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Post by KumaStyle.com (TJ) on Jun 7, 2017 21:16:54 GMT -5
This is one of the most odd toy releases I've ever seen. I really want the black one because I think it'll look even better next to the SOC but after this the only thing I want to know about this company are their future names so that I can steer clear.
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Post by faelon on Jun 7, 2017 22:58:30 GMT -5
Considering the amount of "end stage production and packaging process" photos we saw months ago, I'm kinda curious what the deal is? ( There is a picture on their Facebook page from Jan 21 showing trays and trays of finished "black" versions of the Lions ready for packaging.) As soon as they had parts to assemble and package you would have expected them to start throwing them out the door, even if just to the few vendors they had. Somewhere there has to be a fascinating story behind all of this. It's just too insane. They may have been counting on using pre-orders to get one last wave of money to push on to completion, and as those cancelled or fell through and they got blacklisted for the license/trademark thing they had money problems? But that's just speculation. They may be having to pulp and redo all the backaging in order to release it as even a bootleg? (But that shouldn't take THIS long in Hong Kong.) They may be on the run from the Hong Kong mob? (We've seen weirder in this Hobby.)
Icarus's sub brands are as follows, just so you know
United Gokin
Action in Metal
Super Vinyl
D.Gokin
Heroes United
As near as I can tell there has been no activity on their Facebook page at all since April. And no activity mentioning KOB or Voltron since February. It seems the last thing they shipped anywhere (at least that I can tell) was Getter Arc. And that seems to have been in small numbers. (Did anyone here actually get one of those? I haven't seen many places carry them.)
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Post by crpdiablos on Jun 7, 2017 23:52:48 GMT -5
There are aspects like the belt buckle and thigh swivel that still make me think these two are related somehow. I used to think that the mad toys version was dine by bandai just to get it out there as well as the VV
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Post by BIGFIRE on Jun 8, 2017 15:00:10 GMT -5
Oh yeah the Getter Arc. I backed off after I realized it was from them and I wanted to see a review first. Man I wonder if they will put their stuff up on eBay before it becomes garbage and gets destroyed or something. I guess someone got them good it it takes this long to do something. Just pay for the license already.
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Post by KumaStyle.com (TJ) on Jun 8, 2017 20:47:58 GMT -5
Considering the amount of "end stage production and packaging process" photos we saw months ago, I'm kinda curious what the deal is? ( There is a picture on their Facebook page from Jan 21 showing trays and trays of finished "black" versions of the Lions ready for packaging.) As soon as they had parts to assemble and package you would have expected them to start throwing them out the door, even if just to the few vendors they had. Somewhere there has to be a fascinating story behind all of this. It's just too insane. They may have been counting on using pre-orders to get one last wave of money to push on to completion, and as those cancelled or fell through and they got blacklisted for the license/trademark thing they had money problems? But that's just speculation. They may be having to pulp and redo all the backaging in order to release it as even a bootleg? (But that shouldn't take THIS long in Hong Kong.) They may be on the run from the Hong Kong mob? (We've seen weirder in this Hobby.) Icarus's sub brands are as follows, just so you know United Gokin Action in Metal Super Vinyl D.Gokin Heroes United As near as I can tell there has been no activity on their Facebook page at all since April. And no activity mentioning KOB or Voltron since February. It seems the last thing they shipped anywhere (at least that I can tell) was Getter Arc. And that seems to have been in small numbers. (Did anyone here actually get one of those? I haven't seen many places carry them.) I laughed out loud at the number of brandings there. Freaking A... With the Black Voltron, I don't know if it's the same piece just getting passed around to give a false sense of production or what but if one person has it complete then theoretically everyone should because the box is the last piece of production and that's even there negating the "sample" theory I had at first glance. |
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Post by faelon on Jun 8, 2017 22:42:18 GMT -5
Considering the amount of "end stage production and packaging process" photos we saw months ago, I'm kinda curious what the deal is? ( There is a picture on their Facebook page from Jan 21 showing trays and trays of finished "black" versions of the Lions ready for packaging.) As soon as they had parts to assemble and package you would have expected them to start throwing them out the door, even if just to the few vendors they had. Somewhere there has to be a fascinating story behind all of this. It's just too insane. They may have been counting on using pre-orders to get one last wave of money to push on to completion, and as those cancelled or fell through and they got blacklisted for the license/trademark thing they had money problems? But that's just speculation. They may be having to pulp and redo all the backaging in order to release it as even a bootleg? (But that shouldn't take THIS long in Hong Kong.) They may be on the run from the Hong Kong mob? (We've seen weirder in this Hobby.) Icarus's sub brands are as follows, just so you know United Gokin Action in Metal Super Vinyl D.Gokin Heroes United As near as I can tell there has been no activity on their Facebook page at all since April. And no activity mentioning KOB or Voltron since February. It seems the last thing they shipped anywhere (at least that I can tell) was Getter Arc. And that seems to have been in small numbers. (Did anyone here actually get one of those? I haven't seen many places carry them.) I laughed out loud at the number of brandings there. Freaking A... With the Black Voltron, I don't know if it's the same piece just getting passed around to give a false sense of production or what but if one person has it complete then theoretically everyone should because the box is the last piece of production and that's even there negating the "sample" theory I had at first glance. Boxes aren't always the last piece made. Just the actual packaging in them is the last step. Printing boxes is fast and cheap these days. You could probably get a run of them in 2 weeks assuming you were designing the art from scratch. They store flat in the warehouse to await the more complex pieces. And you can fold them into boxes to make a nice display dummy'ing up actual product.  But from those January pictures I figure they must have some completed samples to spread around a bit.  I'm thinking 36-40 pieces shown there. (I see three rows of 12'ish in each leg bot tray). So they have to have some, somewhere. What I find interesting is they would seem to have a roughly matching number of boxes in the pictured stack. So 3 dozen units might be all they ever managed to produce. |
