Dragon Stars - (Dragon Ball Super figures released in US)

Branjita I feel like the removable armor figures wouldn't look that bad if they were painted better but in their current state I'd only buy them if they were under $8. They may be cool for customs though. I do agree with you on the 6.5" figures, all of them look somewhat mediocre compared to the Frieza but sadly he's probably too tall for figuarts scale. For being only $20 I can excuse most of the quality issues on those figures though. I still don't get why Bandai went with 6.5" scale, we've already got Figuarts and Figure-Rise Standard. We don't really need another 6 inch line that's just going to make the major characters and ignore most of the minor ones.

The Dragon Stars figures have been appearing in stores in Spain and Portugal the last week or so. They are supposedly going to be appearing in the UK at some store called Smyth Toys or something like that later this month as well. I don't know about the US yet (but I hardly care). They overall look pretty bad and the person who bought them from a store (named Rui Edgar) in Spain (who took these great comparison pics I've brightened up and hosted on photobucket) said on Facebook that they were $33 USD each. 

Now I don't know about you, but there's no way I would ever pay $100 for a long-legged Vegeta with no neck, a somewhat ok yet completely boring SS Goku with bad hair plastered to his forehead, or a Beerus that is inferior in every way to the Figuarts Beerus and only $10 cheaper. These figures make me angry. It reminds me of 10 years ago when Bandai was selling terrible, junky looking DBZ figures in stores in the US, and it really makes me miss Irwin and even Jakks. Why can't they just give us nice looking Dragon Ball Super figures at a 5 inch scale? Why can't they use paint instead of single-colored dyed plastic? 





You can see a set on ebay Spain here:
www.ebay.es/itm/Figura-Dragon-Ball-Super-Dragon-Stars-Series-Serie-1-Nuevas-en-caja-/112403579009?var=&hash=item1a2bc68081:m:mzi3Qdb5Gnb0NYbx37Jz7AA

And Toy Wiz is apparently taking pre-orders on these... using pictures of the prototypes... which look better than the production ones but still dumb. toywiz.com/dragon-ball-super-dragon-stars-series-1-vegeta-action-figure-shenron-build-a-figure/ 

Furthermore, it makes me angry and sad to see people on Facebook excited about these, in particular, excited about the crummy looking Shenron build-a-figure. It looks like the MEGA WCF Shenron with less finely integrated places where the plastic pieces hook together and a slightly less SD (super deformed) appearance (in other words, a slightly smaller head than the huge head on the MEGA WCF one.) And why does it make me angry and sad? Because this generation of collectors have no access to decent figures at a reasonable price. The only thing reasonably priced are the terrible looking Funko Pops. And I just don't understand how anyone likes those at all.

(prototype pic below)


Edit: Photobucket is having issues so I'm attaching the pics as well.

Yeah, pretty disappointing. It would be nice if the Dragon Stars line branched out and made figures of characters that usually don't get made because they don't look that bad. But we all know they will just make the same characters they always make, so there's no reason to get these over the Figuarts.

Man I miss the days of Irwin where they would release a wave of figures made up of characters you would never think would be made like Pui Pui and Garlic Jr. Now they have to worry about making what sells, so all we see is Saiyans and a few villains here and there. At least Figuarts seems to be getting better at this with the upcoming releases of Nappa, Yamcha, and Tien. Hopefully they sell well and we can see the more obscure characters get made.

Well, not to be dramatically negative, but I'd choose nothing over these, because I won't be buying them.

And there will probably be someone in a meeting at Bandai America in several months who says "There just isn't a demand for DBZ figures in America, we tried ten years ago, and we tried again. Nobody is buying our product and they keep getting sent to discount stores like Ross, just like they did 10 years ago." There ARE collectors. They just keep making things that we don't want. So we keep having to order stuff from Japan, because the American figures suck.

If they'd just make them 5 inch scale with reasonable articulation, good sculpts, and paint jobs that are more complicated than just solid one-colored orange plastic for Goku's outfit, they'd get my money. I'd love to have 5 inch scale DBS figures, even if I skipped the repetitive Gokus and Vegetas that look just like (or inferior compared to) what Irwin and Jakks made 15 years ago. If they produced Goku and Vegeta in their DBS outfits, I'd get them, but only if they were 5 inch scale. Emphasis on the word "scale".

Nine or ten years ago, Bandai America released 3.5 inch figures that were met with very poor sales. They looked like Happy Meal toys. They were so unpopular that we don't even have a checklist on here (I don't think) because not many people bought them or even really remember them, and I certainly don't remember them well enough to make a checklist. I think they were released under multiple names "Extreme Dragon" and "Ultimate Figures" (ironically). They were 3.5 inches tall and no scale was involved I don't think, because I'm pretty sure Perfect Cell and Frieza Form 4 were the same height. Very similar to these, they had "Quick Change" figures of only Goku and Vegeta, and they were kind of cool, only because Vegeta came with a tiny Saibaman and it was funny that we got to see that Goku apparently wears Vegeta's blue spandex underneath his orange pants. They weren't cool enough though, as nobody particularly wanted them (except people wanting to head swap Vegeta to make a Namek Saga Gohan). And despite these being unique, Vegeta and Goku's legs weren't articulated, so that hurt their sales too, in addition to the random size Bandai chose. They also had "Original Collection" which were "Real Works" figure rereleases. They were nice looking enough, though the paint jobs were single colors, but they were 4 inch scale, and Bandai America didn't release any/many of the interesting characters. We only got a bunch of Saiyans, Piccolo, and Buu if I remember right. So most people back then were like "why would I buy these?" And so both of those type of figures ended up at Ross Dress for Less stores at reduced prices as well as I'm sure other stores as well. There were also "Ultimate Spark" figures back then too, and I just remember them being small and expensive, and those didn't sell well either. They were kind of like Soul of Hyper Figuration figures with less detailed sculpts and not very good paint jobs. I think all of the figures were made a transparent plastic and maybe they lit up, so that compromised how their paint jobs looked as well. I vaguely remember Frieza's entire body looking like it needed 1 more coat of paint. Similar to Ultimate Spark in size, they had "Flash Charger" or "Flash Changer" figures which were ok, but again, too small and expensive for anybody to really care. I saw a lot of these end up at Tuesday Morning back in the day.

Long story short, I don't think Bandai America knows what people want.

Really somewhat baffled at the negativity towards this stuff. Irwin released a ton of hot garbage back in the day. People forget that figures like Yakon and Pui pui warmed shelves tenderly around Wal Marts for months. I love me some oldschool irwin and jakks figures but I am in no real rush to travel back to 2002 and wait to see "metallic paintjob wave 7" on dragonballtoyisland.com. Now to be fair I love and collect figures mostly in 7 inch. So stuff like Figure-rise and these totally appeal to me. Also this stuff will most likely be pretty widely availible (assuming distribution isnt fed) and more people in on the hobby is never a bad thing homie. If nothing else for 23ish usd, screw it.

Have faith! We may get that line yet Bran. DBS is FAR from over. The fun is just begining