SEGA Shop, Capcom Shop. Tets goes to these as well.

 On the same day that I went to the Transformers meets Japan popup shop, I decided to hit up the newly opened SEGA shop, as it also happens to be in Shibuya, hiding within the Parco building, which was just around the corner.

Incidentally, on the same floor was the also relatively newly opened Nintendo shop, a Capcom shop and a Godzilla shop.

Tourists were everywhere!

Tets goes to Transformers Pop-up Store (again) Aug 2025

 

As you can tell by the title, there was another pop-up store made for the wonderful money vacuum we call the Transformers.  I went to it and will now share what I have.

This one was cleverly called: 

"Transformers Meets Japan"

Tets goes to "Transformers Pop-up shop" 2025

There was a pop up shop placed in the Modi OIOI (Marui) building in Shibuya during the time of 21st February until the 2nd of March 2025.    Above is the artwork advertising it.  I went there to check it out.  The primary purpose of this pop up shop is to sell credit cards.  Actually the whole building has a very CC selling focus... Just check out this escalator.

Every escalator is like that... It's almost cult-like...

A slight rant

The EPOS card is a Japanese credit card that often has cool artwork on the cards in a variety of flavours and they have just started producing 2 types of Transformers credit card.  One features the comic artwork above and the other is a black card with the Autobot and Decepticon logos on them.  To be honest, the cards looking bloody great.  However the problem with EPOS and other Japanese CC companies is they don't have the reach that companies like VISA/Mastercard have, so really there is no point (They are also kind of expensive with monthly fees and whatnot).  

Obviously I was not so interested in getting a card, already having a few and need only one.  Plus, they are hesitant to offer them to non-Japanese people.  They were offering some freebies if you applied, but you had to be successfully approved and I believe you also had to actually use the card before getting them.  That's a few too many hoops for me to be bothered jumping through, so I didn't bother.  Enough ranting about companies capitalistic tendencies...

 I went to another pop up shop a bunch of years ago, and that one was just a tiny stand, so I wasn't expecting much.

Galvatron - Generations Selects, Toy colour version

 

Hooo, boy.  This little fellow I waited a while for.  Some reason when I saw the original colour version of this guy from the EarthriseKingdom (all those lines blended together there...) line, I just had a feeling that there was a white version on the way eventually.  Thus I held off buying and bided my time; lo and behold! I was blessed by the news that the toy coloured version (this one) was planned.

Kingdom is the purple one.  I decided to not link to the TT page, as it'll eventually disappear.

Woot!  Now I just had to pray to the Plastic Gods that Taktom saw fit to release him here. And they did, as a TT Mall exclusive (which there was a lot of going on at the time).  While the exclusives were a pain, it did mean that I just had to be on the internet ball to get one.

Obviously I did. And here we are now.

More preamble to follow:

Legends Sunfire Age of Apocalypse

 

Well, this is a story and a half.  I imported this guy, along with AOA Weapon X and Sabretooth as at the time, they were the only toy representations of the Age of Apocalypse X-Men figures.  If you haven't checked out those pots yet, please do so.  Oddly I was fairly positive that he was made by Toybiz (now gone), but he was ACTUALLY made by Hasbro.  So, there ya go. In case you were wondering.

To summarise my feels, Age of Apocalypse was the series that got me into the X-Men and comics that weren't Transformers (eventually I was a rabid Sonic comic guy too).

If I remember correctly, there was some limitation to this guy, as in shop or something.  He definitely wasn't a regular release.  ** Sometime later.**  After a bit of searching, Sunfire here was part of a vote through ye olde toilet reading Toyfare magazine.  The toilet reading is a compliment of the highest regard.  I loved that goddam magazine when it was alive.

Ok let's go!

Volcanicus Manga Final part 1 English Translation!

I have no Mouth(or do I?) but I must NOM 

So here we are with the "final" section of the Generations Selects comic series.  Well, part one of the final, so not final just yet.  But eeh, that's just being pedantic.    In this glorious episode

• Primus loses his marbles.
• A slight game related pun rears it's head!
• Seriously, just how does Purple Convoy keep munching on those Gary-gary-formers.  Is he an emo cannibal?  To top it off, he has no mouth, although in one panel the lower section of his face is obscured and you can't see the mask line, so maybe it's retractable?  these are the questions that need answering!

