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Post by xiombarg on Dec 6, 2005 10:44:51 GMT -5
Well the toy of the year nomination list is up and running once again. It's always a fun process.
And with that said, what a sorry a$$ list of nominations this year. Half of the list is Gundam!. Ok, fine, but how about something that hasn't been done a billion times over and over again.. Let's see, next we have Kasumi. Great. Not a robot, no metal, no articulation, but she's got big tits..um, that's not a toy. And then there's all these, not too bad, but not that great either due to design problems or bad concept, like Galaxy Convoy. Of all the great Transformers this year someone just had to put one of the lamest IMO because it's ol' Optimus. Then we have Xabungle and Aquarion. Yeah they are ok, but both have their obvious problems. Konig Monster..underwhelming.
So for me there's maybe two that I could even think about voting for and neither of them seem like #1 material. Doraemon and SHE Godanner. Maybe ZX-tole.
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Post by Kidchuckle on Dec 6, 2005 11:47:53 GMT -5
I havn't checked the list..has Gaiking been nominated? I think that was only spark for me this year.
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Post by lurkerx on Dec 6, 2005 12:27:22 GMT -5
I’d go for MF mazinkaiser & SOC Gaiking since its disqualified for whatever reason
I do agree that there aren’t much die-cast releases/ or notable ones, the APC from aliens comes to mind as my most anticipated release, which doesn’t qualify. Other than that there are these:
i) there’s [not on list] Hot Toys Exclusive Chrome astro boy I really dig this take on the classic I should nominate this actually. Nice blue light for the eyes and red for the heart ALL metal except for the chest cover. even the interchangable hands & the feet flames are metal.
ii) Then Black ox design & quality simplicity at its best
iii) I rather like the VB-6 Koenig monster by yamato, because of its sheer size and menacing militaristic look and I’m a macross buff. I wish it didn’t transform though, it makes it prone to stress marks
iv) I know everyone here is sick of gundam, but I personally, rather enjoy the Gundam impulse MMM series.
as for the rest of the ones mentioned on the list, it didn't make an impact at all.
I don’t have an aquarion & getter so I really can’t rank it against these, everytime I come close to getting one I back out at the last minute.
I think these 2 will be close to the top though for lack of competition.
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Post by Kidchuckle on Dec 6, 2005 13:21:48 GMT -5
yeah... Gundamn I feel is so over done. It was good 10 yrs ago when I was in Highschool. same robot... just different dressings.
******* I said dressings.. not "dress" **** check your eyes.
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Post by jwm on Dec 6, 2005 13:53:39 GMT -5
Actually, I like Gundam dressing. Especially if it's well seasoned, roasted in a young Gundam, and served with gravy.
But what's up with disqualifying Gaiking?
As far as the Astro-Boy goes- that would be a great call for TOTY, but I think Lurker X and I are the only two people around here who got one.
JWM
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Post by Chen on Dec 6, 2005 14:42:01 GMT -5
Gaiking and MF Mazinkaiser are already nominees. But the Toyboxdx TOTY is starting to get really f'ed up, it was way easier 4-5 years ago when you knew what was a Japanese toy but now pretty much everything is co-developed with a North Amercian company or being released in North America. There's too many different kinds of toys to fit in one catagory.
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Post by Ben-Ohki on Dec 6, 2005 15:42:38 GMT -5
I beg to differ with xiombarg: as Sir Mix-a-lot once said to immortality, "silicone parts are made for toys!" But yeah - unfortunately statues are not toys, IMHO.
Boy - I can't believe it's been like a year since I was last active on TBDX. *sigh* My vote would go to the HBS-01 Galaxy Convoy since it's pretty much the ONLY import toy I got this year, opened, and actually played with more than a couple of times... Robot Masters Reverse Convoy I play with quite a bit too. hmm...
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Post by xiombarg on Dec 6, 2005 19:04:29 GMT -5
At least Black Ox made it in 2005. He's the only one I really want to vote for.
My nomination for Flame Convoy isn't getting any backup..even though it's the best Transformer to come out in the last five years! But no, everyone wants to support freakin HCM Gundams and anything even remotely "old school" because they have no imagination! ;D
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Post by xiombarg on Dec 6, 2005 22:15:34 GMT -5
After putting up a big stink over at Toybox, I was just informed that SOC Gaiking and Max Mazinkaiser are both QUALIFIED, but apparently someone tried to nominate them after they had already made it on the list...so for some reason they put it on the "Disqualified" list even though they will be officially qualified for voting. What the logic is of this, I don't know, but that's the deal.
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Post by ataru on Dec 6, 2005 22:34:40 GMT -5
The people that submitted them after they had already been submitted used different terminology so they got treated as a different item by the system. It's confusing for sure.
(sometimes people use the wrong terminology all together, like the SOC doraemon on the list)
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Post by xiombarg on Dec 7, 2005 21:26:21 GMT -5
So if we placed bets for the top five, here's my bet.
#1 Black Ox. This is my gut feeling. He's got lots of metal, he's well sized, he's old school, and pretty much nails the mark for slick design without being overly flashy.
#2 Aquarion. The incredible engineering should give him an edge.
#3 Max Factory Mazinkaiser. It's Mazinkaiser and Max Factory. Should be a winning combination.
