rear wings with not tail (whatever they are called). Two smaller front wings completes his pure G1 outlook.

The only thing I am upset with about the Dirge mold is that the wings on his leg, when in robot mode, cannot be folded backwards. It makes him look really clumsy here. Doesn't make much sense if the actualy robot were to have such wings on his legs and could still be agile. This is were being true to G1 is not appreciated. The vehicle mode, however different to Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Ramjet & Thrust, all follow the same principle. The arm mounted weapons would be attached to the underside of each wing, and the transformation sequence from robot to vehicle is the same across all. I could imagine one being mightily turned off if he were to get just straight repaints of Ramjet.

Had a little bit more fun when it came to transforming Thrust though. He has additional turbine fans on his rear wings, just the same way as his G1 counterpart does as well. What made it fun was that I was literally stumped between choosing his Official Robot Mode, as shown in the instructions sheet, or to have look more like his G1 Robot Mode. Clearly the designers at TakaraTomy gave us the freedom to choose by giving us detachable turbine fans, only to be reattached on the main wings. Personally, I prefer this unooficial configuration of mine.

Official Henkei Dirge Configuration

Unofficial G1 Dirge Configuration

Vehicle mode, again different in appearance, but similar in transformation throughout. I liked how his colors maroon and black sits so well on the toy. Nothing much to shout about other than the rear wing fans imo.

The other Henkei Exclusive which was opened at the same time was the Visa Credit Card Exclusive Strafe. As mentioned on a few blog entries back, this was a straight repaint of Henkei Cyclonus. In G1 history, Strafe was part of a group of combiners called Technobots, able to merge with the other 4 to become Computron. Of course, that is not the case here. He never had a Targetmaster partner in G1, but was given one here, named RocketBot. I could see why many disliked this piece of toy, saying that it didn't do the original Strafe justice by just simply repainting Cyclonus without remolding the head (do a search on Google for G1 Strafe to know what I'm talking about). I fully agreed on that, but it was his striking White, Orange and Red that attracted me to get him in the first place.

Henkei Strafe - nothing like the original

Rocketbot

Differences in vehicle modes between G1 and Henkei were telling as well. Where in G1, Strafe's vehicle mode was that of a Cybertronian "rocket plane" (according to his instructions) with twin front-mounted "light-pulse blasters". On Henkei, he just has one plane nose. In fact, he does not look in any way like the original in vehicular form.

On to my Fourth Transformers toy, Revenge of the Fallen Voyager Class - Bludgeon. Clearly inspired by the Pretender of the same name, Bludgeon here has a skull-like face, and a body somewhat resembling a Samurai. Released together with NEST Recon Ironhide, he had people rather excited seeing something new for a change. Really must say that I had a hell of a fun time posing him around for his photoshoot.

The designers over at Hasbro was clearly intent on giving Bludgeon a complete samurai look, with two swords, or katanas, and his body parts resembled the armor. What I really liked about him was how you could store the two katanas on his hip, the very same way ancient samurai did. In robot mode, the back tank turrent hides away the small sword when and can be opened without much fuss. Only drawback: the swords should've been colored instead of being dull grey.

Nothing to shout about on the tank mode, the missile launchers attached to the body of the tank reminds one of the first movie's Brawl, which was also green. The longer sword is to be the tank's cannon in vehicle mode. The orange bits supporting the tank threads need a little getting used to; since you don't see such a striking tank, void of all camouflage all the time do you?

With Bludgeon done, the last item, or items I'd like to feature today are the newly acquired Kamen Rider Heads. Debuted in 2005, there have been more than 60 of them at present, with no signs of slowing down. Each of these heads belong to the Kamen Riders that appeared in every single series to date. The latest Volume 6 has just been released, and I have just completed Volumes 4 & 5.

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Nothing much to say about these heads actually, other than they are 1:6 scale and are meant to capture the each Rider's Mask. The drawing point in my opinion is some of the stands holding the heads have bulbs, so that when you do press the heads downwards, their eyes would light up.


I'll probably just list all the respective Riders present on Volume 4, the series they come from, followed by pictures:

01) Kamen Rider V3 - Kamen Rider The Next Movie Version
02) Kamen Rider Amazon - Kamen Rider Amazon Series
03) Kamen Rider Skyrider - Kamen Rider Skyrider Series
04) Kamen Rider ZX - Kamen Rider ZX Series
05) Kamen Rider Agito
06) Kamen Rider G3
#05 & #06 from Kamen Rider Agito Series
07) Kamen Rider Gai - Kamen Rider Ryuuki Series
08) Kamen Rider Kaixa - Kamen Rider 555 Series
09) Kamen Rider Kickhopper
10) Kamen Rider Punchhopper
#09 & #10 from Kamen Rider Kabuto Series
11) Kamen Rider Den-O Sword Form
12) Kamen Rider Den-O Gun Form
13) Kamen Rider Den-O Ax Form
14) Kamen Rider Den-O Gun Form
#11 to #14 from Kamen Rider Den-O Series
15) Shocker Trooper - first ever Kamen Rider Series. This piece was the rarer Chase, reported to have only 2 pieces in every carton.

Pictures arranged in the above order

Continuing the list, here's Volume 5:

01) Kamen Rider Ichigo - Kamen Rider Series
02) Kamen Rider J - Kamen Rider J Movie
03) Kamen Rider Scissors - Kamen Rider Ryuuki Series
04) Kamen Rider Todoroki
05) Kamen Rider Touki
#04 & #05 from Kamen Rider Hibiki Series
06) Kamen Rider Sasword Masked Form
07) Kamen Rider Sasword Rider Form
#06 & #07 from Kamen Rider Kabuto Series
08) Kamen Rider Zeronos
09) Kamen Rider Den-O Wing Form
#08 & #09 from Kamen Rider Den-O Series
10) Kamen Rider Kiva
11) Kamen Rider Kiva Garulu Form
12) Kamen Rider Kiva Bashaa Form
13) Kamen Rider Kiva Dogga Form
14) Kamen Rider Ixa
#10 to #14 from Kamen Rider Kiva Series
15) Kamen Rifer Zanki - Kamen Rider Hibiki Series (Chase piece)

Pictures arranged in the above order

As mentioned towards the end of my previous post, this third part will feature Saint Seiya Gold Saints exclusively. Known as the strongest of Athena's Saints, these warriors represent the 12 Zodiacs in Greek Mythology. In the series, it was said that they could invoke the 7th Sense at will, hence making them the strongest. In the very initial Sanctuary Arc, in order to get to the fake Pope, the 5 Bronze Saints had to go through all 12 temples where the Gold Saints watched over. While there were some within the Gold Saints who sympathized with them, most of them were manipulated by the Pope into thinking that they were traitors. As I attempt to summarize some character profiles, they would be copied over from sites like Wikipedia, as I doubt I can do a good job giving their characters life with my own words.

I will only be featuring 10 of the 12 Gold Saints today, with Gold Saints Gemini Saga & Taurus Aldebaraan yet to be found. The first temple that Seiya and gang arrived at was the Aries Temple, guarded by the Mu, the Aries Gold Saint. Mu has the strongest raw psychic powers, allowing him to manipulate psychokinesis, telepathy, teleportation, and various other powers are at his command. He is good friends with Taurus Aldebaran, and is very respectful to the 243 year old master Libra Dohko.

Before the start of the series, Mu removed himself from Sanctuary after suspecting that his mentor (and then-Pope), Aries Shion, had been quietly assassinated. He relocated to Jamir, a mystical land that only those with a high level of either psychic or Cosmo power can enter. From here, Mu severed all ties to Sanctuary and lived a life of solitude with his apprentice, the young psychic Kiki. It wasn't until years later, when he met Dragon Shiryu and Pegasus Seiya, that he began to become involved in the affairs of Sanctuary again.

Throughout the manga and anime series, Mu is the man to go to when a Saint needs his or her cloth repaired. Although every individual Cloth has the ability to regenerate itself after a battle, a hands-on restoration from Mu is needed if a cloth has been severely damaged to the point of death. In normal cases, 1/3 of a person's total blood supply is required for Mu to begin work right away. When restoring an armor, Mu uses hardware tools and the elements that are used to forge a Cloth: the mythical and extremely rare metal known as Gammanium, used in an alloy with the legendary metal Orichalcum, and finally, the radiant Star Dust Sand. It is precisely in the Aries Temple that Mu repaired all Bronze Saints' Cloth to pristine condition before attempting their journey ahead.

Aries Gold Saint - Mu

His cloth is of course that of the Aries Constellation.He is one of the longest surviving Gold Saint throughout the entire series, invading the Hades' Castle, only to be beaten by Wyvern Radhamanthys, along with fellow Gold Saints Leo Aioria & Scorpio Milo. He would then return in the final chapters of the Hades Arc along with 11 other Gold Saints to sacrifice their life to break through the Wailing Wall, leading the 5 Bronze Saints to crossover to Elysium.

Aries Gold Cloth

Missing in action here are as mentioned: Taurus & Gemini, hence the next in line is Cancer Deathmask, guarding over the Cancer Temple. He was depicted as a very sadistic and malevolent man who used his power as he wanted without bending to Athena's will. Deathmask covers every inch of his temple with the faces of his fallen victims - warriors and civilian men, women and even innocent children. Deathmask is one the few Saints who knows the truth about the Pope and the Gemini Saint, along with Pisces Aphrodite, but he continues obeying his orders. He believes that justice is not a real concept and is just a name given to the will of the stronger, since those with power can force their wills on the weak and call it fair. Even after joining sides with Athena, Deathmask remains a diabolic, sadistic person, facing Aries Mu and Pegasus Seiya without showing remorse and even attempting to kill the latter. It is unknown if Deathmask is his real name or a title since he collects the faces of his victims. He was killed by Dragon Shiryu in the arc, and only returned as one of Hades' new Spectres in the final arc.

Cancer Gold Saint - Deathmask

His cloth represents the Cancer Constellation, that of a mythical crab. As he returned in the final Hades Arc, being labelled a traitor. However, his true intentions, along with that of the other revived Saints were to warn Athena of the impending threat posed by Hades. As such, they were willing to go to the extent of being labelled as traitors in the history books, just so they could come back to life and protect Athena all over again.

Cancer Gold Cloth

The 5th temple that the Bronze Saints encountered belonged to that of Leo Aiolia. In his first appearance, Aiolia was present during the moment Pegasus Seiya was granted the Pegasus Bronze Cloth and the status of Athena's Saint.
Aiolia is shown as a reference in the Sanctuary due to his righteousness and strength. He is the young brother of Sagittarius Aiolos, considered a traitor that attempted to kill Athena when she was still a baby. Due to this, Aiolia works hard to prove his loyalty to the goddess and erase the shame his brother's actions bestowed upon them. Even during the time Aiolia thought Aiolos was a traitor, he showed immense respect toward his memory.

Aiolia is impetuous and has a hot spirit that incites him to action. More than once, this creates some conflicts between him and the calm Aries Mu. Through the story, it is hinted that he and Virgo Shaka are close friends.

Also, due to his talent and power, he is referred to as the reincarnation of Achilles. In this arc, Aiolia was seemingly brainwashed by the Pope, the same way the Crystal Saint was forced to carry out his evil deeds. He could not recognise Seiya when they met in the Leo Temple, and it took the efforts of Silver Saint Shaina and her disciple Cassius, as well as Seiya's before he came to his senses.

Leo Gold Saint - Aiolia

Holding the Leo Constellation, he was said to be one of the strongest among the Gold Saints, and survived to the end of the Hades Arc, where he, along with 11 other Gold Saints sacrificed themselves. He had intially treated his brother, Aiolos as a traitor, along with the other. However, as the story progressed, he had proven to be a loyal follower of Athena's and had come to the aid of the Bronze Saint countless times.

Leo Gold Cloth

Sixth in line is Virgo Shaka. As the guardian of the Temple of Virgo along the path of Sanctuary, Shaka has played a pivotal role chiefly in the battle between Athena and the Pope in the Sanctuary arc, and also in the Hades arc. He is referred to many times on the story as the "the man who is almost a god" due to his immense power and is also considered the only Gold Saint that has full control over the Araya Shiki (8th sense). He is supposed to be Buddha's reincarnation.

Shaka alone of all saints occupies the rarefied spot between God and man, but living between two worlds has its blessings as well as curses. As a Bodhisattva, and endowed with the most powerful cosmos of all the saints, Shaka well deserves his reputation as the man closest to God. Even as a child in India, Shaka was precocious and communed with God himself—a scene recounted in the flashbacks moments before Shaka's death in the Twin Sala's Garden. For someone whose life has just begun, he had been unusually sensitive to sufferings and mortality of human life. Seeing pain and death as reflected in the Ganges gives the boy Shaka enough despair, if not a crisis of faith. With esoteric learning and training, Shaka eventually became powerful enough to don the Gold Cloth of Virgo, which he wore even as a boy in the manga, and wise enough to rise above human passions and attachments. For most of his life, he would look on human feelings with a mix of pity and compassion without being bound to them, with charity but not always with love. Detachment seems to be Shaka's answer to the poignant questions raised by human life, and he is seeing humanity from the point of God rather than living the experience. He would be disabused of this attitude in his encounter with Ikki. In the end, Shaka would have to remember that he is a man, as well, and return to whence he came.

Virgo Gold Saint - Shaka

Shaka spurred the resurrected Saints to kill him during the Hades Arc, knowing that by doing so, he would be able to roam the Underworld without being subjected to its laws. There he accompanied Athena across the Underworld in search of Hades and to destroy him once and for all. He was also the first to reach the Wailing Wall, followed by Libra Dohko and the rest of the Gold Saints.

Virgo Cloth

Libra Dohko is the longest surviving Saint at 243 years old, after the former Pope, Aries Shion was killed. After the previous Holy War, Dohko received the order to watch the tower where Hades' Specters were sealed until the next Holy War. Dohko lives at the Five Peaks in China alone with Shun-Rei, an orphan girl he took on his care. Dohko is also the master of Dragon Shiryu and Ohko, who is an anime-only character. Dohko represents a father figure to Shiryu as well, and Shiryu often recalls on his wise teachings whenever facing difficulty in battle. He is often seen as an adviser of the main characters and a good friend of Aries Mu, Shion's disciple. When Dohko was young, he was much more vivid and rather impulsive. After regaining his young form during the Hades arc, he retains the behavior of his youth, albeit much more circumspect and mindful, result of his almost three centuries of experience as a Saint.

Dohko is Dragon Shiryu's Teacher, but Shiryu didn't know about Dohko's past, until Cancer Deathmask came to Mount Lu in an attempt to take the Libra Gold Cloth from him, revealing that he is one of the 12 Gold Saints of Sanctuary. It was implied that Dohko distanced himself from Sanctuary due to his suspicion that his old friend Aries Shion, the Pope of the Sanctuary, has been replaced. During the incoming fight, Dohko wasn't able to help directly the Bronze Saints, but sent his Gold Cloth to Shiryu so he could free Cygnus Hyoga from Aquarius Camus' Freezing Coffin. He also saved Shunrei from drowning when Cancer Deathmask struck her with a telekinetic attack as a gesture to taunt Shiryu.