What a doozy it is as well.  18 pages of fun insanity.  It makes me wonder though, is this the start of the end of Generations Selects, or just this comic series?  I hope just the comic series, as I am still awaiting Armada Prime that they showed of a couple of years ago (and it looked fantastic!!).  Although I must admit I enjoy these comics immensely, so really I hope they continue in some form.

Abominus & the Terrorcons Manga translation PART 2!

Abominus and the Terrorcons Vol 2.  This was a fun read and I enjoyed it a lot.  I hope you do too!  My usual random thoughts, ramblings and theories to confuse are underneath. If you feel so inclined.

Part one here

Oh read them left to right.

Abominus & The Terrorcons, Generations Select Manga Translation

 

Whee, I love the Terrorcons and I really enjoyed working on this comic.  It represents them pretty well as a monstrous force of devastation!  So that was cool and I'm excited to find the next part of the comic.  As for the toys, well..... Being just cartoon coloured with a new chest shield and a gun, I find them a little underwhelming.  I mean the weren't in the G1 cartoon all that much and Headmasters was so tedious the very thought of watching it again gives me PTSD.  

Anyway, enough rambling, read on and enjoy.  As usual for the Selects comics, read them L-R and check out my notes and ramblings after the comic! Enjoy!

Volcanicus & the Dinobots, comic translation, part two!

Once again we're here with the Dinobots and while this was a fun one to edit for the effects, I didn't find it as mentally engaging. Mainly because there is juts a bunch of fighting going on.  Still, the end has me all excited!

Super Megatron Comic Translation Generations Selects Part 8

**Link fix update 2025**

In this exciting volume:

Star Convoy gets insulted (twice), and  impersonates Marvel’s Thor!

Super Megatron gets the munchies and The Touch!

Tet’s gets annoyed as the pages that were being worked on got an update from Takaratomy and had to be redone.

Super Megatron Comic Translation Generations Selects Part 7

Here we go with the translation of the first part of the Super Megatron comic which is meant to drum up interest in the toy of the same name from Takaratomy.  Original comic is here, I'll probably update this post with it later on.

For now, though enjoy these 3 pages.

Seacons Manga part 4, in English

 Lobclaw and Kraken rise from the depths!

This manga taken from the Takaratomy Mall page has Kraken (Seawing) and Lobclaw (Nautilator) showing up.  I've taken the liberty of translating it.

Abominable Gamble

Takara and Hasbro have moved to brand similarity for the Power of the Primes and here in Japan, we seem to be getting the exact same toys as America/Australia/UK etc. 

Being a fan of the Terrorcons, I was determined to get them one way or another and while cruising the web, I spied a listing on the TakaraTomy Mall (TTMall) for a Set of them.

Hmmmm. 

Now, according to the listing , it IS  a TTMall exclusive.

Oh, says I, mayhap there be a nice box, or little something extra to sweeten the deal?  SO taking a gamble, as the price is full retail (I can pick them up cheaper in the shops or from Amazon), I pre-ordered them.  After all they’re exclusive right?  Admittedly there was nothing extra listed on the release page, it just had the “TTMall Original” selection pegged on the page.

Well today, the friendly delivery guy dropped them off to me. 

Curiously, I cracked the box open to see…..



4 Deluxes and one Voyager.  Nothing extra.  I checked the delivery docket just to make sure they didn’t mess up the order.  Sure enough, it lists them as the Terrorcon set.


I’m still glad to have them, but I certainly could have saved some money by getting them somewhere else and was rather hoping to have at least something as a sweetener for the set.  Oh well.  I guess the extras that TakaraTomy used to do are well and truly finished.

Sonic Mania Plus Japanese Packaging

Finally Sonic Mania got a physical release, something they should’ve done at the start.  Considering how Sonic Forces got one, it just baffles me why this one didn’t.  Perhaps that’s a good thing though, as if it had got a physical release at the start, we wouldn’t have had the additional bits for the “Plus” made.  Regardless, I’ve been playing through the normal one and even went to the expense of getting the Plus copy, instead of just paying the extra 500 yen for the upgrade.  I wanted that Soundtrack dammit.