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Post by KumaStyle.com (TJ) on Jun 8, 2017 22:48:41 GMT -5
I laughed out loud at the number of brandings there. Freaking A... With the Black Voltron, I don't know if it's the same piece just getting passed around to give a false sense of production or what but if one person has it complete then theoretically everyone should because the box is the last piece of production and that's even there negating the "sample" theory I had at first glance. Boxes aren't always the last piece made. Just the actual packaging in them is the last step. Printing boxes is fast and cheap these days. You could probably get a run of them in 2 weeks assuming you were designing the art from scratch. They store flat in the warehouse to await the more complex pieces. And you can fold them into boxes to make a nice display dummy'ing up actual product. But from those January pictures I figure they must have some completed samples to spread around a bit. I'm thinking 36-40 pieces shown there. (I see three rows of 12'ish in each leg bot tray). So they have to have some, somewhere. What I find interesting is they would seem to have a roughly matching number of boxes in the pictured stack. So 3 dozen units might be all they ever managed to produce. That's interesting as about every company I've worked with has stated that the boxes are the last thing made and then they're pretty much boxed up, put in shippers and sent out. But, that's neither here nor there; There are a number of Voltron parts in those pictures (along with boxes;) what happened to those? Were they assembled? Was something wrong? The at least one that's out there; what about it helped it get through? At this point, I'm pretty over all of this and just want the product or some sort of communication as to why it's not out there. |
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Post by faelon on Jun 9, 2017 10:49:18 GMT -5
It's more a matter of semantics and which step they are talking about. They assemble and pack the boxes last (or "make" the boxes if you prefer). But the boxes themselves are always ordered from a third party printer/cutter. They get ordered once the box design is finalized. They come in flat packed like you see above and can arrive at the factory or warehouse at any point before the product is complete. They don't assemble them until needed because empty boxes take up a lot of room in the storerooms. But a couple of pallets of flat packed boxes don't take up too much space. Marketing often likes to get the boxes printed a little early as they will use them for promotion like we see in this case. Generally they want anything with printing to have arrived well before the product is rolling off the end of the production line. This way it's there for the product to get placed straight into, and ideally it gives them enough lead time to have any printing errors fixed without disrupting the production line.
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Post by KumaStyle.com (TJ) on Jun 9, 2017 14:48:35 GMT -5
I see this thread bump and there's a glimmer of maybe updates but nope; stuff like this.
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Post by faelon on Jun 9, 2017 18:52:45 GMT -5
I'm honestly starting to wonder if the manufacturer is still an ongoing concern. Like I said nothing official from them that I could find since mid April, on any product.
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Post by S_Gokin on Jun 10, 2017 9:49:59 GMT -5
Icarus's sub brands are as follows, just so you know United Gokin Action in Metal Super Vinyl D.Gokin Heroes United what about BU Toys ? i saw some stores describe the KOB as BU Toys product |
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Post by faelon on Jun 10, 2017 23:27:40 GMT -5
Icarus's sub brands are as follows, just so you know United Gokin Action in Metal Super Vinyl D.Gokin Heroes United what about BU Toys ? i saw some stores describe the KOB as BU Toys product BU Toys was the owner of the product/tooling somewhere between MadToys and Icarus. That's why I say that this has jumped hands a number of times. I'm not sure if BU Toys was simply a name change or reorganizing of MT or they handed everything off at that point? There was also briefly another name involved at some point. "Infinity Gokin" I believe? It's a little fuzzy as to whether or not Infinity Gokin was a product line within MadToys or was in some way a company name change. I don't recall seeing it before they started claiming they were getting a Voltron license for V2. But I could be wrong on that. I thought the opriginal KoB was simply released under MadToys branding? The only thing we really know for certain is one of the reasons MadToys sold or transferred everything in its entirety to BU or Icarus is that he discovered that the product absolutely positively 100% could not be licensed under MadToys. He had said something to that effect on his Facebook page back in January or so. |
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Post by S_Gokin on Jun 11, 2017 8:27:39 GMT -5
when the KOB v1 was released it was Mad Toys, Infinity Gokin, and for numbering they used an Infinity symbol then 01, King of beasts Golion, i guess its like Bandai, Soul of chogokin gx-** then the name of the robot back in the days some were convinced that Mad Toys Infinity Gokin and miracle production are the same |
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Post by Coletron on Jun 11, 2017 12:18:40 GMT -5
A long, long time ago I read that Miracle Productions became Mad Toys.