His most prominent appearance is in the Hades chapter, when he felt that the Hades seal finally broke, so he goes to the Sanctuary to fight against Hades, and then turns on the fire clock. Hades revives some dead Saints, including Aries Shion, the former pope. Shion and Dokho meet again, and eventually the two fight. During the fight Dohko attempts to use his supreme attack, the Mount Lu One Hundred Dragons Wave to defeat Shion, but it failed to defeat him. Shion stated that Dohko, being 243 years older, could not possibly stand a chance against him, having his youth restored by Hades. He proceeds to defeat Dohko, but then Dohko breaks the power of longevity and turns back to his original young form to be able to fight properly, and is now evenly matched with his former friend. Later on, it would be Dohko who tells the Bronze Saints (except for Seiya and Ikki) before they entered Hell that they had to acquire the Eighth Sense in order to advance in this realm without losing their lives.

His final appearance was along with his fellow Gold Saints to break the Wailing Wall, as only the combined powers of the Twelve Gold Saints can break the wall. Upon the gathering of the combined powers of the 12 Gold Saints, the Wall of Lament was destroyed and opened the gateway to Elysion, but doing so cost the lives of all of the Gold Saints.

Libra Gold Saint - Dohko

Dohko's guardian constellation is Libra, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The scales held by the Goddess of Justice, Astraea . Unlike most of the Saints, none of the attacks he uses takes the form of his constellation, but instead take on the form of a dragon, similar to Shiryu. Even more unusual is that his symbolic creature, seen when his draws his full power, is neither the Libra nor a dragon, but a tiger.

Libra Gold Cloth

Milo is the Scorpio Gold Saint. Since his main technique inflicts immense pain to its victims, Milo always gives his opponents the option to either surrender, or become insane due to the unbearable pain.
He also sees great importance in the pride of the Gold Saints and seems to be always ready to clean the name of his companions. Even so, he is a noble warrior who can admit defeat even against a weaker or inferior enemy.
Since Milo fought Hyoga, he spoke to Aquarius Camus in a way that led the fans to believe they were close friends.

Milo is first seen at the Scorpio Temple, where he confronted Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu. The two Bronze Saints were no match for Milo's power. First they were set back by his Restriction, and later injured by his Scarlet Needle. When both of them had lost the will to fight, Cygnus Hyoga, along with an unconscious Andromeda Shun, arrived at the Scorpio House where he challenged the Gold Saint.

Milo attacked Hyoga with his Restriction technique, although it had no effect in the Cygnus Saint because Hyoga's body was being protected by ice. After his first attack was ineffective, Milo started to use his Scarlet Needle. Hyoga could do nothing against Milo's speed, and after almost all his attacks failed to injure the Gold Saint, a nearly senseless Hyoga awakened his seventh sense and launched an Aurora Thunder Attack on Milo. At the same time, Milo attacked Hyoga with the last Scarlet Needle, Antares. Hyoga dropped to the floor after he received Antares.

Looking down at Hyoga, Milo saw that he was trying to crawl to the next House. After seeing this, the Gold Saint realized that Hyoga's attack had frozen his Gold Cloth in the fifteen places that corresponded to the stars of Scorpio. Milo realized Hyoga had hit him just as he received Antares, and if he had not been wearing his Gold Cloth, he would probably have died first. Milo admitted his defeat, and after he stopped Hyoga's bleeding, he allowed him to go to the next House. After the battle in the Twelve Houses ended, to atone for his actions, Milo used his own blood to repair the Cygnus Bronze Cloth.

Scorpio Gold Saint - Milo

Milo's guardian constellation is Scorpio, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The scorpion Hera sent to kill the fabled hunter Orion. He was part of the 12 Gold Saints who gave their life to break the Wailing Wall for the Bronze Saints to proceed to Elysium.

Scorpio Gold Cloth

Sagittarius Gold Saint, Aiolos is the famous gold saint who died protecting Athena when she was an infant. Aiolos always was a paradigm of righteousness, seen as the perfect Saint and one of the two Gold Saints who could succeed Aries Shion as the next Pope of Sanctuary and the chosen one.

After his death, Aiolos' spirit would provide assistance for Athena and her Saints. He has aided Seiya in battles by lending the young bronze saint the Sagittarius Gold Cloth time and time again, and even appeared once to his brother Aiolia during Aiolia's fight with Seiya, when he demanded proof of Saori's identity as the goddess Athena. When the bronze saints were in the Temple of Sagittarius, the Sagittarius Cloth moved on its own (or with Aiolos' spirit), and fired its golden arrow into a nearby wall—revealing a final hidden message of the gold saint's last will: "To you young boys who have reached this temple, know that I entrust Athena's life in your hands. Aiolos". It is likely that Aiolos foresaw that one day, new Saints would go to his temple to fight for Athena. He is also the only Gold Saint to be shown without a cape, hence none came with his toy.

Sagittarius Gold Saint - Aiolos

Aiolos's guardian constellation is Sagittarius, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The centaur Chiron aiming its bow at Scorpio. Though it is also widely associated to simply a Centaur, since Chiron is more associated to the Centaurus constellation. Aiolos' cloth, Sagittarius Cloth, is armed with a bow and a golden arrow. This arrow is often depicted as the main weapon of the series and gives the final blow in four of the five movies of the series when used by Pegasus Seiya.

Sagittarius Gold Cloth

Shura belongs to the fabled rank of Gold Saint hierarchy among the other 12 Gold Saints. His guardian star is of the zodiac sign of Capricorn.

Shura is the Gold Saint that underwent some modifications in his ideology when the manga was adapted to animation. While the anime series shows Shura as being the most loyal Saint to Athena, Kurumada depicted in his manga a Capricorn Saint that at first was somewhat reluctant, but short moments before his death, rediscovered his loyalty to Athena, and remained faithful to her even after his death.

According to the manga, Shura, just like Cancer Deathmask and Pisces Aphrodite, knew that Gemini Saga was behind the Pope's mask but he still was obeying his orders. As he says in his fight against Shiryu, he doesn't believe anyone fights for a god anymore, so he doesn't care about fighting for Athena. He considered that those with power, were automatically qualified to be judged just. He thought that the Pope, even being evil, using that power, could use it for some good.

On Aiolos' way to the outside world, he was confronted by many guardians of the Sanctuary who were sent to kill him, because he had kidnapped the infant Athena to protect her against the evil Pope. Aiolos quickly defeats them, however his victory is cut short when Shura stands in his way.

Unknown to him at the time, the infant was Athena and Aioros survived his fatal attack, and would manage to smuggle the baby out of the Sanctuary and into the hands of Mitsumada Kido, who would later on train a new generation of Saints to protect Athena.

Capricon Gold Saint - Shura

Shura's guardian constellation is Capricorn, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The fish-tailed goat Amalthea, that suckled the infant Zeus and whose horn was transformed into the Cornucopia. Shura relies on his ability to quickly deal damage to his enemies using his Excalibur attack combined to his speed of light, achieved with the 7th sense. He houses the power of the holy sword in both his arms and legs, thus being capable of using them as if they were extremely sharp blades. Excalibur is regarded as the most powerful weapon of the entire series: in the non-canonical The Lost Canvas the previous incarnation of Shura, Capricorn El Cid, was capable of cleaving in four halves the arrow of the Sagittarius Cloth and cutting in half Genbu Gregor, a Spectre whose Surplice was as hard as diamond.

Capricorn Gold Cloth

Aquarius Camus is a Gold Saint, guardian of the temple of Aquarius, and also Cygnus Hyoga and Kraken Isaac's master in manga. In the anime, he was the master of the Crystal Saint, who was Hyoga and Isaac's master.

Although he was one of the Gold Saints of Sanctuary, Camus spent most of his time living in the tundra of Eastern Siberia. During his years there, he trained a child named Isaac as his student. Some time later, he took another student, Hyoga.

When Hyoga first arrived in Siberia, Camus asked him why he wanted to become a Saint. Hyoga replied that once he becomes more powerful, he could salvage his mother, who was buried deep under the frozen seas of Siberia, within a sunken ship. Camus told him that he would eventually doom himself if he was fighting for such a reason. He pointed out to the icebergs far away, and told Hyoga that he must be as tough and emotionless as the eternal frozen icebergs of Siberia, only then will he become a strong fighter. Through his training, Hyoga had always respected Camus as a fatherly figure.

Aquarius Gold Saint - Camus

Camus's guardian constellation is Aquarius, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The beautiful youth Ganymede, loved by Zeus and carried off to Olympus to be his cupbearer, pouring water from his urn.

Although the Aquarius constellation is mostly represented by a young man, it is also sometimes depicted as a young maiden.

Camus, unlike the other Gold Saints, specialized his Cosmo energy not in create power by the movement of atoms, but by stopping the same movement. Due to this, his power consists not in destroying the matter, but in freezing it. Among those warriors who use this kind of ability, Camus is considered the stronger since he is the one who can lower more the movements, creating a lower temperature. Even so, and having mastered the 7th sense, Camus is not able to achieve the lowest possible temperature: the Absolute Zero. In the Hades Arc it seems Camus awakes the 8th sense as he is able to enter the Underworld.

Aquarius Gold Cloth

Pisces Aphrodite is the last of the Gold Saints introduced. Aphrodite was a Saint famous not only because of his incredible, mesmerizing beauty, but also for his reputation as one of the strongest among the 88 Saints. However, this reputation is not explored very well in the series itself, as he is killed by Andromeda Shun rather easily by Gold Saint standards, and is beaten rather easily by Aries Mu during the Hades Saga. He is considered by many fans to be among the weaker of the Gold Saints.

As guardian of the final Temple of Sanctuary, Pisces Aphrodite faces the last two Bronze Saints remaining: Pegasus Seiya and Andromeda Shun. Shun stated that he would hold Aphrodite off, while Seiya manages to pass through the temple. Aphrodite laughs and tells Shun that even if Seiya passes through the temple, between it and the Pope's hall, lies the garden of Royal Demon Roses, and because Seiya has to traverse it, he would eventually lose his senses and die. As the two engaged in battle, Aphrodite stated that he was the Gold Saint who attacked Andromeda Island and killed Shun's master, Cepheus Daidalos. Having been told of this by his friend Chameleon Juné, the shy Andromeda Saint had vowed beforehand to defeat the man who killed his beloved master.

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Pisces Gold Saint - Aphrodite

Aphrodite's guardian constellation is Pisces, and his Gold Cloth represents it and its associated myth : The goddess Aphrodite and her son Eros when they transformed into fish to escape the murderous Typhon.

Having mastered the 7th sense, Aphrodite is fully capable of using the plenty of his Cosmo energy. This allows him to move and attack at the speed of light. As every Saint, he also possess some degree of psychic power that allows him to use abilities like telekinesis and telepathy (both implied, since he was never showed using any of those). At the end of the Hades' arc, it is hinted that Aphrodite was able to use the 8th sense as well, allowing his soul to move freely on the underworld without being subject to its laws.

Pisces Gold Cloth

Thats just about all of the 10 Gold Saints which I do own at this time. Now on to the Specters & Gods in the whole Saint Seiya Universe, I will include one of the 3 Judges of Hades' Underworld, known as Wyvern Rhadamanthys. Known as the Celestial Fierce Star, Rhadamanthys is, undoubtedly, one of the most respected warriors of Hades army. His skills and talents easily overcome those of most of Athena's Gold Saints—her strongest warriors, and his reputation as a powerhouse is famous among the Specters of the Underworld. Along with Judges Garuda Aiacos & Gryphon Minos, Rhadamanthys has command over different sections of the Hades army.

As shown various times throughout the arc, Rhadamanthys prefers to take no chances when it comes to securing the victory. Against the orders of Hades' aide Pandora (and, in turn, Hades himself), the Judge ordered several Specters to invade Athena's Sanctuary in secret. While Rhadamanthys was later punished for this act, he has shown to not regret his decision

The Wyvern has but one known technique he utilizes to destroy the opposition—the "Greatest Caution". It is a wind-type move that charges up Rhadamanthys' Cosmo to the highest point of power, then unleashed at a central point via two opened palms. The opponent becomes helpless as powerful typhoon-like winds blast them into oblivion. It can take two forms: a dark energy blast, or the form of Rhadamanthys' spirit, the mythical Wyvern.

Wyvern Surplice - Rhadamanthys

When Rhadamanthys initially returned to the Underworld, he immediately discovered Gold Saint Gemini Kanon sneaking about. Kanon had placed an illusion on fellow Spectre Balron Lune through his GenRouMaOuKen technique, and Rhadamanthys was the one to break it. After Lune was quickly disposed of, Kanon quickly challenged Rhadamanthys to a showdown. The Judge originally felt confident, but became worried when Kanon proved that he was more than a match when he repelled the "Greatest Caution" technique. He is then trapped by the powerful illusion created by Kanon. The Gold Saint was about to secure a decisive victory when Rhadamanthys' warriors suddenly appeared and stopped the fight with a report, that Pandora wanted an audience with him. Rhadamanthys left his underlings to face Kanon, but they were no match against the power of a Gold Saint, and he comments not even if there were hundreds of them, it would still not be enough for a man like Kanon—Eventually, all of the Specters summoned by Pandora were easily killed by Kanon's Galaxian Explosion attack.

Wyvern Surplice

The Greek god Hypnos is one of the antagonist deities featured in the universe of Saint Seiya. In the series, he is the subordinate of Hades, along with his twin brother, Thanatos. He is known as the God of Dreams. A calm, calculating & serene god, he remains so in most critical situations.

Hypnos spent 243 years sealed in a box marked with the Seal of Athena, and only regained his freedom after the box was opened by a curiosity-driven 3 year-old Pandora, to whom both Thanatos and Hypnos announced that the resurrection of Hades was near, and that she would serve them henceforth. Afterward, both deities bestowed on Pandora the power to rule and command Hades' personal army, the fierce 108 Demon Stars, also known as Specters.

Hades' Herald - Hypnos

As the god of sleep, Hypnos main attribute is the ability to instantly induce any kind of living being into deep slumber. Being a deity, he wields the Big Will, or Divine Cosmo, in the same way as his twin brother, and Hades and Poseidon. His power also has effect on divine beings, as he was capable of forcing Athena into sleep to place her inside the Sacred Amphora of the Elysion, that would slowly kill her by sucking her blood.

Hypnos' ability is manifested through his special technique, the Eternal Drowsiness. His victim falls into a heavy slumber, and cannot reawaken unless it is Hypnos' will. The god of sleep will always utilize it to disable his victim, as he himself stated he hates violence and death. Even though the Eternal Drowsiness is a powerful technique, its effect can be reverted by the blood of a deity, as Hypnos stated in vol.28, after targeting Andromeda Shun with this attack. Also, its effect can be neutralized by a highly powerful Cosmo attack, as Cygnus Hyouga and Dragon Shiryuu discovered after resurrecting their Bronze Cloths as God Cloths, due to the influence of Athena's blood and charging their Cosmo up to the extreme.

Hypnos Armor

Thanatos is the Greek God of Death who, along with his twin brother Hypnos is Hades' subordinate. He is portrayed as very cruel, merciless, hateful towards humans, haughty, and non-hesitant to whimsically inflict death. He was sealed along with his brother by Athena after being defeated in her last battle against Hades, in 18th century. Thanatos spent 243 years sealed in a box marked with the Seal of Athena, and only regained his freedom after the box was opened by a curiosity-driven 3 year-old Pandora, to whom he announced that the resurrection of Hades was near, and that she would serve them henceforth.