I figured that the release of Plus would be relatively the same all over the world.  As it turns out, it is not.  Check out retroking Simon’s coverage of the UK box.


So to compare, here are some shots of the Japanese box.

Looks a lot like Voltron - King of Beast

This was a whacky one.  What started off as me messing about with my new Voltron CD and making a parody introduction, ended up turning into a review.  Which I was never really entirely satisfied with.  After recording the talky-talk (yeah, professional terms here folks) about 3 times, I gave up and edited the video for a shorter video.  Original length of 25 min, way too long to be bored I thought, so I've managed to chop it down to a more bearable 14 min.

So in the end I have a video I am mostly satisfied with, but I just realised that I forgot to cover two things, the alternate face and his shield thing, and on top of that, I don't even have any photos.  Whoops.

This is Madtoys' King Of Beast.  Essentially a third party Voltron toy.  It certainly beats the snot out of the Toynami Masterpiece Voltron by about a quazilbajillion percent (may not  be a real number).  This year's Wonderfest has also unveiled a licensed version of this very toy as the REAL thing.

AH MAH GAWD.

So, I guess, you could consider this a prototype review.  Ooooh, I son't think I have any prototypes of any toys!

Punch / Counterpunch from the Transformers Collectors' Club.

Since I have decided I like editing video quite a bit, I've decided to try and work a bit more on it, hence the video review of Transformers Collectors' Club Punch here.

Since I haven't found my style of video working yet, I'm going to try a few things until something clicks with me and also clicks with my camera.  Some effects that I want to do I am not 100% sure how to pull off yet an I don't want to fork out money on a solely video camera.  So naturally, constructive criticism is welcome and most of all, please enjoy the video.

Hello Mr Bumblebee

I wonder how many people will get that reference.

Masterpiece Bumblebee arrived today at my residence.  Yay.  Previously I had spent a good half hour typing up and editing this post, then the programme crashed and now I have to start again as I hadn’t saved.  Gawdamit.
I think in the design process, Bumblebee presents a lot of challenges.  The first is his original vehicle mode, being the Choro-Q deformed beetle.  The next, would be making his robot mode scaled for the other MPs, but then the vehicle mode won’t scale well. 
What to do?  As a bonus, Bumblebee also comes with Spike in an Exo Suit!  YAY!  Finally after all these years we have and Exo Suit.  I don’t know why it took so long….  After all M.A.S.K managed to give us Scott and T-Bob right from the get-go.
So, how is the end result?  Read on to find out!

The new Shredder TMNT 2012

In my review of the 2012 version of Ninja Turtles main enemy I gave him quite a bagging due to lack of articulation and loose holding of weapons….  I did manage to completely leave out his lack of Cape…

Luckily for my TMNT collection, I discovered a release of the SDCC 2013 special edition of Shredder hanging about on local stores.  This one I could not refuse to buy!  Why?  CHROME! 

Does the chrome and new sculpt make previous Shredder redundant?

Unboxing My Black Rock Shooter Insane Part 1 and 2

So, after actually going through the terror of getting this, I finally decided to open it up.  Part one of a two part series.  This video covers the Blu Ray and outer package.  The next will cover the figma.







Part two, checking out the figma is here:

Never to be opened figures

San Diego Comic Con.  Oh how you torture me.  I saw this set planned for the SDCC a month or so ago and was a happy little jo-jo and sourced one straight away pleased with the thought of having a Legends Deapool for my collection.  It’s not until much later that I realised that these aren’t Legends figures in the 6 inch range, but the ‘Marvel Universe’ figures in the 3.75inch range.

Disappointment and happiness then flew in all at once.

On the minus side, I am still without a 6 inch Deadpool.
On the plus side, I am not at all feeling bad about leaving these guys in package.

Hasbro, being the despotic company they are rarely package items so that one can put them back in the package and make it look relatively like new.  This lot has worked well, since I already have a little Deadpool to play with, I can now look at these guys and leave them in their boxes quite happily, because with this set,
It’s ALL about the Packaging!