#4 Doraemon. He's like a gimmick that comes with lots more gimmicks! He's irresistable?
#5 SOC Gaiking. A solid showing.
The nominees that I'm really curious to see if and where they place are ZX-tole, SHE Godanner, and Magiking. I'm not sure if any of them have enough following to make it through, but they are all nice pieces. I'm surprised that ZX-tole got nominated over Neo ZX-tole which seems to have more gimmicks and accessories. I think it looks better too.
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Post by ataru on Dec 7, 2005 21:36:31 GMT -5
I nominated ZX-tole actually. I ordered neo too, but i was already in hawaii when it arrived in NC, so I'm not really qualified to talk about it. The neo zx-tole doesnt have better gimmicks though, IMO. It has some more hatches to open, yes, but the Zx-tole has a much more cooler head laser gimmick. Also, although I like the neo Zx-tole design, its kinda a "throw everything weapon you can on it" design and it lacks a certain elegant simplicity that the normal Zx-tole has. It also came out later, making it kind of like the SOC great maz to the SOC maz- great, yes, but not as impressive as the first time you saw the first maz.
Anyway, I was assuming that anyone that liked neo-zxtole enough to vote for it would vote for zx-tole if neo doesn't even get nominated.
I don't have one and don't really like it, but I bet Aquarion will do well. Gaiking might take first though off of character popularity. I like it, but IMO it's quite inferior to the GX-01R and GX-02R, and maybe GX-04, so it would feel kinda lame if it won. Nothing like the yamato scopedog or the masterpiece convoy.
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Post by xiombarg on Dec 7, 2005 21:49:58 GMT -5
I do like ZX-tole, and I just might vote for it. (I love underdogs). In a way I would rather not vote for my favorite bot, but rather the one that I feel will get less credit than it deserves, if that makes any sense.
I'm not a big Aquarion fan either, but I'm still guessing it will do well. Of course you never know, but I'm sure it will make it in the top ten.
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Post by Chen on Dec 8, 2005 10:39:50 GMT -5
I'll probably vote for Gaiking, not because it's that good but because the level of TOTY nominees isn't as good as years before. That and I've been waiting 20+ years for a Anime correct figure with decent articulation of one of my favorite characters.
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Post by Kidchuckle on Dec 8, 2005 12:42:05 GMT -5
I'm in the same boat with Chen. yeah sadly this year came out a little short. There was a lot of promise on some goods. But most of them I was disapointed in when I saw the final product.
Oh well. here's hoping for next year.
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Post by lurkerx on Dec 8, 2005 13:37:31 GMT -5
its funny how although i agree with most here that not alot of impressionable toys were released this year looking at the breakdown of what I had spent this year my wallet wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
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Post by ataru on Dec 8, 2005 15:08:03 GMT -5
The reason I'm thinking Zx-tole is that while Gaiking is a kind of sub-par example of it's line, Zx-tole is a godly example of its. If instead of being an organism it were a robot and had some diecast content it would probably blow all of the other contestants out of the water, but of course that's not the case. I know there are a lot more SOC fans than fans of the maxfactory guyver line, so if you don't look at it the way xiombarg said, to give underappreciated toys recognition, then it feels like just a wasted vote.
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Post by lurkerx on Dec 8, 2005 16:21:47 GMT -5
I can think of a few SOC releases that are "sub-par" in terms of quality, metal content and gimmicks Xambungle immediately comes to mind I don't think Gaiking is remotely close to "sub-par" but rather the opposite.
I'm a fan of the MF bio fighter series as well but was not attracted to Zx-tole found it too "busy" in its design of course it is by no means the fault of the toy after all that's how the character looks.
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Post by ataru on Dec 8, 2005 17:03:47 GMT -5
You found Zx-tole busy? You must be thinking of neo-zxtole. Zx-tole isn't busy at all.
Anyway, I mean sub-par because I compared the Gaiking to many other SOCs that I think are quite a bit higher quality such as the GX-01R, GX-02R, Poseidon, GX-06 etc. that got nowhere near winning TOTY and didn't deserve to. I just meant to say that Gaiking is worse than the average SOC. With the very high percentage of paint defects on the skull, high price for an individual ST sized SOC, easily retracting legs, etc., it just didn't feel up to the standard.
For comparison, I don't like the character anywhere near as much but I think the Tetsujin 28 was a much better SOC than Gaiking, with a much higher diecast percentage, new advances in articulation, consistently good paint job and lighting up at a cheaper price. I still consider Gaiking better than many other SOCs I consider below average, such as Getter Dragon, Zanbot 3, combattler or the girl bots (kinda unfair to the girl bots because they're great representations of their designs but theyre just not much fun), and I haven't seen Xabungle in person yet but I might end up thinking Gaiking's better than it too, hard to say yet (though Xabungle looks like it would be more fun).
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Post by Chen on Dec 8, 2005 17:16:29 GMT -5
Wow it sounds like your Gaiking has a ton of flaws. The only complaint I have is the easily retracting legs, which is more annoying than anything else. Plus the Gaiking stradles the line between the non-combiners and combiners, but personally I like it way better than Xabungle which I fooled around for half an hour and put it straight on my shelf. Anyway I do think this years TOTY year award will be close since theres no single figure that just blows away the competition.
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