As described by the Pegasus Saint Seiya when they first encountered, he is identical to his brother Hypnos, the only differences being Thanatos' silver colored eyes and hair, as opposed to Hypnos' golden. A strange looking star is placed in his forehead. Unlike his brother Hypnos, who is more calm and calculating, Thanatos is prone to lose his temper and act without any regard for consequences when influenced by rage.

Hades' Herald - Thanatos

As the god of death, Thanatos is able to cause death to any kind of living creature, no matter the distance. He is able to find his intended target, and attack him/her without the need of physical contact, using powerful blasts of energy. He is able to inflict excruciating pain on his victim, and cause instant death. Being a wielder of the "Big Will", the divine Cosmo of the Gods, Thanatos was able to completely smash five Gold Cloths with a single attack, an unprecedented feat.

He is seemingly capable of psychokinesis, as stated by Ophiuchus Shaina, when she, along the Bronze Saints,Eagle Marin and Aries Mu's apprentice Kiki were attacked by the god, and were unable to detect the origin of the attack. The only one capable of detecting his energy blasts was Kiki, because he is skilled at psychokinesis. However, this may be only due to the fact that Thanatos' shots are invisible to mere mortals, as death itself has no visible form.

Thanatos has but one special technique, known as "Terrible Providence". Indeed, this may be one of the most powerful techniques of the entire series: it takes form of an immensely powerful blast of energy of any form, be it a beam, an explosion or a number of energy blasts. Whatever the form, upon reaching the target the blast cripples their body and mind to the point of completely slaughtering them, annihilating the five senses at once while the mind is made instantly insane and the body is totally dismembered, as shown when the god unleashes this technique on Phoenix Ikki. It is worth noting however that this move's true power is never shown, be it due to Athena's protection or Thanatos' own arrogance.

Thanatos Armor

The last one to feature on all my available Saint Seiya toys so far is Poseidon - Emperor of the Seas. He has engaged in battle Athena, in several occasions, in different incarnations centuries apart. In the same way as Athena's Saints, Poseidon has a personal army assisting him since the ages of myth, formed by thousands of low-ranking soldiers, and commanded by seven tremendously powerful warriors known as the Marina Generals, whose Cosmo equals that of a Gold Saint, and don powerful armors known as Scales, that represent mythical beings of the sea.

In Saint Seiya mythos, Poseidon, the god of the seas, in order to incarnate, has chosen a male member of the Solo family, since the age of myth. The Solo family, one of the wealthiest in Greece and in the world, has had hegemony over the seas during millennia, and has had Poseidon's blessings as his chosen servants. The member of the Solo family Poseidon chooses serves as a vessel for his soul, to help him achieve his goals.

In Poseidon's latest incarnation, in the 20th century, he incarnated in the young heir of the family, a teenager named Julian Solo. His goal was to cleanse the Earth of humans, whom he considered to be evil and unworthy of the blessings of the gods, and wanted to build an utopian society on top of the ruins of the old Earth once all humans were eradicated. Also, he wanted to exact revenge on Athena for having sealed his soul 2000 years before, in their last battle.

Poseidon Julian Solo

Being one of the most powerful deities and the brother of Hades and Zeus, Poseidon is far superior to humans in every way. As the god of the seas, Poseidon rules over the sea and all its creatures. He commands the waters and rains, and can make them obey his every whim. He possesses an immense, divine and immeasurable Cosmo, far superior to that of human, and can surpass even Athena's under normal circumstances. He can channel his Cosmo through his body in the form of intense energy blasts, more often he channels it through his Trident. His only weakness stands in his use of an incarnation, leaving him vulnerable to the power of Athena's Seal, which extracts his soul and induces him into a deep slumber. With the weakening of the Seal, he is capable of freeing himself from the imprisonment for a few minutes.

Poseidon Scale

Now, for part 2 of 3 of my lots of toys postings, as previewed, is all about Saint Seiya Saint Cloth Myth toys. Made to be accurate to the anime show in every way possible, these toys are actually the second series of Saint Seiya toys around, the first being from the 80's, which at the time, just like any other toys are all blocky and stiff. The concept is still pretty much the same, where you put armor onto the bodies of the characters, but this time, with better show accuracy, and posability. Facial features are markedly better than the vintage ones, where everyone looked just the same.

So those totally unaware of what Saint Seiya is, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The story follows five mystical warriors called the "Saints" (or "Knights") who fight wearing sacred armors named "Cloths" which designs derive from the various constellations the characters have adopted as their guardian symbols. These Saints have sworn to defend the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Athena in her battle against the other Olympian gods who want to dominate Earth.
Both the anime and manga were very successful in Japan and several European countries, including France, Italy, and Spain, but neither of them were translated in English until 2003. The anime series won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1987 and four animated feature films were even shown in Japanese theaters. However the anime was cancelled and left unfinished in 1989. In 2002, Toei Animation continued the anime in the form of various OVA series (the final one ended in 2008), in order to adapt the remaining manga story arcs, and following this revival of the franchise, a fifth film was screened in 2004.

That's basically the settings of the show, but for the complete story, you really would have to watch the whole show, all 145 episodes. These toys, Cloth Myths, had been around since 2003, but I only seriously got into them last month, giving them up over preference for Transformers for all these years. And since Transformers are a little slow in their new releases, I thought it was a good opportunity to start on this ultimate Bling Blings in toy terminology. For this second part, I'm actually gonna showcase the main characters: Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun & Ikki, as well as the other supporting Bronze Saints.

So to start off, let me introduce to you the main character: Seiya. Known as the Pegasus Saint, he is one of the 88 Saints of Athena, the Goddess whom they protect. He is a Bronze Saint, the lowest in terms of power level, followed by Silver Saints & Gold Saints . The toy here is actually the Version 2 of the Pegasus Cloth since it's based on the Hades Chapter of the manga/anime.


Released back in 2003, Bandai was supposed to just release the 5 main characters as part of a commemorative toy for the show, but they were so popular that many more characters from the show were produced. Seiya, from the above was the very first one from this series, hence you could really tell the imperfections on this toy as compared with the rest which I will show further in this post. I think his facial features are still a long way off being how Seiya would look like, but they are actually rather close. They all have interchangeable hands, for poses featuring their finishing moves if you want. For my postings, I would only post them to showcase the full beauty of their armor, and not their fancy poses, whic hyou could find all of the internet. Seiya is perhaps my least favorite character in the show, for he is always shown to be the most unbeatable, immature hero around. While his partners would get beat up, none can actually match the number of times he stood back up even after the supposed "Ultimate" move done on him. That, in my opinion is far too biased, and was one factor that would put off any new fan to the show.

Pegasus Cloth - V2

The major draw of these toys were that the armor, when not worn on the bodies of the characters, can actually be assembled into Cloths, based on their their constellations. The picture above is of the Pegasus Cloth in his second version. You'll notice that it's so bling that it literally mirrors everything in my room. As mentioned, all other characters can have their armor assembled into such pieces, so it gives the collector a preference of either displaying them with their armor or just their cloths. Some, hopefully me too in future, display them in twos, one with armor and one with their cloths.

Second in the line up is Dragon Shiryu. Bearer of the Draco Cloth, he is also a Bronze Saint. Wielder of the supposed strongest shield among all the Saints, he is of Chinese Descent and trains under the Gold Saint Libra Dohko at the fictional Rozan Mountains. He's my favorite character in the series. As the series progresses, he gains an array of new abilities, the most notable one being Excalibur passed to him by Gold Saint Capricorn Shura. Therefore in his set, you get a pair of hands which could replicate the stance of Excalibur as well.

Dragon Shiryu - V2

The bling on him is not as serious as Seiya's, and I just love how his hair is flowing all the way till his knees. His face is still a little squarish on this very first edition, but overall he's as perfect as you can get.

Dragon Cloth - V2

Obviously, his cloth reflects his Dragon constellation, and the manner in which the armor pieces are assembled, it gave me a nostalgic feel of the old vintage piece, of which I do own as well. The difference from the vintage piece is that it was a Dargon's head back then, but it is not so obvious here.

Cygnus Hyoga is next here. Yet another Bronze Saint under the Swan Constellation or Cygnus, he uses Ice attacks on his enemies. Early on in the series, he was portrayed as being rather obsessive to his deceased mother, who lay in a wrecked ship under the cold waters of Siberia. As the story progresses, he's shown to be a more reliable comrade and loyal as well.

Cygnus Hyoga - V2

The color of his armor is similar to Seiya's being silver chromey in appearance, hence lots of reflections of his and his cloth. That said, he looks much better than Seiya with his armor on, perhaps because the wings on his helmet did it for me. Where would you ever get to see wings for helmets on any other anime? At least none which that I know of.

Cygnus Cloth - V2

The sheer length of the whole cloth with the wings attached made is pratically impossible for me to capture it up close, for I wanted to show the whole thing. However, you could still see the how all the pieces came together to form the Swan, and for me, the icing on the cake was really it in its flight mode pattern.

The fourth main character of the series is Andromeda Shun, the Bronze Saint under the Andromeda constellation. Much like Andromeda, Shun is always ready to sacrifice himself if it meant helping his comrades overcome the odds, and is really the purest man on Earth, with the kindest heart. As such, many fans in the series took his reluctance to fight as him being weak and even mistook him for a girl, for the fact that his first armor had boobs. I was guilty of such a mistake as well when I was younger.

Andromeda Shun - V2

Being the Andromeda Saint meant that his armor had chains that could help him fight; the very same chains that bound Andromeda to the sea as a sacrifice to the Sea Gods in the Age of Myth. The chains can act on both offensive and defensive, and are usually portayed as surrounding Shun in most of his fights, or even to guide Shun on where his enemies are hiding.

Andromeda Cloth - V2

The last of the main characters is Phoenix Ikki, one of the most complicated characters in the entire show. He debutted in the series as the very first antagonist to the Bronze Saints, having stolen the Sagittarius Gold Cloth during the Galaxian Wars Arc and hated his brother Shun, whom he though of as weak. He would later return in the second arc of the series as a reformed Saint, and loyal to his teammates, though he never liked teamwork and would only appear in the second halves of most battles. He's mostly seen coming to the rescue of his brother, and at times Seiya.

Phoenix Ikki - V2

As his constellation is that of the Phoenix, his armor has tails on the back, and according to the series, he could never truly be killed, resurrecting each time he was beaten, back stronger than before. You could see from his facial features that this is definitely not one of the best Ikkis around, but excluding that, his armor is definitely a sight to behold.

Phoenix Cloth - V3

The Phoenix Cloth you see above certainly does not resemble the legendary bird, at least for me. I could not locate which was the bird's head, since you could only see the helmet on. Assembly for the cloth was also a nightmare, since you could not attach most of the armor properly without them falling off.

After going through all the main characters, I bring you Unicron Jabu a secondary/supporting Bronze Saint in the series. Based on the Unicron constellation, Jabu's armor had the characteristics of the fabled horse, epecially his helmet. Jabu was actually one of the few Saints introduced during the Galaxian Wars Arc, where he fought with Andromeda Shun in the tournament to win the Sagittarius Gold Cloth.He would go on to lose the fight, and disappeared for much of the remaining arc, only to return in the second Sanctuary Arc, protecting the dying Athena, as the main Bronze Saints fought to save her life.

Unicron Jabu

I especially loved the color scheme for his armor. I have no idea how to describe it, but it's just rather rare to see a toy of this color altogether. I didn't like Jabu's facial smile though, sort of gives off a very kind and peaceful appearance, when in actual fact, he's quite the opposite in the beginning. He was an overconfident, snobbish boot licker, and didn't see eye to eye with Seiya at first.

Unicron Cloth

The Unicron Cloth, which in some ways similar to the Pegasus Cloth in terms of posture, is definitely much better than the latter. Kind of gives off a better aura than the Pegasus one if you ask me. Coloring of the piece definitely helped in my judgement of the two.

Another supporting Bronze Saint here is Hydra Ichi, under the Hydra (Snake) Constellation, he attacks his enemies by shooting poisonous claws from his fists as he got close to them. He lost in his fight to Cygnus Hyoga in the Galaxian Wars and like Jabu, he only returned in the Sanctuary Arc thereafter.

Hydra Ichi

The color of his armor is slightly that of Unicron's, with his best feature coming from Ichi's face, which is show accurate. You could choose to add the claws to his fists for attack poses, but I chose otherwise here.

Hydra Cloth

The whole cloth is a Giant Snake, which is pretty cool IMO. I liked how it's really flexible with it's non-fixed posture, meaning you could pose it anyway you wanted to, as long as you liked it. The green bit on the head, which I suppose is the eye just topped off this already amazing figure altogether. How they managed to fit all the armor into this sleek snake is something I couldn't understand myself.

Dragon Shiryu - V3

You've seen Dragon Shiryu's Version 2 Cloth, so here I present to you his Version 3 Cloth attained during the Hades Chapter of the series. In it, Shiryu, along with the other 4, attained it prior to entering the Underworld in search of Athena and defeat Hades. You could see the marked difference between V2 and this one, with his improved facial features, and sleeker armor. The Dragon's head becomes his right arm's armor, while the chest piece becomes enlonged and provided more protection from blows.

Dragon Cloth - V3

The Dragon armor being worn by Shiryu is not the only thing that's changed, as his stationary Cloth mode was significantly changed as well. I liked how lively the Dragon looked in this version, appearing as though flying through the skies. The helmet piece made up part of his whiskers, and the leg armor made up his neck and tail.

Phoenix Ikki - V3

Unfortunately, the only other Version 3 cloth I have at the moment is of Phoenix Ikki, me currently unable to obtain the other 3. From the above pictures, and like Shiryu's you could see that the armor is now much sleeker, and pose more protection for the wearer as well. Ikki's face is also drastically improved, as compared to the previous version, where he looked uninterested. His tail is color orange this time, and has a necklace accessory, given to him by Pandora before she died in the final chapters of the series.

Phoenix Cloth - V3

The Phoenix Cloth this time is much better, you could tell the bird had a head just by looking at it. In this mode, it's in it's flight mode, so to speak, and assembly is much easier this time as well. I especially loved the legs, portrayed as though it's about to grab onto something.

Pegasus God Cloth Seiya

Though I mentioned that I do not own the 3 other version 3 clothes, I do have the last and final evolution of the Bronze Cloth, this one featuring Pegasus Seiya - God Cloth. Appearing in the final episodes of the whole series, while fighting Thanatos, God of Death, this evolution was made possible because the cloth had received the blood of Athena, enabling the Saints to travel to Elysium. This is of course the best looking Pegasus Cloth, and it in fact surpasses even the strongest Gold Cloths in terms of power and protection in the series. Here's Seiya has wings on this cloth, and is even more bling than before.

Pegasus God Cloth

This version of the cloth shows Pegasus in a supposed "flight" mode, a lack of a better word here guys. I basically have no more words to describe just how incredible the design of the toy is here, and the pictures definitely do not do it justice.

Andromeda God Cloth Shun

The other God Cloth available to date officially is that of Andromeda Shun's. From the way things are, I definitely cannot wait for Dragon Shiryu's to be released this month. You could see that Shun's armor gains a pair of wings for the very first time. His chains are not gold in color. I wasn't able to properly pose Shun, my being fickle in how he should stand.