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Post by faelon on Jun 11, 2017 14:35:01 GMT -5
when the KOB v1 was released it was Mad Toys, Infinity Gokin, and for numbering they used an Infinity symbol then 01, King of beasts Golion, i guess its like Bandai, Soul of chogokin gx-** then the name of the robot back in the days some were convinced that Mad Toys Infinity Gokin and miracle production are the same I don't think so. I seem to recall the MT guys completely denying that years ago. If anything I think Miracle Metals has something to do with Icarus Toys. I thought they more or less became a "for hire" design house. Aha! Found it. Josh has it in his review of the Icarus Getter Arc. www.collectiondx.com/toy_review/getter_arc"Remember Miracle Production who made that diecast Dairugger? Well one of the founders left Miracle Production in 2015 and went on tojoin BU Toys with Brands Unlimited. Eventually he left BU toys and went on to form a new company called Icarus Toys." So there are some ties there. But probably not in the ways we were thinking. MM became BU not MT. (Or maybe both the way that these fly by night companies can operate. But weirdly the BU and Icarus connection is well known. The MT one has always just been an assumption or rumor because "Voltron") |
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Post by crpdiablos on Jun 11, 2017 15:25:47 GMT -5
Its pretty clear all those companies, no matter what people are saying,are the same that startee as mp. I can move and say someone from.my comoany formed another company buy that really is just renaming and moving. The same guys that made dairugger are doing thus one and i bet that dave oaks is involves still. If yiu sit back and think it through all the shadyneas with dairugger and now the incresible shady behavior of this new companu the packaging,the design,the look and feel of both toys and the incredible run round which is more like a reach around with no vaselene and ask your self whT are the chances two completely unrelated companies produce back to back licensed then unlicensed products of voltron both unrelatef companies are shady as can be in the exact same ways
.OK there is no way theae two 4 or is it 10.differwnt companies arent actually onr company run by inexperienced business men that dont know what to do or how to react in the global situation they found themselves in. Think about it and if you think they arrnt the same then you should send more money for preorders before the next company takes over and the price goes up. Immseriously thinking about using the one ive been modifying as a model for a custom run of exclusive machined aluminum and composite lionbots
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Post by faelon on Jun 11, 2017 21:57:31 GMT -5
Its pretty clear all those companies, no matter what people are saying,are the same that startee as mp. I can move and say someone from.my comoany formed another company buy that really is just renaming and moving. The same guys that made dairugger are doing thus one and i bet that dave oaks is involves still. If yiu sit back and think it through all the shadyneas with dairugger and now the incresible shady behavior of this new companu the packaging,the design,the look and feel of both toys and the incredible run round which is more like a reach around with no vaselene and ask your self whT are the chances two completely unrelated companies produce back to back licensed then unlicensed products of voltron both unrelatef companies are shady as can be in the exact same ways .OK there is no way theae two 4 or is it 10.differwnt companies arent actually onr company run by inexperienced business men that dont know what to do or how to react in the global situation they found themselves in. Think about it and if you think they arrnt the same then you should send more money for preorders before the next company takes over and the price goes up. Immseriously thinking about using the one ive been modifying as a model for a custom run of exclusive machined aluminum and composite lionbots I don't know the specifics, but it is likely more that the community in Hong Kong that makes these things is fairly small and has more than a little interaction and crossover. They rent out design services. People move from one company, one project to the other. The company itself really is all about who is fronting the money this time. The more I look at it and think on it, I think the original MT was distinct from MM. When MT ran into troubles after V1, he sold his stuff to a friend, who originally was MM, was now BU and then became Icarus. It's possible all of these people may have worked on any or all of the robots from any of these outfits as well. The fact that MM's involvement with BU and Icarus and the later stages of KoB and is so openly known and admitted to makes me think that MT and MM did start out separately and just come together later. Plus honestly you can kind tell a robots lineage a bit via its design. Certain designers or design teams tend to do things a certain way. MMVV is really very very distinct from KoB in someof its design solutions. It doesn't feel like it was made by the same people. At least not unless they changed lead designers between VV and KoB. VV reminds me more of some of the ET stuff. KoB feels more like some of the 3rd Party Transformers design approaches. |
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Post by batsugun on Jun 16, 2017 3:06:50 GMT -5
I sent Icarus toys a message on Facebook over a month ago asking when the voltrons would be released. They replied this morning.
"The Black version will release in July and coloured in Aug" direct quote frame Icarus toys.
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Post by S_Gokin on Jun 16, 2017 9:05:43 GMT -5
i wont believe that, because both version were scheduled for May
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Post by batsugun on Jun 16, 2017 13:01:46 GMT -5
i wont believe that, because both version were scheduled for May According to LCM toys. The delay was due to a quality control problem. The legs an the black lion would not stay connected the blue and yellow lions. They had to fix them so the delay. |
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