{"id":2815,"date":"2009-02-06T07:19:16","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T07:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/06\/2008-in-review\/"},"modified":"2011-11-13T03:29:10","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T03:29:10","slug":"2008-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/?p=2815","title":{"rendered":"2008 in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tomahawk<\/p>\n

Summary: A busy year for Scorched Earth Toys\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"MH<\/p>\n

2008 was an exciting year for Macross and Mospeada collectors.\u00a0 So, since I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll find myself looking back on this year and wishing I had an accurate record of when things came out, here\u2019s a break down as much for myself as all of you-<\/p>\n

\"Gnu<\/p>\n

Yamato was not very prolific in the early part of 2008.\u00a0 We got a couple repaints of the SV-51 toy (which will some day make it to this website) but it wasn\u2019t until the 1\/60 YF-21 came out (after a couple delays) that things really got rolling.\u00a0 After the phenomenal 21 toy we got the Gnu line of Mac+ valks which didn\u2019t quite get the same ecstatic response.\u00a0 By the way, here in early 2009 the upgraded Gnu Mac+ valks with super parts have just gone on preorder over at Overdrive (VF-11, YF-19, and YF-21).\u00a0 If you just want to upgrade your existing Gnu, that\u2019s an option too (11,19,21).\u00a0 While those Gnus were fun, the second version of the 1\/60 VF-1 was amazing.\u00a0 Watch out for the first release of the Focker Strike 1S, they have issues with durability at the shoulder.\u00a0 Yamato followed those amazing original series mecha with the oft over-looked Destroid line.\u00a0 Talk about a year to be proud of, all three of Yamato\u2019s deluxe toys ($50+) scored in the 40s.\u00a0 Yamato also introduced the world to their new Weathering Editions with a 1\/48 VF-1S Focker and 1\/60 Tomahawk.<\/p>\n

\"CMsLegiossTread<\/p>\n

CMs made a big splash for the first time in the Mospeada toy franchise.\u00a0 They built up plenty of hype\/debate in 2007 and in early 2008 they started delivering products.\u00a0 Their first effort was the Legioss\/Tread combo pack which sold at a ludicrous price point but felt like a good old school toy to the collector\u2019s hands.\u00a0 They followed up their very line art imperfect Legioss\/Tread offering with an amazingly detailed 1\/18 Ride Armor figure that proved far too small for the complication of its design.\u00a0 Stig\/Ley releases featured brittle windscreens and lacked the tightness of fit necessary for something so small.\u00a0 Fans hungry for new Ride Armors scooped them up\u2026 but many sold them promptly in favor of the more user-friendly Mega House option that was released a short while later.\u00a0 Undeterred, CMs finished the year out by releasing both Yellow and Fuke\u2019s armors and a stand alone Dark Legioss.\u00a0 For you diehard collectors, CMs also released two unknown soldier variants and the Yellow\/Ley\/Stig toys in chrome\/metallic variants, all are limited editions with no greater than 300 pieces made (only 100 of the Ley-type unkown soldier).<\/p>\n

\"Dark\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mega House was another newcomer to the Mospeada market.\u00a0 Their first offerings were 1\/15 Stig and Ray armors.\u00a0 While I wasn\u2019t a huge fan of the parts-forming mess that I frequently found on my hands, nor the toy\u2019s penchant for falling apart, many people found them to be a better option to the tiny\/fiddly and ultimately frustrating CMs ride armors.\u00a0 Mega House made a deal with Toynami who had originally indicated they would Americanize the packaging and release them in the US but instead decided to simply release the toy outside of Japan with a Toynami sticker covering\u00a0Mega House’s emblem\u00a0on the box (and English language instructions).\u00a0 Mega House let a lot of people down by not including stickers in their original releases, it was an odd decision to say the least.\u00a0 A Yellow variant was released before year end but there still haven\u2019t even been prototypes of Houquet\u2019s armor shown.\u00a0 Collectors may recall that there was also a Dark\/Stealth VR-52F sold at some events.<\/p>\n

\"Toynami<\/p>\n

Toynami emerged from a long slumber to get back into both the Macross and Mospeada markets.\u00a0 Their first offering was the 1\/100 Super Parts which I found to be fragile and poorly designed.\u00a0 Later Toynami released their Maia Shadow Chronicles MPC Alpha and Masterpiece Beta toys.\u00a0 The Maia piece is a travesty- I\u2019ll have a post on that up shortly.\u00a0 The Beta was a truly revolutionary step forward for the company and delivered\u00a0a better effort than the CMs toy released much earlier in the year.\u00a0 Unfortunately for Toynami, a delay of the Beagle Ride Armor kept 2008 from being a really strong performance.<\/p>\n

\"VF-25<\/p>\n

Back in Macross, Bandai helped fund Macross Frontier which made most Robotech fans watch Shadow Chronicles a second time and wonder where things had gone so terribly wrong.\u00a0 Frontier was amazing and it made people want toys of their new favorite mecha and Bandai delivered just in time to make my 2008 cut-off.\u00a0 The VF-25 DX toys are the chunky toys of a new generation with a very solid feel at the expense of accurately representing the line art.\u00a0 The toy has some faults but people\u00a0who buy it\u00a0often express that they\u2019re happier with the toy than they anticipated.\u00a0 It sold out pretty quickly but a reissue shouldn’t be too far off now.<\/p>\n

\"Revoltech\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kaiyodo kept up their Macross love this year with Revoltech YF19, YF21, and Regult toys.\u00a0 Where\u2019s the VF-11B Kaiyodo?\u00a0 The toys are all cheap, come with a ton of extras, and are really fun to pose.\u00a0 For the Macross fan\u2019s cube a Revoltech makes the perfect decoration.<\/p>\n

There it is, 2008 in a nutshell.\u00a0 Let me know if you see any mistakes.\u00a0 Later next week I’ll probably do a post highlighting the very best toys that were released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: A busy year for Scorched Earth Toys\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2815"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5251,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2815\/revisions\/5251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}