Andromeda God Cloth

The stationary cloth is so sexy, so appealing that, there really isn't any other reason why not to get Dragon's version when it's out. The chains are shown surrounding Andromeda, her looking absolutely intimidating in the version. Her colors are of a much lighter pink than previous versions, the only thing I really didn't like is the addition of wings. It was totally out of nowhere and irrelevant.

Crystal Saint

The last Saint I am featuring today, the Crystal Saint only appeared in the anime, and is thus considered none canonical to the series. He does not fall in any 3 of the Saint category: Bronze, Silver & Gold, but has his own stand alone category Crystal. He doesn't even have a name, only being refered as the Crystal Saint. He is one of the few Cloth Myth toys to have a cape accessory, to complete his look in the anime. He's also got interchangeable heads, one for the good him and the other the evil version.

Crystal Cloth

His cloth is that of a Crystal Molecule common characteristics to ice. In the anime, he was Hyoga's teacher, and Gold Saint Aquarius Camus was his teacher. As he was brainwashed into being evil, he was killed, with much reluctance by Hyoga, and Camus in return wanted to avenge his death by defeating Hyoga. This bit never appeared in the manga, and hence, he was not official in the list of Saints of Athena.

I hope you've all enjoyed the second part of yet another boring long posting. As Saint Seiya is another unique collection of mine, it will have a page on my blog dedicated to it, much like my Kamen Riders. The next post will feature the Gold Saints and Gods, so until then, happy reading.

So it's been quite a while since I posted anything on new toys. While there were new toys coming in, I just wasn't in the right mood to even take pictures of them previously. But hey, I promise you for the next 3 postings, including this, there would be a significant number of toys, mostly non-transformers related even.To start of my posts, perhaps I should introduce ROTF Supreme Class Devastator. Finally gotten my gift hamper from Hasbro Singapore after what seemed like a century, this toy is utterly disappointing. While we all know that ages ago, with this crappy toy only having a combined robot mode, with individual vehicles only, you'll only experience the sheer disappointment when you own it.


He is extremely bulky and has poor articulation. He has a difference to TakaraTomy's version, the latter having red painted stripes on his face. There good thing about this piece of junk is that there are hardly any paint problems plaguing smaller toys from Hasbro. It could've been much better though.


Individual mnodes are even more disappointing. Having only been able to transform from vehicle to combined form, the very essence of the term Gestalt is lost. A combiner team should really be able to have their own individual robot modes to make up the awesomeness of the team. This should be the way for Gestalts, even if I am not a fan of such toys. I wouldn't go to much into the aesthetics of the vehicles, but let's just say they look and feel like Thomas the Train type toys to me, extremely kiddish in design. Overall, 5/10 - only for the extremists.

Mixmaster, Scavenger, High Tower, Scrapper, Long Haul, Rampage

The next on the list is my recently acquired ROTF Robot Heroes set titled Battle of the Fallen, this set includes Ironhide, Jet Optimus, Megatron & The Fallen. A thing to note here is that it's the first time I've owned Rohot Heroes Transformers that came in Vehicle Modes. Definitely refeshing. The Fallen is also the first Robot Heroes to be extremely BIG - about 2.5 times the size of a regular Robot Hero. Another welcome approach. That said, I do have my disappointment about the set - This is the third Megatron we've seen in this ROTF Robot Heroes lineup. I sure as hell do not wish to see a fourth. Result - 8/10 for fresh concepts.

Now that we got the Transformers toys out of the way, it's time for Revoltech - #078 Dancouga. This piece of toys is simply fantastic to play with, and a definitely must get if you are into Revoltechs. While I skipped the other two Evangelion ones for now, I would have to say you would not be disppointed. I was unable to own the Chogokin version of him, hence this is a very good, and small substitute. I do not really understand why some were complaining that he had very poor paint jobs, mine looked just fine. I was just a little annoyed with the difficult manner in which you had to pose the toy, his joints were a placed at weird places. Still, a work of art with a score of 8/10. There's nothing much really to write about this toy, for what ever good reviews, or even bad ones have been on the internet since it's release. Do a search, you'll know what I mean.

Next in line are from my sought after wishlist - SIC Kamen Rider Den-Os. With my new hauls: Den-O Liner Form, Zeronos, Zero Form, Gaoh, Kintaros & Deneb I am finally just short of Den-O Sword Form & Momotaros to complete my SIC Den-O set. This last set will definitely be extremely hard to come by and even if it does surface, it's gonna be extremely expensive to acquire. Heck, I wouldn't be giving it too much thought till the time comes really.


First up, from the above are Den-O Liner Form, Zeronos & Zeronos Zero Form. It was said that Liner Form was probably the best one made in the whole Den-O lineup, something which I strongly agree. Somehow, posability is fantastic, color scheme is marvellous, it just seemed like he was designed specifically for the SIC series. He carry the huge as sword with the four Imagins' Faces on it, you can't really do any wrong owning him.


My only gripe about him was that one of his belt - weapons storages had a missing kibble, for storing one of the components. I literally had to swipe with my previous ones to get a perfect picture for him. It's a factory default, so I couldn't really blame anyone for it. Small issue anyways, I'll probably think of something to solve the problem in future.

Kamen Rider Zeronos, along with Deneb was never really that hard to come by, but was extremely overpriced everywhere. It was by sheer luck to encounter a set at an extremely low price, so there shouldn't be any complains on him. I can't really feel Zeronos the same way I felt Den-O, not because he was a secondary Rider in the TV Series, but because his SIC toy was a little of a let down. I didn't really like the shoulder areas, where his whole arm on both sides would seem to droop downwards. His mask looked like half a starfish, looking nothing like the actual Zeronos.


His armor can be replaced to form Zeronos Vega Form, having Deneb possessing him in the TV series. Here, his face looks like a cross between a starfish and a cat, somehow. He looks more like a robot/cyborg than a Rider. Deneb's face on this chest is a marvel to look at, but that's really just about it. Playability is still the same as the base form, so there's nothing much to shout about here. That said, it is a welcome addition to have inter-changeable armor so as not to having to milk us fans with more sets to buy really.


The next one, Kamen Rider Zeronos - Zero Form is nothing more than a straight repaint of the existing Zeronos, with additional gun/cannon which Deneb transforms into. Here he doesn't have changeable armor, but still retains the droopy shoulders if not posed correctly. Another one with nothing much to comment on since he is exactly the same as the previous one.


Even with my negative reviews of both Zeronos and Zero, I'd still say they are great additions to any SIC lineup. Grab them if you do not own them already, perhaps my opinions are just that, mine alone. You may just find that you'll enjoy them more than I did perhaps.


The second lineup from the recently acquire SIC sets: Kamen Rider Gaoh, Kintaros & Deneb. I do not really have any idea why they include Gaoh into the SIC series, with the other major villains from the movies not having any toy releases. Then again, with Shin Den-O Strike Form appearing on the internet in SIC mold, I won't be surprised that it won't be long before the rest follows suit. The Gaoh here is a lot different from the S.H.Figuarts version, which I got not too long ago.


Somehow I just dislike the "decorations on his body, making him look rather weird than cool. So up next is Kintaros Imagin that came together with Gaoh. As I mentioned earlier, I was rather excited about this piece, because Kintaros here uses fur, or whatever it is to make him look like the real thing. He doesn't look too different from his TV counterpart here, and that's just what makes him perfect. To date only Kintaros and Ryuutaros have made me impressed from this lineup, so here's to hoping that Momotaros would be good too when I do get him.


Finally coming to the last SIC toy in this post, Deneb Imagin. He's pretty decent here, but I would still very much prefer his S.H. Figuarts counterpart. I got one with loose ball joints on both his wrists, so they just kept falling off with every pose I made. Nothing a little nail polish can solve I'd say. His "clothing" are a little stiff, making for some pretty unrealistic poses in different manners, but it's only a minor setback too. Overall, he still looks far better than Zeronos, IMO.


And so, we have finally reached the end of Part 1 of my "Lots of Toys" posting. On this last toy, I give you BM (Medicom) Shocker Rider (Kamen Rider The Next Version). Anyone who's watched the movie will know that this was the Evil Rider made by Shocker to counter the combined threats of Rider Ichigo & Rider Nigo. In the movie, there were 6 Shocker Riders.


This BM Medicom toy is actually a Magazine Mailaway Exclusive, hence the price of him is on the high $300. I got him at a damn good deal for a brand new piece, of which I will not disclose. His armor and suit is just nicely done, and I love the way the color scheme pans out. Though he may only be a support Rider, in this case, an evil support Rider, you have to give credit to how closely he was made to look like the Main Riders. Before I embarked on my journey to collect Kamen Riders, I had actually mistook him as one of the main characters in the series. That's probably why he is so good. At least for me. Definitely a 10/10 for Kamen Rider Fans.


So it ends, my ultra long posting in a very long time. A little preview into Part 2 & 3, which I hope will not take too long to come: Saint Seiya Saint Cloth Myth, the collection which I gave up years ago to concentrate on my Transformers. They have finally found a place in my home after years of speculating and procrastinating.

I am finally feeling the effects of being unemployed for so long. Gone are the days where I will be buying toys in truckloads. Until I find another job that is. I am actually very surprised I could last this long. So for today's post, only 4 items are featured from my latest purchases.


First on the list is Voltron: Defender of the Universe. For those of you old enough to remember him, he was like a predecessor to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers at least in the States. The one you are about to see here is a new update version of the old Voltron, with extremely movable limbs and improved aesthetics. However, I would love to see his weapons in chrome, just like the original.

Voltron up close

In his combined robot form, he is able to pose freely, and though I do not know how many points of articulation he has, he is definitely a notch higeher than the original. The problem with him though, is that his head droops rather easily, both in robot and lion mode, pretty much a big nuisance to me. The red wings on his back are too movable to my liking, but still the overall detailing on him is excellent. I chose not to pose him with his sword and shield and they'd get in the way of how I wanted him to turn out. The best part of him is, even though he's entirely plastic on this version, he doesn't look any bit plasticky. I've heard that the similar die-cast version of this toy hunches far too much and at the price of almost 2.5 times of this, I'd gladly settle for this one.

The individual lions are about the same as the original, though I remembered clearly that there were additional weapons accessories that were included for each lion. Yellow & Blue Lions had firing missiles or something on their back, but it's non-existent here. The problem with the individual lions are that, they are not exactly quality perfect to transform, a little carelessness and you'll end up with a broken part. Where I watched the video review on him, the Black Lion was said to be unable to retract his front paws while transforming him, I didn't have any problems there, though a little adjustments here and there were necessary. Both Red & Green Lionscould do well with better quality checks on their legs, because the legs wouldn't stay in place while transforming them into arms. Still, a good 8/10 for this piece of gem.

Up next is actually not so much of a toy, but a great accessory for any toy, especially if you would like to have that extra "oomph" when posing them. Have you ever wanted a piece of toy-stand that could withstand the weight of your toy and not topple over? How about it being able to connect with other stands so you could have a wider range of poses to play with? Having these qualities in mind, you'll usually end up buying something expensive for a stand. Therefore, me, Stephenusprime here, would like to introduce the di stage set from Max Factory. Intended for their own Figma toyline, this set is suitable for even Kamen Riders and smaller Transformers. As far as I know, they come in two colors, black and clear. Priced at under $20, this is an absolute steal with so much qualities in mind. Last I heard, HLJ is actually selling out pretty damn fast on them.

Yet another S.H. Figuarts chose to stay in Stephenus' House of Love. From the New Den-O series, I give you Kamen Rider New Den-O Vega Form. Quite a mouthful to say actually, this toy is yet another Tamashii Exclusive. In this series, it is Nogami Koutaro as the new Den-O, him being the grandson of Nogami Ryoutaro. Here he has Deneb, the Imagin usually associated with Sakurai Yuuto, team up and become Vega Form. His helmet is rather weird looking for me, as it's shaped much like a starfish. He's also the first main Kamen Rider to don a cape, if my memory serves me right. The original was Kamen Rider Zeronos, but he was just a support Rider.

In the package, he has the standard accessories, the four unassembled weapons on his belt, two extra pairs of hands and a spear. The thing I dislike about this figure is the when attaching the unassembled pieces on his belt, the cape gets in the way, and those pieces would just come off easily. Not so much of a nuisance but yeah it's a problem nonetheless. Now off to complete the other two missing Kamen Riders from the Den-O series - Kamen Rider New Den-O Strike Form & Kamen Rider Yuuki.

Finally reaching the end of this blog, I present to you G1 ROTF Soundwave. Colored the same way as his G1 counterpart, this toy came packaged with 2007 Movie Megatron & ROTF The Fallen. Priced at $119.90, that was about the only way you could get this Soundwave, until loose ones came about at China Square Central. I have no idea whatsoever why I bought this toy in the first place, both the movie edition and this new recolored version. It's a shitty piece of junk, with poor articulation and a little too small.

His alternate modes suck big time. Him being labelled as a Triple Changer was a pretty arrogant move on Hasbro's side. All you had to do was to flip the wings backwards and you get his jet mode, from the previous satellite mode. And best yet, they both look identical to each other. How's that for creativity? 4/10 at best.

After about a two week break, I finally got myself a new tripod for all my future photography. I can't say that I am thoroughly impressed with this tripod (though very very cheap). I have to get used to this all new way of positioning and from the pictures you're about to see later, I think I still have some ways off before I fully understand how to use it.

I haven't really gotten myself much new toys since the last time I blogged. Maybe I'll just get myself started on this post with some S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider love. Just in at Stephenus' House of Love are Kamen Rider TheBee & Zect Trooper; from the Kamen Rider Kabuto Series. Both of them are pretty fun to play with, especially the Trooper.

TheBee & Zect Trooper

TheBee was truly a joy taking pictures with. His gold and black deco was what really make him stand out in my pictures. I got so much fun playing around with the lights and him that I could make him look pretty damn intimidating of the sorts. He comes with two pairs of extra hands and two different configurations for his Rider Sting. This thing about this series is that most of the Riders have similar designs of their arms and legs, and the only things setting them apart are their helmets and chest plates, which may not even apply to everyone of them. Nevertheless, TheBee is definitely one to get if you love Kabuto as much as I do.

TheBee upclose & personal

Zect Trooper is one of the few generic soldiers from the series. This here is the Shadow Version of 'em. To attach his gun, you're supposed to dislodge his right/left hand and "click" either arm into the gun. Has extra pairs of hands as well to complete certain poses. I would have wanted at least 5 Troopers, had my budget not allow it. Such figures are always good if you have at least 5 of them to make a small unit into. My piece had loose joints on this legs, him doing splits at every given opportunity. Otherwise I'd give him a solid 8/10.

If only they appeared in Star Wars

Disney Label Mickey Convoy Halloween Edition just saw his release here last week. Funny that since this was supposed to be a 7-11 Japan Exclusive, almost every shop I know carries him. Makes you wonder whether 7-11 sold everything to just us here. He's just new decorative update of the existing Colored & Monochrome Mickeys which you could see in my "Wall of Primes" page, this time in traditional Jack-O-Lantern colors.

Trick or Treat?

I must say, I didn't have a good impression on him initially, on seeing him on magazines. He looked really hideous at first. However, I somehow got over his non-conventional Prime colors, and found him really cool actually. His vehicle mode stands out the most amongst his other two variants. I would definitely recommend this if you wouldn't mind forking out double of what the normal ones cost.

Vehicle Mode

As with the first two, he has a movable visor, this time in purple shade and printed cracks on them. His eyes are bright red, to signify evil I suppose. My only complaint about him was the supposed rotateable Mickey sitting on his head. I had to use quite a bit of force to actually get him to rotate and be hidden. Seem QC on him may be a bit of a problem here. Let's hope Disney Label Donald Duck will have no such problems.

The new Alternity Diamond Black Megatron is somewhat of a let down to me. He just doesnt look as imposing as Alternity Black Convoy to me. Maybe its because there has never been a black version of Megatron to begin with, and hence his color scheme is really something totally new to me. He has these orange colored swords and very very orange looking legs. I was kinda telling myself that he's gotta be my least favorite version of this toy to date.

If Black Convoy is Nemesis Prime, what's this?

Black is definitely not for the Fairlady. It makes him look really really dull. What I would give of him being orange based rather than this hideous black. TakaraTomy should really do something about the QC here. You could definitely see orange spots from between the doors! Overall just a 7/10.

The next James Bond Mobile?

Following Skids' appearance in ROTF, everyone was predicting that it was only a matter of time before his original G1 Incarnation gets reissued - again, the same way the characters from the first movie were. This is the third reissue of the same toy in the last 5 years, the first being the TFC, followed by Hasbro's Commemorative Edition. I dare say Sideswipe (Lambor) in Japanese.

He's still got that problem where his tyres on his legs could not fold in properly, thus rendering him unable to stand well. His arms form at around, if I may, his armpit, making him perhaps the ugliest looking G1 toy around. In vehicle mode, his front tyres stick out so much, I really cannot begin to describe all his design flaws. The only reason he is here is simply because I wanted to complete the darn Encore line.

Only for the Die-hard fans

Up next is an Optimus Prime I have been searching for quite a long while. If G1 Prime is a must for all TF fans, if not just Optimus himself, then War Within Optimus Prime is also the second next prime you need to get yourself. From the pages of the now defunct Transformers:War Within, from Dreamwave Productions, this is actually THE Prime before you all know him in his G1 days. Here he transforms into this Cybertronian truck, nothing like his traditional truck mode you see in the cartoons. I've bought myself the giftset version, and hence came with War Within Megatron as well. Also a reimagination of the "Gun" Megatron before he came to Earth, he transforms into a tank here.

These two War Within figures are only available from the the Titanium Series toyline, a series which I am not too fond of, purely because of their disproportionate use of die-cast on the toys, giving them cool molds, but affecting their balance ultimately. I won't deny that these two are victims of that problem as well, but at the very least, they look good. That is all that matters to me at the moment.

Lastly, from the 2007 Movie, I give you Robot Replicas Optimus Prime & Megatron. I had also totally missed out on getting them back then, mainly for the fact that I was focused on getting most of the other stuff. Next thing I knew, they went on clearance and was gone before I could even start to regret. Not exactly Revoltech quality, with lousy joints and poor molding, the new ROTF versions are so much better. That said, they are still Prime and Megs, and hence still eligible to be in my House of Love. I won't really go into details just how bad they are, so you would just have to see for yourself just how bad they are.

I finally broke my tripod after 2 years. I have no idea how I did it, but yes, it broke in half. So until I get myself a new tripod, there wouldn't be anymore new postings with pictures for the moment. It's almost been two weeks since I posted anything on toys, reason was that I got sick, lazy, busy all at the same time. There have been quite a number of toys released in the two weeks, so I'll be taking my time to feature all my new purchases one after another today. Gonna be another long post again.

Since it's been a long time since I wrote much on Transformers, I'd begin this post with them first in the lineup. What you see above is dubbed "World's Smallest Transformers" Optimus Prime. Got a new piece because I accidentally broke the one I had. Coming in together with him was the VSX version of him, which was packed together with WST Megatron. I had initially thought that there be not much difference between the single pack and the giftset pack Primes, but having them next to each other, they are as different as day and night.

VSX Prime vs Regular Prime

As you could see, the main difference is that the VSX Prime carries a darker shade of red compared to the regular one. The blue used is markedly different as well, as VSX featured a darker shade of blue for his head and legs, where as a lighter blue was apparent in the regular Prime. On the Autobot insignia, 2 of it was tampo-ed on each of VSX's shoulders, while only 1 was apparent on regular Prime. VSX has red eyes, regular had blue.

On the chest/abdomen area, you could see that there are no silver panels on VSX's window body, and his window colors are in a darker blue too. He also doesn't have the yellow paints on the bumpers. Last major difference is the fist, black on VSX and blue on the other. While I had Megatron as well, he's known to be a pain in the ass to stand with, and as such, I omitted him from this lineup of reviews. WST Prime is an extremely wonder toy to own, but with current market prices ballooning to beyond $50 dollars, I'd say take your time and search slowly for a good deal. I never paid more than $20 for each of these two.

Next up is the 2007 Movie Spychanger Optimus Prime.You can't get this piece of toy just anywhere in retail, it came with the Lawson's Exclusive Blackout & Movie DVD. Hence, in the past the only way to get him was to pay a premium price for all 3 of them. Until recently of course. I managed to find it going for cheap by his standards at CSC and was definitely sure that he's finally heading to my Prime Home.

Movie Spychanger Optimus Prime Front & Back

Made in the mold of the older Universe Spychanger version, he was repainted in his movie colors, complete with the fire stripes. He also has a bit of metallic touch to him, making him one of the better looking Movie Primes around. Nevermind the fact that he is not even accurate to the movie like the Legends Class ones. There's aren't much to review about this toy, as it's got a really simple transformation and a sturdy stance. You can't really move his arms except back & forth.

Vehicle Modes

Do you remember back in 2007, when the Music Label Soundwave was launched, the prices were going upwards like crazy? Well, the White version is still expensive as ever, but the Spark Blue & Blaster Black versions are now dirt cheap. Costing me just $60 a piece, I caved in to temptation and bought them out of no reasons other than the fact that it's Soundwave. I remembered selling my Blue one away just last year because I didn't have any others in the series, but since purchasing iPod Convoy, it changed all that.

What you really need to keep a lookout for buying them is the paintjob. Some can be hideous. I am rather surprised myself since this was supposed to be a premium product. This is a working MP3 player, so if you ever feel to need to showoff you player while taking public transport, stand next to the guy using an iPod/iPhone and flip Soundwave out for show. Music can be added to an SD card (up to 1GB) and powered by AAA batteries. There are also lots of technical specifications shown on the instructions sheet, but I do not use it as a player, just ornamental.

Soundwaves Blue & Black

Comes with standard accessories: Earphones, guns, shoulder cannons and 3 pairs of interchangeable hands each. Music quality is too shitty to my liking hence they are staying as just decorative toys.

Music Player Modes

ROTF Scout Class toys are now getting the Buy 1 get 1 free treatment. Additional 10% applies if you have OG or Metro Card, so that effectively costs you only $8.50 per Scout toy. With this in mind, I snagged myself 4 new toys which I never really bothered to pay any attention to, for the fact that they never appeared in the Movie; Dead End, Nightbeat, Ransack and Dune Runner.

Dead End & Nightbeat

Nightbeat is a repaint of Dead End in blue, while Ransack and Dune Runner are new molds. I can't say that I am loving these 4, as they are impulse buys in the first place. For Dead End and Night Beat, I like the way their robot modes looked, but their arms come off far too easily. This could be just mine though. Vehicle mode looks okay, but somewhat cartoon-ish.

Vehicle Modes

Ransack on the other hand is pretty fun to have. His plane mode is easily one of the most eye-catching ones around, since most TF toys these days feature modern, futuristic vehicles. Transformation is rather sturdy and he does not look as flimsy as I initially thought he'd be. Dune Runner looks like Landmine in the first movie lineup, in his vehicular form. When in robot mode, he gives me a feeling that he's the reincarnate of the GM Gundams from the original UC universe. Could have been a lot taller though.

Ransack & Dune Runner

There really aren't much to complain about the latter two guys, as they are pretty much very fun to play with. The fact that they are now cheaper than your regular Legends class toys makes it all the more sweeter.


Next up on the list of today's long post are my Revoltechs. Snagged 7 new ones this time, and I am pretty sure I will have a long time posting them up here. #049 Suzuki was an unintended purchase. He was being cleared for $9 so I thought to myself why not. He is a pretty weird Revoltech in my opinion, and has 4 different faces on each side of his cubix head. Doesn't have much accessories except for the drills, book and pointer. Still, posing him for the photoshoot was total fun. Rather hard to get him to stand as his top is just too freaking heavy to begin with.

The many faces of Suzuki

#067 , #068, #069 Evangelions and backorder buys from which I have missed previously, focusing only on the Gurren Laganns. Named Eva Test Type-01, Eva Production Model-02 & Eva Provisional Unit-05 respectively, they are freaking difficult to pose with. Center of gravity for each of them are damn bloody high, they require their support stands to be able to get them to do the poses I wanted. Unless you are an Evangelion fan, or a Revoltech completist like me, I'd say skip and stay away from them as far as possible. They do have lots of accessories though, which is a plus point in a pool of negatives.

Your friendly neighbourhood Evas

#072 Reycal Orichalcum is yet another shitty Revoltech I got for the sake of completing the whole bloody series. I do not know the series from which she originated from, nor am I interested, after spending time cursing and swearing at the toy getting it to pose the way I wanted it to. She's supposed to have this Eagle Armor thing, which can be attached to her should the need for combat arise I guess. Again, after attached the armor, she's far too top heavy and require support stands to balance.

She has 3 changeable faces, not that it matter much anyways. Forgive the shadows forming at her faces, as I was still toying with the lightings I just added for my photoshoots and didn't come to realise them until it was too late.

The last two on the Revoltech list are #074 Getter Dragon & #075 Neo Getter 1 from Change! Getter Robot & Shin Getter Robot vs Neo Getter Robot series respectively. After having a few disappointing Revoltechs, these two are surprisingly pretty good. Getter Dragon has pretty good poseability, but the arms movement around his shoulders are somewhat a little limited. Neo Getter-1 has a cool color scheme, and could pose so much better than Getter Dragon since his arms are not exactly hindered by shoulder pads.

Getter Dragon & Neo Getter-1

Both of them has a myriad of weapons accessories that came with them, so there are practically limitless amount of poses you could do with them. I only chose to pose them with two actions poses each just to give you and idea of how good they really are. So for those of you who have yet to pick up the new Revoltechs, I'd say skip the Evas and Orichalcums and get these Getters.

Finally reaching the last two toys in this post. They are S.H. Figuarts Kintaros and Hana from the Kamen Rider Den-O series. Without waiting for the final Imagin, Ryuutaros to be released later this year, I could finally do a reenactment of a scene inside Den-Liner Cafe below.

Kintaros is a Tamashii Shop Exclusive so you won't find him at regular retails. Price is also double that of the regular ones. However, he is money well spent in my opinion. His facial features are extremely detailed, as his body sculpting too.

Kintaros Package Images

His box is about 40% thicker than regular boxes and comes with his Axe, and 3 extra pairs of inter-changeable hands. The only thing I had hoped for was that they'd actually use real fur on Kintaros instead of making it plastic. But I guess that would definitely be asking for too much. His black and gold color scheme is so rich that you could literally forgo Momotaros & Urataros totally. Again, if you want to complete the Den-O Imagin cast, this is not the one to ignore at all.

Lastly, Hana. What you are seeing is actually the anime version of Hana, in her 19-year old incarnation. I could understand that the designers would definitely not be able to make her look like her real life counterpart, with the figure being so small, and quality would definitely be compromised. However, she's undoubtedly overprices and I wouldn't have bought her if not for the fact that she is from the Den-O lineup.

There are no accessories, other than 2 extra faces and 1 pair of extra interchangeable hands. Her body and shoulders are so freaking loose that mine just fell apart as I was posing her about. That coupled with the fact that she's about $10 more expensive than all others, makes her one that would definitely be shelf warming for a long time to come.

Picked up the new S.I.C Kamen Rider Kiva, which has finally reached our humble shores. I had initially wanted to skip this piece altogether, since I am only looking to get all the Den-O riders, but seeing Kiva upclose, I knew I just had to pick him up immediately. His sculpting is so accurate to the original TV show, I have no idea how he's going to look like in the other series. He comes with his violin, named "Bloody Rose", 2 (3 if you include the uncolored) different Kivatte Bats and a handful of different fists and hands.

As with the other SICs, he doesnt have a pretty solid feel to him. However, my Kiva ia rather loose around the hip joins, hence making him pose a major pain in the ass. That said, he's really fun and cool to have, especially if you dig his bat-oriented designs. The plus point is his legs, where you can have him either chained up or have it released to ready him for his Rider Kick/ as seen in the show. Only problem here, the chains on the armor is a little irritating to unhook, you have to becareful not to use excessive force or you'll break the hook. And the wings, when attached, comes off far too easily.

WAKE UP!

Another drawback about him is that he cannot fully do his battle pose as he did in the series, with him arms diagonally aligned. His shoulder armor is just too much in the way to lift up his right arm. Again, this may just be only for my piece, but inspecting the toy closer, I kinda doubt the others would be any different.

His Rider Kick is pretty fun to emulate. The hardest part is getting him to pose while suspended in mid-air. Thank the lords for display stands.

Next up on my lists is Den-O: Rod Form, Ax Form, Gun Form & Climax Form. I had originally intended to blog about them only when I finally managed to get the other missing ones from Den-O's series, namely Sword Form, Momotaros, Liner Form, Kintaros, Zeronos & Deneb.. Since I've have taken Kiva out, I might as well complete the post with these and the imagins as well.

Rod, Ax, Gun

The 3 basic Den-O forms are pretty damn fun to have. Especially the Gun Form. I can't believe I'm saying this, as he's my least favorite in the show, but here, he's kinda sweet. Ax Form looks pretty damn big, even if they are essentially of the same size. Rod Form, love the body, hate the head.

Having said that, they sure as hell can pose damn well, and it's with them that I actually made the comparisons to the new Kiva. Their joints are tight, comes in a myriad of accessories and many different fists. I wish I had Sword Form now with me, so I could literally pose all four basic forms together. It's still eluding me as I write this. So, I'd just have to make do with these 3 and their rather famous poses for now.

The next Rider you see below is the culmination of all of Den-O's 4 Imagin's. Aptly named Den-O's Climax Form he has all their strengths and none of their weaknesses. Momotaros is the main Imagin controlling the body, with the other 3 supports.

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I didn't like his shoulder pads first and foremost, they stick out far too much to look good. Kinda made me feel he'll get stuck in trees and shit like that. Again, he came will almost all the different fists and hands as with the 3 above, with also interchangeable horns for Ax Form's. Also included is the cellphone used to call all 4 of them into action, though it's not pictured here.

What made Climax Form tick is that he could have the 3 support Imagins do either the Rider Punch or Rider Kick just by having them moved to the hand or leg respectively. The toy made a pretty good representation of the whole thing, but perhaps had Gun Form's horns rather short when it came to doing the Rider Kick.

Repeat after me: Rider Punch! Rider Kick!

Lastly we have reached the two Imagins that was part of the SIC lineup. Urataros is bundled together with Climax Form while Ryuutaros is with Gun Form. Pretty straight forward designs there, though Ryuutaros looks far more accurate than Urataros. Again, you could do multiple poses with them, and the accessories made them sort of stand out against their Rider personalities. So it would be their pictures that would end today's posting of a rather long but small SIC collection that I have. Hope you guys enjoyed what you saw.

Have you ever had to peel off the price tags on your toys each time after purchasing them? While some of them are rather easy to come off, most are a pain to. Thats the reason some of us would usually look for the ones with the price tags stuck on the bubbles instead of the cardboard packages them came on. However, even so, you may end up denting them with excessive force. I've been wanting to share with everyone how I remove the price tags on my toys for ages, but never really got around doing it. All you need to do is just 3 easy steps and a little bit of patience to see you through.

Step 1:You'll need to prepare 3 items for this procedure: a) Zippo Lighter Fluids (or any others for that matter), b) Cotton buds, c) tweezers (in my case I use fingers).

Lighter fluid, cotton buds, tweezer

Step 2: Slowly pour some lighter fluid onto the cotton bud, and from the cotton bud let it drip down to the area where the price tag is. Be sure to cover the entire tag with the fluid. After that is done, wait for a few minutes and repeat the process again as the first coat of fluid has evaporated and doing so a second time will weaken the tackiness of the tag. Once that is done, wait another few more minutes before attempting to peel it off. If along the way, you encounter some resistance, just apply a little of the fluid again to weaken the tackiness further before proceeding. Remember to wipe away excess fluid overflowing onto the box at any given time.

Repeat steps as many times as you deem neccessary

Step 3:Once all that is done, you will have successfully peeled of the price tag without much use of force. Last thing to do is just to wipe off the residue gunk on the box with a cloth soaked with lighter fluid and you are good to go.

End results

Came home with some toy hauls yet again today. Nothing happening today, just went over to China Square to pick up Tamashii Exclusive S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Gaoh, and off straight to Robo Robo for the usual hanging out. Over there, got myself the new Visa Credit Card Exclusive Henkei Strafe, ROTF Ejector & Car Robots Devil Gigatron. Only 4 items, but lots of moolah spent. Sigh. I hope to get a job soon man, otherwise, this hobby of mine is surely going down the drain in no time.


To start things off with this post, ROTF Scout Class Ejector. Having finally gotten him, I can wrap up my Scout classes for this line. Ain't nothing else is going to interest me anymore. Anyways, Ejector is one of the kitchen bots, brought to life when Sam dropped the Allspark Fragment all the way into the kitchen.


His toy is pretty fun, and transformation is pretty straight forward. Comes with a dangling power cord that looks very "suggestive" imo. The thing I do not like about him is that when he is in Toaster mode, one end of it is literally exposed, showing the insides of the toy. I would say get it if you wanna complete the movie characters, but you could still definitely live without him, since he appeared for no more than 3 minutes in the show.

Second on the list is the Henkei Strafe. Issued to individuals who applied to TakaraTomy's Transformers Themed Credit Cards, this is supposed to be available only in Japan. Somehow, Robo Robo managed to grab hold of a few of this toy and had them for sale here. This piece is essentially a repaint of Henkei Cyclonus, with a different paint job referring to the G1 Technobot Strafe.As this is yet another exclusive toy, I still have not have the heart to free it from its cardboard prison, the same way as I did for the Electro Disruptor Ligier. Let's hope that everyone here would get to see them in time to come.

Nice flashy Strafe

I never intended to get myself the S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Gaoh when I was headed to CSC today. It was only meeting Ian that I succumbed to more Riders. This being an exclusive piece is worth triple the regular prices for the others. He comes with a nice cardboard packaging indicating Tamashii's exclusive, a great way to protect this piece I would say.

Gaoh only appeared in the first Kamen Rider Den-O Movie, titled "I'm Born!"He was that badass who hijacked the Den-Liner just so he could get the God's Train in the end. The toy is a pretty accurate representation of the character, albeit a little too skinny on the legs. His helmet is freaking wide, and I cannot for one understand how he could see through them.

He could do quite a bit of great poses, as with all others in this series. His colors are just perfect and fitting for a villain I'd say. However, the dangling portions around his waist comes off far too easily, and gets in the way of poses as well. It's even worse if you have the weapons attached to them. Having said that, it's still a very neat figure to get, since it's my first Rider in the Den-O series, the rest being just Imagins.

The last toy on the haul list today is Car Robot's Devil Gigatron. Simply known as Galvatron in Hasbro's RID lineup, this is one badass toy. He is the first and only Transformers toy with 10 modes. Forget the Triple Changers, or Six Changers even, this is the toy to get. He is basically a remold of Gigatron, the initial black version, with only 6 modes. I would say that while some of the modes are basically useless and impractical, it kinda gives this badass a sense of superiority over other Megatrons/Galvatrons around. The white fits just nicely on him, with appropriate use of chrome on some areas. The only freaking thing I could bitch about him is that get him to transform into some of the modes could be a bitch, for the joints are either too tight or too loose. Haven't really got anything else to say about him though, so perhaps I'll end this posting with all his 10 modes for your viewing.

Devil Gigatron

There will be a Gundam Fiesta going on this since Wednesday, stretching all the way till the 14th of this month. While I can't remember the last time I laid my hands on plastic modelling in general, I suppose it's worth heading down taking a look. Hope to meet Altezen, one long-time Gundam maker and a new TF Customiser. Perhaps, I might just be poisoned enough to start on Gundams too.

More details of the event can be found here: :Official Gundam Fiesta 2009 Website

Just when I was ranting about the lack of new TF toys on the forums this afternoon, I got myself some new TFs. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. What you see above contains two Exclusive toys, along with the regular ROTF ones and a Revoltech. To be absolutely honest here, I am most happy with the Revoltech Gloomy Bear purchase. Why so, read on to find out. I'll proceed to try my reviews on them again, one by one.

1. First up, Revoltech Gloomy. The very reason why I am loving this toy is because it's the first in this line to be rather small... and comes with two figures no less. It's also not based on any animes like the previous ones were, and it's a violent teddy bear to boot. That's how a teddy bear should be. Not those cute, adorable ones for your girlfriends, but this.

A little history on Gloomy perhaps. Designed by Mori Chack, Gloomy is a 2m tall, violent pink bear that eats humans. This design is an antithesis to the notion that teddy bears should be cute, as portrayed by Disney, Sanrio and other companies. Mori strongly believes that humans and animals are incompatible, the animal being wild in nature. That led to the creation of what we come to know as Gloomy Bear.

Below is an excerpt from Cube Works press release:

"Gloomy, an abandoned little bear, is rescued by Pitty (the little boy). At first, he is cute and cuddly, but becomes more wild as he grows up. Since bears do not become attached to people like dogs by nature, Gloomy attacks Pitty even though he is the owner. So Gloomy has blood on him from biting and/or scratching Pitty."

Hence the toy you are seeing right now. You'd be surprised how well it sold during last month's STGCC. Girls very literally flocking to buy this and its larger soft toy counterparts. The designs are pretty accurate, with Pitty part of the figure in the set. Pitty has two interchangeable heads, one normal, one looking like he's got the daylights punched right out of him. Gloomy on the other hand, comes with two accessories: dripping blood and a "Hannibal Lecter-like mask.

What I didn't like about them though, is that for a Revoltech figure, their articulation are pretty limited. Especially so for Gloomy. It was really hard to get him to pose the way it showed in the box-art, and using the support stands were a pain as well. Their heads come off extremely easily, perhaps this is just my set that's giving this problem, but it's still a bother. When changing Pitty's heads, it would be rather irritating to reattach them back to his body, because a dual joint for the head is used.


Having said all that, it's still a pretty fun set to get, especially if you are a Revoltech loyalist. Good for the girlfriend too, if applicable.

2. Next up, Henkei Exclusive Electro Disruptor Ligier. There's really nothing much to review about this already great toy. It's articulation and playability makes it one of the best Transformers toys to come out in a long time. Of course this piece of information is based on the previous Classics Mirage (Ligier is the name for the Japanese market). Or Henkei Ligier, 2007 Movie Fracture and Universe's Drag Strip if you want to include the repaints. He transforms from an F1 car, much like his G1 counterpart. Here, he's a clear version, to depict his ability to make himself invisible in the G1 cartoons.



The thing about this Exclusive piece is that you would only be able to get it if you ordered from a coupon in Transformers Generations 2009 Volume 1, the very same book I reviewed weeks ago. While this was the norm in Japan, we in Singapore would easily be able to get them without having to preorder it. I'm keeping this piece sealed.

For more pictures of Electro-Disruptor Ligier, please refer to the link here:TFW2005 Electro Disruptor Ligier News.

3. ROTF Deluxe Arcee and with the 3 new Legends Class figures, Recon Bumblebee, Skids & Sideways. This latest version of Arcee is definitely cooler than the one from the first movie, where the producers conveniently dropped her from the movie but Hasbro kept her in the toy line-up. Anyone new to the movie toys would definitely be confused with both Arcees. She's pink this time, and transforms into a sports bike. Like Chromia before her, I love how the designs looked on her, those extremely weird robots without legs. What I didn't like about her is that her transformation back into vehicle mode is a little too misleading, and you might just miss a lot of steps, unlike Chromia. Vehicle mode is rather flimsy too.


The saddest part of owning Arcee is not with her problems as a toy. It's actually on Hasbro's non-announcement on whether to release the last bike from the movie, the purple-looking one, allegedly known as Moon Racer at this moment. That would really suck the way Hasbro did with their explanation on the 3 missing Constructicons, which of course, have no plans to be made into toys. Let's also hope that they do not release her only when the third movie comes, just like how Skywarp was released only for ROTF, disrupting my desire to complete the movie seekers. That is definitely a pain in the ass.


Nothing much to say about the smaller Legends ones though. Recon Bumblebee is somewhat a repaint of Wave 1's Legends Bumblebee toy. There's a difference in the hood stripes this time round, with additional symbols on each side of the doors. The color is also darker in shade. Sideways looks more like Barricade with his arms being that big. Skids is a crappy mold, compared to his bro Mudflap in this class.

4. Finally, SDCC 2009 Exclusive Mighty Muggs Wolverine & G1 Optimus Prime. I managed to get them during last month's convention, but was not too keen to open them up until at least I got another of each as spares. You can't go wrong with exclusive toys. Take it as investments in future. Just look at how Henkei Exclusive Wildrider shot up in price. However, the thing that pissed me off was the fact that Hasbro did bring in the Optimus Prime, but they have somehow conveniently forget to include it into their sales line-up during the convention. It's now creeping up in major department stores everywhere. I paid a premium for the first piece.

Wolverine is molded based on this year's stand alone Wolverine movie. He's much better looking here than in previous MM versions of him. Best part about this is that he has retractable claws! It's definitely the first MM Wolverine to do so. I would've preferred if he was painted clenching on a cigar. That would definitely be what Wolverine would do. But being a toy company, Hasbro's first and foremost target customers are not us, but kids in general, so smoking on any of the toys are definitely out.

Now you see it, now you don't!

As mentioned previously that Mighty Muggs Prime is a Metallic/Glossy version of the existing one. There isn't much difference otherwise. That said, everyone would have to take caution when selecting a piece for yourself. The paint job on this toy is horrendous. It would take a very long time to actually get yourself a good box and a good paint job together. Good luck with that. Oh it's also my Prime #110 in the collection.

Regular Mighty Muggs Prime vs SDCC 2009 Mighty Muggs Prime

With all these, I end my third attempt at writing toy reviews for my readers. Hope it's been informative, just don't shoot me if it wasn't. I'll be having new hauls yet again for this coming weekend, so do look forward to it.

Diend is finally in Singapore! Picked up S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Diend just last Friday, along with the secondary forms of Kuuga. Uncle Ng had been kind enough to pass me one Diend, which he claimed he got from some other shops, whose shipment came faster than his. I really must say, Diend's packaging colors are much better looking than Decade's. Its most likely because of the fact that I like blue more than pink. However, much as I would applaud Bandai's approach in making the packaging colors distinct to the different Riders this type, but I would prefer the initial silver. It's got that uniform look and perhaps even when arranging them together, they would be quite a sight.

So anyways, back to Diend. I'm extremely happy that he's one damn cool looking Rider, other than the fact that he looks more like a Barcode than Decade does. He only has a gun accessory, but that's okay, he makes up for most of it in the cool department. The only complain about him and Decade is that they are very stocky looking, unlike the skinny builds in their tv counterparts.

Also picked up Kuuga Pegasus & Titan Forms. Though I was told that they were pretty much really cool being able to pose well and stuff, I kinda disliked it. Kamen Rider Agito was much better to me. Maybe the colors just didn't do it for me. Agito is gold, Kuuga is red. But a Kamen Rider is still a Kamen Rider, and somehow, the hidden completist in me is reaching out for all the existing S.H.Fs as we speak. Bad. Very bad.

Also in were the 3 Kabuto Movie Exclusive Riders: Ketaros, Hercus & Caucasus. They all share the same body, with only differences in colour: bronze, silver & gold; minor accessories differences and different heads. They are pretty fun to pose with, and their sleek bodies just somehow reminds me of how the Kabuto riders were in the show. With Hana, TheBee, Drake and Sasword on the way, along with the exclusive Imagins, I can definitely safely say that my TFs will be taking a back seat for now.

Have also just picked up the latest English version of Final Fantasy Dissidia for the PSP. I was truly waiting months for this to be released, since watching the Japanese ones on youtube. It's one freaking hard game, at least by my standards. I've never been good with 3D free roaming fighting games. Have only started with Cloud so far, so this will probably take a while to complete, going by the difficulties in the game for each different characters. Be sure to check back here in a week's time to see how I'm doing in the game.

Finally got around to opening up my Medicom Riders for a picture shoot. Although only owning 3 of them at this current moment, they're giving me lots of fun. I'm still learning the ropes on their poseability, so they are definitely not up to my standards at the moment.

Among the 3: V3, Black and Den-O; I had the most fun with Den-O. I was pratically imagining him with a myriad of poses achievable with him. Having said that, I didn't get around to posing more than two shots of each of the 3 of them, because I got bored.

Finally picked up Diend, having been released a week later than Decade. He is like ultimate cool. I simply cannot wait to get home and put him next to Decade for more pictures. At the moment, please just enjoy the in-package pictures with Kuuga's two other forms.

I've been thinking of trying something different for this post. I've always been reading about how many bloggers were writing reviews of their toys flawlessly, and decided maybe I'd give it a try. Having said that, I know that I'll fail big time in my reviews, but hey, nothing's definite without trying anyways.

Finally picked up Transformers Generations Volume 3 last week, and it was EPIC DISAPPOINTMENT. Half of the the magazine was about the current ROTF toyline, turning it into yet another ROTF Catalogue in the process. Starting from Page 6 all the way to 50, it's nothing but ROTF, ROTF, and more ROTF. From Page 53 to 69, it was all about Micron Legend's Minicon love. I'm sorry but me being a non Micron Legend fan, the minicons are utter rubbish in my opinion. Otherwise, its the usual concept designs and drawings in the last few pages, with G1-Style Skids and Screech as the Magazine's exclusive for this issue.

The best so far is still Volume 1, with the countless feature of G1 Optimus Prime/Convoy through the ages. One would imagine that with so many reissues of the same toy, it would essentially be the same thing over and over again. I was proven wrong as well. You'd be surprised to see the minor differences of this timeless classic. Pictures below courtesy of Robot Kingdom.

Transformers Generations 2009 Volumes 1, 2 & 3

Also in over the last 2 weeks were the ROTF Voyager class toys as well as Robot Heroes. Nothing much to say about Robot Heroes, other than the fact that this 2nd version of Megatron looks like he's in a wheelchair. Voyagers Long Haul & Stratosphere are new molds altogether, while Skywarp & Grindor are repaints. Long Haul is a pretty cool bigass dump truck. The designers could've done a better job than placing a roof over his head in robot mode. Though big, this toy is pretty clumsy. The hidden sword's on his arms are cool, and is so much better than the ones from Leader Prime, where they just spring out unnecessarily. His colour makes him look menacing. Overall, pretty sturdy, but could've be a lot less skinnier.

Strastosphere reminds you of the old Galaxy Force Dreadrock, with the way his wings are placed in robot mode. Pretty imposing figure to say the least, his color scheme fit him just nicely too. However, it's a toy one can do without, for the fact that he did not appear in the movie at all, with me getting him purely because there's a mini Optimus Prime figure bundled with it. I liked the way his arms are designed. Makes him look really freaking strong.

Skywarp on the other hand was a really HAPPY buy. I could finally complete my Movie Seekers with both Thundercracker and Starscream from the previous movie toy line. I dare say his color scheme is so much neater than Starscream and Thundercracker combined. Did I even mention that he look oh so awesome in Gerwalk mode? I did not even know this mode was possible back then, till I was taking pictures today. I am dumb.



Finally, Grindor. This is like the 4th version of the same toy I own. I simply just love the Helicopter mode, and this time, Grindor kicks Blackout's ass hands down.

ROTF Voyagers

ROTF Robot Heroes

Just collected S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Decade two days ago, and I can say that I am truly enjoying this toy. His designs just grew on me, even if he was rather different from previous Rider designs. Barcode face was one of the names given to him and Diend. I love how the series panned out, and I am definitely looking forward to Diend's release next week. The picture below was taken together with the same S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Black & Black RX, similar to the way they were depicted in Episode 27 of the DCD show.



Other figures bought include Kuuga from Kamen Rider Kuuga series, Agito & Another Agito from Kamen Rider Agito Series; Gatack, Kick Hooper & Dark Kabuto from Kamen Rider Kabuto Series; Ichigo, Nigo & V3 from Kamen Rider The Next Movie and Black RX from Kamen Rider Black RX series.

I am definitely waiting to get 6 pieces of the Shocker Riders from Kamen Rider The Next movie to complete my reenactment with the 3 heroes.



With that, I have completely a rather miserable attempt in reviewing my toys. Hope you guys enjoyed it, even if a little bit. I'll finish the post by putting up all the new Riders which I have bought the past month.

I can finally do a full coverage of this year's STGCC, which just ended yesterday, since I've almost recovered from being sick and not feeling a bit tired at the moment. Since setting up my Prime & Megatron display on Thursday, I was pretty much hyped up for the whole event. Pity it was not to be. While some of the booths did feature great stuff, it did indeed have the feel of CSC. But don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be visitng the event at all. Overall, the feel was much better than last year's regardless of what some said. After some fine tuning, next year's event would seriously be a blast.

Things were rather quiet on Friday, the first day of the event to the public. There were no cosplayers, except those from MovieMania & the 501st Legion. It was very very surprising to see the a queue forming on a Friday morning where they were supposed to be working. Joanna put it best when she said "The ones here right now are either jobless or student." I had the time to walk around before traffic got heavier, and managed snap a few pictures on the first day, mostly of the booths and the set of the whole place.

Hasbro had a rather big booth this year, with the focus being Transformers, GI Joe & the new Monopoly City. It was pretty interesting to see that everyone was mostly crowding on my display and even though the 'Not For Sale' sign was put up, it still did not stop some from asking so. On the GI Joe corner, I got to see the new Joe and Cobra vehicles on display, which was really awesome, except for the fact that they display some Cobra figures figthing each other on the Mobile Pit. Monopoly City was a new board game, different from all previous versions. It had a new set of rules, and it was rather interesting to see the manner in which all of them came together.

Hasbro's Booth on the day

Hasbro brought in a few exclusives from the SDCC this year, of which only 3 caught my eye. The 12" Cobra Baroness was a sight to behold, her facial sculpt was truly great. However I was less than impressed with the use of a rubbery hair and non leather as her clothes. SDCC Soundwave would've been great too for fans new to the series, but with the countless number of Soundwave reissues, and the fact that TakaraTomy reissued all the 4 cassettes included in this set: Laserbeak, Ravage, Buzzsaw & Ratbat, makes it a rather pointless addition to any existing collectors inventory. Finally the one that I truly felt any love for was the Mighty Mightys Wolverine. Based on this year's movie, it comes with retractable claws. How cool is that?

Cobra Viper vs Baroness, Zartan vs Storm Shadow. WTF

Monopoly City

SDCC Comic Con Exclusives 12" Baroness & Mighty Muggs Wolverine

Of course Hasbro could've done a better job had they released the SDCC Exclusive Mighty Muggs Optimus Prime. This was a Metallic version of the previous regular release one. I did managed to get that piece too, but at a much higher price, only to be told by Hasbro that they did have it here, but forgot to include it into the list of items to be sold. Bravo!

Other booths of interested to me was the Blythe booth, which was also sponsored by Hasbro and manned by Dollz Inc. The booth was really in a class of its own. Although I know nuts about Blythe Dolls, other than the fact that they fetch a high amount of money with a low chance of reissues, this booth was more like a boutique than a toy booth. The Gashapon area looked more like a mini Pachinko shops with the vast number of capsule machines.

Gashapon and Blythe Booths

By the second and third days, things started to get livelier, with cosplayers moving around the whole convention, featuring both the extremely impressive and the absolutely hideous. The ones that I managed to take pictures with were of the few Kamen Riders, the Mario Bros, Storm Troopers & Imperial Guard. Some girls were extremely in cosplaying characters that had very little clothing, but pity they did not interest me one bit. An interesting thing to note was a Kamen Rider V3 cosplayer doing the wrong pose.(to be seen with the actual pose here)

Kamen Rider Kabuto, Kamen Rider Kiva, Mario Brothers

Imperial Guard, Bumblebee, Freddy Krueger

Kamen Rider V3, Wrong vs Right

There were some cosplaying competition going on for the second and third days, but I was rather more interested in the various toys, mainstream or not being displayed. I even paid a premium price for a t-shirt, something which I do not normally do, just to get it signed by Shin from Devil Robots.

So there you have it, my rather incomplete coverage of the event, mainly due to the fact that I am just writing stuff that interests me. So then, until next year, Live Long and Prosper!

Finally had the time and energy to post nothing but just one picture here. I promise more coverage of the event will follow once I regain my energy and voice.

In the meantime, please enjoy my little showcase of Optimus Primes and Megatrons for Hasbro's booth this year at the STGCC. It's the first time I have my toys displayed together, so its definitely quite satisfying to say the least.

My fascination with anything Kamen Rider continues, especially towards Kamen Rider Den-O. Since acquiring the Medicom RAH Den-O, I am on a mini-quest to read up on all the KR RAH figures out there. The announcement of New Den-O Strike Form just got me drooling. I am still totally new to the Kamen Rider Universe, but the way things are, I may just streamline my TF collecting into purely just Optimus Primes and focus on Kamen Rider. At the very least you do not get so much repaints the way TFs do.

I still remember back when Yanjie asked me, "Do you collecting anything that are non-Transformers?" Of which my reply was that "I do not collect any human figures or things that do not transform." I have since stopped making stupid comments like that, simply because there will never be a definite 'never' in life. Although small by any count, I am now the proud owner of 2 RAHs and 4 SHFs, a small collection, which I am damn sure will grow.

There are still lots of wonderful Kamen Rider toys which I have yet to own, but you could definitely be sure that in time to come, my KR collection might just really overshadow the robots. Until then, this will remain as a filler post.

Though I've been rotting at home for the past month, I've only found the time (should I say mood) to whip out my camera and take pictures of all my toys as I always had. Mood's definitely no longer there, so I took things slow, not even bothered to force myself to do things I did not want to. The picture you see above is the supposed hard to find, currently pretty rare Transformers ROTF toy, featuring Skids & Mudflap in their original Ice Cream Truck Alternate Mode. This piece of toy was released sometimes early last week, but was usually gone by the next day. Better yet, you would see them resurfacing at CSC for a cheap cheap price of $35.

Recent Transformers toy releases have been disappointing to say the least. Human Alliance Sideswipe for example. This is a rather disappointing piece of toy. Hot in vehicle mode, but the robot mode just doesnt do it for me at all. After transforming, the whole vehicle roof looked more like a turtle shell. Doesn't help that his face look like a robotic turtle too.

Oh and how could I ever forget Jetfire? His is a sorry excuse for a toy. Extremely loose, fragile, does not stay together when transforming, I literally thought his movie persona played a huge part when making this toy. Everything just kept coming off. His official combination with Prime looked lousy, so much so that others came up with better unofficial modes. Mine is a clear example of the unofficial mode below.

The non-TF toys I bought however, are so much more fun to play with, till the point I couldn't get enough of them. I recently picked up Revoltech #070 & #071: Arch Gurren Lagann & Super Galaxy Gurren Laggan respectively. From the first original Gurren Lagann mold, Revoltech has really done a superb job in making these two true to the anime. Only the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Lazengann and Enkidu elude me now.

Of course, Revoltechs were not the only non-TF toys I got. With my recent venture into Kamen Riders, I've gotten myself Medicom RAH Kamen Rider Black & Kamen Rider Den-O Sword Form, along with S.H.F Kamen Rider Black, Momotaros Imagin, Urataros Imagin and Deneb Imagin. I have yet to have the heart to open up my Medicoms at the moment, so I was basically just toying around with my SHFs. I am pleased with the way they were able to pose so well, without much restricitons at all.

With the recent ROTF fever, I was not surprised that everyone was rushing out to get all those ROTF toys being released en masse. However, amidst all those movie toys, I was actually looking forward to more non-mainstream TFs, particularly the Alternity and Encore series. With the release of Alternity Megatrons and Black Convoy, I have the complete series to date, with the design and articulation far better than the previous Binaltech/Alternators series.

With Encore Bruticus, I was for once, happy that I now own my first G1-esque combiner. While I didn't really care much for combiners, I am sure glad to be able to have him in my hands now. I don't really care what the others are saying that it is of inferior quality to the original vintage version, it's just a toy. Encore Cassettes volume 2 puts me closer to owning the complete sub-line featuring the cassette bots/cons of the 80s. While there would be some that would never be reissued, I am just as happy getting them as they come.

Anyways, just enjoyed the rest of the pictures.

The above was one of the very first pictures taken, using my new DSLR Canon EOS 40D, a gift from Dad. I'm still having trouble adjusting to the more demanding "professional" camera, but had more than enough guidance from Dad himself on taking pictures in certain situations and understanding light compensations. It isn't easy, but I'm getting the hang of it.

It's really been a rather long while since there was anything to post on my blog. Work life has pretty much taken over my schedule and even on days I am free, I am usually tied up with running the forum and it’s upcoming event: TF.SG’s Fan Screening session. Hence, I do hope that this would not be yet another post in a long time.

First up, work. Those close to me would know that I have been rather unhappy here at this current workplace, solely because of the wild dogs here, ready to pounce on you should you let out any signs of weaknesses. I’m surprised I managed to tolerate them for slightly more than a year. Resignation beckoned one fine day this week and I just felt a heavy load off my shoulders. Suddenly working for Reuben wasn’t such a bad thing after all, though it's now a matter of the past. All I need to do now is to look for another job, and hope the cycle would end.

Next, the TF.SG Fan Screening is finally became a reality. After months of hyping up the proposed event, we managed to a sold out crowd one fine Sunday distributing the tickets to the event. More work followed, namely identifying potential sponsors for the event’s goodie bags, of which Hasbro played a huge part. Of course, we were to work for Hasbro’s sponsorship, which was to help out in their launch of the ROTF toys. A win-win situation if you asked me.

The more I got involved with Hasbro’s events, the more I am interested in working for them. Too bad they are not hiring at the moment, otherwise, it would have been a dream job and I would’ve ended up making sure I live up to their expectations. The Midnight Launch was a success in my opinion, with as much as 700 people showing up, double my expectations. Queue to the launch started as early as 430pm. I was one of the few who were so excited about the Launch that I practically lost sleep over it. Call it a Fan Boy’s Wet Adventure if you will, but I was damn sure I’d try to lay my hands on the toys I wanted on the very first day. So on that day I went home with the following toys (inclusive of others whom I got earlier):

Gravity Bots Optimus Prime
Fast Action Battlers Double Blade Optimus Prime
Robot Replicas Optimus Prime
Robot Replicas Ironhide
Optimus Prime Voice Changer Helmet

Legends
Bumblebee
Optimus Prime
Ratchet
Sideswipe
Springer
Megatron
Sideways
Starscream

Scout
Depthcharge
Knockout

Deluxes
Bumblebee
Soundwave
Skids
Sideswipe
Sideways
Rampage
Breakaway
Chromia
Wheelie

Voyagers
Demolishor
Ironhide
Starscream
The Fallen

Leaders
Optimus Prime (US)
Optimus Prime (JP)
Megatron

A big sigh followed as I entered my room, wondering where to store these beauties. Therefore, as I am doing this post, my room should be clean and orderly, less I want it to become a major fire hazard.

I dare say, with ROTF looming near, my love for Transformers rekindled to its height, the way it did right before the first movie. I’m not saying I have since lost interest in them, it was just that as the days go by organizing the fan screening and coordinating for Hasbro, my passion was fast depleting as a result. Just before this fever came back, I was pretty up throwing my monies at past Revoltech figures, trying hard to complete them by the Series. To date, I have just about half of the whole series left to complete, and what marvelous sculpting they had. In the past, my Revoltechs were just limited to the Transformers ones, but has now since expanded to Getter Robo, Gaiking, Macross, Patlabor, Evangelion, Gurren Lagann and The Red Spectacles. One could never have enough of these lovelies, hence the 5 pieces of Protect Gear to build a complete Police Squadron.

To date, the latest Revoltechs I acquired are as follows:

001 – Getter 1 (New Getter Robo)
004 – EVA-01 (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
007 – King Gainer (Overman King Gainer)
008 – Getter 2 (New Getter Robo)
014 – AV-98 Ingram 2 (Patlabor)
020 – Type J9 Griffon
033 – EVA-00 (Rebuild of Evangelion)
034R – VF-1J Super Valkryie Miria Version (SDF Macross)
038 – VF-1A Super Valkryie Ichijyo Hikaru Version (SDF Macross: Do You Remember Love?)
039 – Gaiking Open Face Version (Gaiking: Legend of Daikyu-Maryu)
041 – Type-7 Brocken (Patlabor)
050 – Gurren Lagann (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
058 – Gurren Lagann Fully Drillized Version (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
060 – Enki (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
061 – Protect Gear (The Red Spectacles)
065 - Gurren & Lagann (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)

So now, we've reached a point in my blog where posting pictures has become a routine with every post I make. This time, pictures would come from my Animateds, Henkeis, ROTFs and Revoltechs, mostly taken from my new DSLR camera, and there would be some getting used to on my part. So pardon the poor pictures, if any. Enjoy.

March 2009 is finally over! What a scary and tiring month it turned out to be. Toys were just coming out of factories like nobody’s business and if you aren’t observant enough, it’ll be gone from the shelf the next moment. Such was the ferocious rate of toys going off the shelves during the final two weeks of March.

While we anticipated some of the toy releases, it was the Hasbro releases that threw us off guard. They just showed up unexpectedly and, might I add, scalped even before we knew it. I sorta foresaw March as the month with the most toy releases of 2009, due to the number of overlapping releases from TakaraTomy’s end.

Just to give some of blur ones a rough idea of what I am talking about, here’s the list of items released in the month of March, of which I’ve bought - ugh:

TakaraTomy:
Masterpiece MP-08 Grimlock
Encore 15 Cassettes – Eject & Rewind, Ravage & Buzzsaw
Henkei C-16 Dinobot
Henkei C-17 Hotshot
Henkei C-18 Beachcomber, Brawn, Cliffjumper
Henkei C-19 Cosmos, Warpath, Wheelie
Disney Label Monochrome Mickey Mouse Convoy

Hasbro:
Animated Voyager Shockwave
Mighty Muggs Grimlock
Mighty Muggs Starscream

Those and of course some of the other items I purchased together during March added to my special & financial constraints. If you’d like to know, here’s the other stuff I bought in March, some of which are replenishing the items I sold under certain circumstances:

Transformers:
Animated Deluxe Bumblebee
Animated Deluxe Prowl
Animated Deluxe Ratchet
Animated Deluxe Sentinel Prime
Animated Deluxe Snarl
Animated Deluxe Soundwave
Animated Voyager Grimlock
Animated Voyager Optimus Prime
Animated Voyager Starscream
Animated Voyager Skywarp
E-Hobby Black Megatron
Robot Heroes Movie 2007 Optimus Prime & Blackout
Superlink Grand Convoy with Kicker set
Titanium 3” Beast Wars Optimus Primal
Titanium 3” Movie 2007 Optimus Prime
Beast Machines Optimus Primal
Burger King Cybertron Optimus Prime
Macdonald’s Armada Optimus Prime
Macdonald’s Beast Wars Optimus Primal

Revoltech:
#017 – Getter 3
#031 – Getter Robo 1
#034 – VF-1J Super Valkryie
#034B - VF-1J Super Valkryie Maximillian Jenius Version
#034R - VF-1J Super Valkryie Miria Jenius Version
#036 – VF-1S Super Valkryie Roy Focker Version
#051 – Regult

Final Fantasy Play Arts:
Cloud Strife & Hardy Daytona
Cloud Strife & Fenrir

It’s just crazy! I really cannot believe I spent that much on toys. I really need to stop what I am doing. The good news is that come April, there will be the last 4 remaining Henkeis, and by June, we would only be focusing on the ROTF Movie and Encore toys. That’s what I call streamlining heh.

Anyways, it’s only a few days into April, but my spending seemed to have continued with the recent acquisition of the God Fire Convoy giftset, iPod Convoy and Saint Cloth Myth Leo Aioria, with the incoming Ganbo Henkei Exclusive: Dirge & Thrust looking increasingly to be my last purchases of April 2009. It’s far too exhausting to burn so much money is such short time, and I do not wish to have to resort to eating grass before the end of the month.

Work has been pretty much a bitch for me the pass month. I have nothing but discontent for the people I call colleagues here. Gossips aplenty, these people have nothing better to do but create malicious rumors about others for their own satisfaction. I am not spared of being a topic for gossip either. From as long as I could remember, I have a list of possible candidates, whom I think are likely to start all these crap. To be honest, I am just short of shouting across the office to get these jackasses to talk to me face to face. But much as I would love to see that happen, I doubt they have the balls to tell it to my face.

Anyways, I did try to submit my resignation, partly due to this and of course work related matters as well, but was rejected by my boss. In the time I worked here, I have learnt to respect both my boss and my senior as well for the way the stood by their staff and protecting them. However, much as I would love to stay and continue to provide my support, there is a limit to my tolerance. Let’s hope that its not over-stretched before I resign.

Lately, I’ve been having the urge to go back to drinking, clueless as to why this is so. It’s become such a habit that come Fridays, I would automatically think about getting people to go for drinks and chill. It was just less than two years ago that I swore off drinking altogether since getting pissed drunk on my birthday. Back then it was kind of like a regular routine for us to report to the preferred pub after work. I think 2007 was by far the year where I destroyed my liver the most.

Now without further delay, let me just end the post with my purchases for the month of March.

Transformers Animated

Transformers Car Robots 2000

Transformers Encore

Transformers Henkei

Transformers Masterpiece

Transformers Mighty Muggs

Transformers Universe Classics

Transformers Disney Label

Transformers Superlink

Final Fantasy

Oh and before I sign off, here's who I met over at CSC on Sunday.

Everyone, let us bow down to God's gift to us all.

I am so behind in updating my blog lately. Been extremely busy and tired, and even when I am free, I just wanted to get some quality rest and all man. So right now, I am at the comfort of my work chair at home, while on MC. There have been a lot of new purchases since my last update, most of which I haven't even had the time to document into pictures yet man.

Met up with two ex-colleagues from Hella Japan last week, and was basically just busy catching up with them and all. Nothing fantastic happened recently, except that there were too many toys released, with too little money to get them all.

Just finished my NDS Castlevania: Order of Eclessia. True as hell this is one extremely hard game. Lots of stupid quests to complete before you could actually really power up your character. Then again it was lotsa fun.

As I end my miserably short posting, here are some of the pictures which I DID have the time to take. Next posting will feature the MP Grimlock, Disney Monochrome Mickey Convoy, Henkeis and Ganbo Exclusive. For now, enjoy whatever miserable pics I have to offer.

Transformers Universe

E-Hobby Generation 1

Transformers Animated

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Final Fantasy: Dissidia Trading Arts

Bandai Voice I-Doll Superior

I haven't got much things to update lately, but new postings would come soon I promise. At the moment, am doing a Mass Order for Masterpiece MP-04 Perfect Convoy for a friend.

Price is set at $280 each, deposit of 70 bucks required. Item will arrive in about a month's time, so anyone interested would have to be patient.

Anyone interested could email me at stephenusprime@gmail.com for more details.

So I promised an update by Friday evening, but was too damn tired to even do anything at all, after helping friend lug all their hauls back home (mine included). For the past month, I've been on a Major Toy Buying Spree yet again, this time from new releases to Primes long forgotten. Managaed to snag myself some good and rare pieces along the way, at least to me heh.

Highlight of this week's new releases are probably the Henkeis Ratchet & Inferno, Disney Label Mickey Mouse Convoy & Alternity Concoy in two colors. This, plus my latest foray into collecting human figures in Final Fantasy Play/Trading Arts didn't help my wallet much.

Now before I go on and publish my new purchases, perhaps I should add that I have yet again complete PSP's rendition of Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. It is such an addictive game. The game's high difficulty did not put me off at all, and I recall having to battle Dracula more than 20 times before I eventually beat him - by luck I might add! Though it is an old game, I highly recommend this to anyone, especially those into platform gaming. Castlevania Symphony of the night is included in this game as well, but as an unlocked feature. Definitely worth a second replay. Now off to my next game, another old one: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.

Now back to my toys. Finally bought the RID Optimus Prime Cosco Exclusive version. Affectionately called Banana Prime here in Singapore for it's yellow paint job, it's really a sight to behold. I used to think Prime in any other colour would suck but it was really well put together here. Also in the pictures here is RID Optimus Prime, Hasbro version. The only difference to the Japanese version is that the one here has the Autobot insignia on each side of the fire engine mode. Pictures below:

Henkei Ratchet is the first time that TakaraTomy released a toy before Hasbro's. I must say that apart from the remoulded head, this is far from a good piece of toy. The head suffers from the 'low self-esteem' syndrome as seen previously with Ironhide. Henkei Inferno features a bright red as compared to the Universe version which was published here a few months ago. This is the first time I thought the chrome applications were excessive, and it's also a first for me to favour the Universe version more than this. I got Henkei Cheetas rather late, considering his release was with Cyclonus. But then again better late than never.

Recently the Transformers Animated toyline has seen very delayed release of newer waves over the past 3 months or so. With Samurai Prowl being reported in Australia, Shockwave in Malaysia, I got myself Blazing Lockdown, Blurr & Swindle during my holiday with Baby in Thailand. Blurr is yet another piece which I got as MOSC, due to my liking of his design. Swindle is a pretty cool toy if not being too short while Blazing Lockdown is just another repaint. Also got myself Bandit Lockdown and Animated Safeguard back here. Safeguard is comprised of Jetstorm and Jetfire, which is the first combiner bots in the toyline. Shitty in combined mode if you ask me.

Finally I'm up to the latest hottest toys since Binaltech BT-22 Convoy. The Alternity has been delayed for far too long, while at the same time generating lots of hype and interest from the fandom. The Disney Label's Mickey Mouse Convoy had seen its quantity cut from TakaraTomy's production, therefore quantity was limited. I was lucky to get a hold of one piece. It's been said that it had already sold out one it's first day.

I've also mentioned that I've since ventured into collecting Human Figures from Square Enix's Playarts series. The figures are mighty fine, but not as poseable as I would have hoped. But then again, it's really a wonder that they are so wonderfully sculpted.

Right, I'm getting tired from all this HTML posting for today, so I'll just leave you with all the remainder of my purchases the past month.

Again, I've been either to busy or lazy or tired to update my blog since coming back from Thailand... Updates will come this weekend! Lots of updates on toys!

It's been more than a month since I had my last blog entry. Been suffering from some big time toy burnout and was busy with lots of stuff as well. Once I recovered from my burnout, it was already CNY, so it was busy helping out Baby's family, as well as preparing for tomorrow's Bangkok trip. Been a largely uneventful month of January

Having just gone through the first month of 2009, I thought I'd share my views on what's happened around in Singapore's TF scene. The forum has been pretty quite of late, of which I am sure was due to the many preparations for CNY and everyone going back to school and work. Was only last week that it seemed to pick up again. On the toy front, there was lots of hype from the eventual release of Transformers Mighty Muggs and Henkei Cyclonus. Other than that, coupled with my burnout, there wasn't actually much to talk about.

The TF sequel later this year has helped to reignite my passion for toys with the official release of the movie trailer, which can be seen below. I'm sure most of you fellow fans would have seen it by now, but it's still something worth sharing with. Of notable comment was the way Prime got owned by this huge looking robot, whom I would assume to be Devastator. Starscream returns in all his awesomeness while Sideswipe and Ravage are the only other new characters we saw in the trailer.


That's just about it for my lousy toy updates. So next up is my recent addiction to PSP again, after having put it down a long time ago. The game that got me back into the thick of everything was Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. With FFVII being my all time favorite in the series, this was definitely a no-brainer when deciding whether or not to get it. The storyline fall a little bit short in terms of play time, but it more than makes up for it with it's ridiculously hard missions. And as with every other Final Fantasy games, I spent a good amount of time trying to level up Zack (the main character) to the maximum, with a stats reaching 255. I should've left my gamer lifestyle behind the way it should've been - sigh. Even got myself to pre-order the figure toys of the main characters, Zack, Cloud & Aerith.

Did any of you guys catch the upcoming Dragonball Evolution trailer by any chance? I am definitely giving this movie a miss, for the very fact that Goku is not being played by a Caucasian. Now, I have nothing against Caucasian, but Goku is a very ASIAN character, as seen in the anime, and even in the character it was based on in Journey to the West. Or at least an Asian Monkey. Chow Yun Fatt as Roshi would perhaps bring a little hope into the movie, but only if he don's a turtle's shell.

Until my next entry, which I hope isn't very long from now, I shall leave you with all my latest purchase (with some freebies from Gerrard) for the month of January. And a late Happy Luner New Year to all!

Transformers Mighty Muggs Wave 1

Transformers Animated Wreck-Gar, Titanium RID Optimus Prime & Henkei Cyclonus

All Optimus Prime / Convoy / Primal / Beast Convoy related stuff

This whole month was mostly about toys toys toys. And I tot last month was a good hauls month. This was a sweeter month, and since I am lazy to type anything here, I'll let the pictures do the talking. So enjoy some of the latest buys I made recently.

My association with everything old school continues this time round on Console video games of the 80's and 90's. With the current generation of Consoles so driven on technological advancements, graphical excellence, we should not forget that it was the past consoles that defined how video gaming ought to be.

Back in my time, all we needed was a TV, a console with game and we were go to go. We didn't really care much about the sound quality from the TV, much unlike the need for surround sound nowadays. As long as the game was fun to begin with, we'll be hooked on for hours.

Over the last 20 or so , Nintendo has continued to churn out consoles after consoles, most of which I was very fond of to this very day. The first console I came to know of was the Nintendo Entertainment System, aptly named NES for short. Titles such as The Mario Bros, Ninja Gaiden, Metroid could keep you glued to the TV for hours. I could still remember the fun of having sat around with the family while we try our hands on The Mario Bros, where usually dad, little bro and myself would take turns to complete each stage in the game.

Another fun part of this console was that there were times where you would never be able to get the game to start, regardless if you had the catridges inserted properly or not. So the trick to this was to take the catridge out, turn it over to the bottom circuit exposed area and give is a hard blow before reinserting it back into the console. The same was to be done for the console for maximum effect. My choice of games were usually platformers such as the Mario Bros, Megaman series and Metroid. This were essentially no brainers to me back then. So if you really wanted to take a step back into memory lane, this should be the first console you should be trying.

Fast forward to the 90s, Nintendo came up with yet another great console that would capture the attention of gamers worldwide. The Super Nintendo, or Super Famicom in Japan was basically a much updated version of the 8-bit NES. Blowing the catridge was no longer a major concern, though it still happened time and again. Memorable titles for this console were the early Megaman X series, Final Fantasy and of course more Super Mario adventures. Castlevania was also one of the better platformers to emerge from here, not forgeting the futuristic racing game F-Zero.

While I did not get to play with Sega consoles as much as the Nintendos, they still held a place in my heart, mostly for the times spent at my cousin's place while on holidays and hogging the consoles to myself most of the time. The Sega Master System was one such console which I played with, though I did not remember much about it. The best part about this console was that, Sega had a game pre-installed into the console, so you wouldn't ever need a catridge to play the game. Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced via this console, and was later seen as the mascot and direct competitor to NES' Mario. Memorable games from this console were Alex Kidd, Street Figther II, Shinobi, R-Type and The Ghostbusters. I roughly remember the Master System to feature a number of games that were wacky in nature, trying to position Sega as a family-friendly video game console.

The next console from Sega, which is more prominent in my head all the time was the Sega Megadrive. Something like how the SNES was the updated version of the NES, the Megadrive was just that to the Master System. The games were so much fun to play with that virtually everyone at school talked about them. This console was backward compatible, meaning that it could play Master System games by just having the catridge mounted. Of course, the games I loved were E.S.W.A.T, Shinobi II: Return of the Ninja Master, Golden Axe III, Streets of Rage (Bare Knuckles) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

There you have it, the game consoles, that were essentially the best of what Gaming had to offer back then, before the time and rise of the Playstation, the involvement of Microsoft's XBox and the latest motion-detection Wii.

blog is underminor changes at the moment.