S.H.FiguArts Dragonball Z figures!!!

[crisis]

 

[Bardoon]

Scouter 2.0 seems like a lesson that simply adding the new articulation to a design isnt always the best way to go. Scouter 2.0 is a mish-mash of super Vegeta, Trunks and scouter 1.0 parts, and unfortunately, it shows pretty badly. Tamashii really needs to start balancing the articulation with paint detail and actual design thought again, this "all in 2.0" mentality isnt working, they are sacrificing part of what made these figures so great to use this new articulation.

I would review it, but for the first time ever nippon yasan is having trouble with shipments! Still hasnt been shipped since release, and has sat in prep for the past week... -_-

Hey Deano, I'm having trouble with Nippon-Yasan as well. Is there something going on with international shipping in Japan?

I usually order EMS through them, but on a recent transaction I went with International SAL. My shipment "shipped" from Nippon-Yasan on July 7th, but according to JP Post tracking number has sat at Osaka International since July 12th...

I've reached out to them for help but they've asked me to "wait a little longer". So I'll give it to about August 12th, but that's still ridiculous that my shipment hasn't moved from Japan already.

What's the background on your issue with them?

 

[OBIBIMUS-PRIME]

You have problems with them ? :/ they're always punctual with me

 

[Bardoon]

You have problems with them ? :/ they're always punctual with me

I don't think it's so much with them, more so with the Japanese Shipping or whatever (JP Post). I usually always order EMS, but on this specific order I did International SAL. It's been taking close to a month and no movement on my order according to the tracking number since July 12th.

They're my best form of contact between me and the Japanese Post Office. I believe the International SAL also covers Insurance, so if my order is lost...then I'd at least like my money back.

 

[Big Deano]

Nope, I dont think thats the reason on mine man, it hasnt even shipped yet for me.

 

[Angelo2113]

SAL from AmiAmi is shipping normally. I have one order from them and Nippon at around the same time and that was the 28th of July.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[tinlunlau]

SAL from AmiAmi is shipping normally. I have one order from them and Nippon at around the same time and that was the 28th of July.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Sure you're not shipping by ferry cuz last time I did that, it took two months to deliver.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Angelo2113]

Sure you're not shipping by ferry cuz last time I did that, it took two months to deliver.

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

I shipped both as SAL Registered. (Nippon has a plane icon.) Both were accepted and processed through facility at Tokyo International the same day. AmiAmi just processed through facility at New York.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[DrewYojimbo]

I thought it was just me but I'm still waiting for a figure from Nippon Yasan too. It's been over a month which is highly unusual. I've been too busy to delve further into it but I got to make time.


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[Silrian]

[Scouter Vegeta 2.0 review]

I'm gonna say it, a lot of you won't agree, whatever, I think overall the line is declining in quality.

Spoiler

The peak imo was probably the androids or Battle Damaged Goku, but ironically, everything after is, retools excluded, genuinely lesser to me than there earlier stuff. Yes, something like scouter Vegeta was a bit more stylized in an SHF way compared to the anime. But for one, the anime, especially early on, could look really freakin crappy and impossible to directly translate to a good figure. Some things improve, like faces expression matching the anime. but in terms of paint, shading, proportions/sculpt and actually hiding joints, the 2.0 stuff is a decline imo. The OG scouter Vegeta has better, more believable and seamless proportions overall, with more elegant joints. The armor joint is utterly pointless on the 2.0 for example, because it looks terrible and is completely inaccurate. Vegeta's new head sculpt is way too big (as made evident by that photoshop of a reworked majin vegeta a few pages back). Was that the case in the anime sometimes? Yes, in older stuff, and it sucked then and sucks today. Making bad animation a base isn't a good choice to me, especially when the show made it better as time went on. There's not even panel lines, the mid torso joint leaves a huge gap, the shoulders are better on this, were ridiculous on the ssj 2.0 vegeta. And I still am BAFFLED by their ugly choice of knee joints for the upcoming goku tien and yamcha. (Try to find the later ssj4 prototype that had a new ball-based knee joint that was excellent, why was that not used?) As it stands, readily conceding it all has its good and bad sides, I like the old sculpts more. That or the new ones just aren't enough of a net improvement all things considered.

TL;DR for most of ya'll I assume.

I don't know, it's obviously personal preference, but I liked the elegance the earlier figures had even if it was a little stylized and had its flaws that could've been remedied without making new mistakes. These remain the best DBZ figures I know easily but at the same time, considering how slow this line is, every new improvement that doesn't actually 'improve' is just a bummer.

 

[NSJ23]

In the preview for next episode, it looks like 17 will be getting his ass handed to him by the universe 2 fighter women

I stand by my statement, 17, 18 and Frieza are uni 7 &'s arse kickers

 

[crisis]

Guess I was wrong 17 not even flinching due to his infinite stamina

 

[Sonny545]

@ Adeno A similar thing happened to me, when I ordered Kaioken Goku. I contacted them numerous times until they finally charged me additional shipping costs. After that it didn't take them very long to ship the item but it was annoying nonetheless, especially because I payed for EMS.

 

[Silrian]

Guess I was wrong 17 not even flinching due to his infinite stamina

BASED 17! Lmao, during that transformation I was like please someone just smash these people, and I can't believe 17 of all people just smacked them. I hope Frieza knocks one of these goofy idiots off. But it's awesome as hell how badass 17 is. It's settled, I really want DBS 17 and 18 figuarts. I want this tournament line-up.

Also, was anyone else like 'Yeah that attack is called fury cutter'?

Btw we finally saw the two last warriors of U6, on that display and they're Namekians! Really curious who they are, they haven't shown up at all yet.

 

[Bardoon]

I'm gonna say it, a lot of you won't agree, whatever, I think overall the line is declining in quality.

Spoiler

The peak imo was probably the androids or Battle Damaged Goku, but ironically, everything after is, retools excluded, genuinely lesser to me than there earlier stuff. Yes, something like scouter Vegeta was a bit more stylized in an SHF way compared to the anime. But for one, the anime, especially early on, could look really freakin crappy and impossible to directly translate to a good figure. Some things improve, like faces expression matching the anime. but in terms of paint, shading, proportions/sculpt and actually hiding joints, the 2.0 stuff is a decline imo. The OG scouter Vegeta has better, more believable and seamless proportions overall, with more elegant joints. The armor joint is utterly pointless on the 2.0 for example, because it looks terrible and is completely inaccurate. Vegeta's new head sculpt is way too big (as made evident by that photoshop of a reworked majin vegeta a few pages back). Was that the case in the anime sometimes? Yes, in older stuff, and it sucked then and sucks today. Making bad animation a base isn't a good choice to me, especially when the show made it better as time went on. There's not even panel lines, the mid torso joint leaves a huge gap, the shoulders are better on this, were ridiculous on the ssj 2.0 vegeta. And I still am BAFFLED by their ugly choice of knee joints for the upcoming goku tien and yamcha. (Try to find the later ssj4 prototype that had a new ball-based knee joint that was excellent, why was that not used?) As it stands, readily conceding it all has its good and bad sides, I like the old sculpts more. That or the new ones just aren't enough of a net improvement all things considered.

TL;DR for most of ya'll I assume.

I don't know, it's obviously personal preference, but I liked the elegance the earlier figures had even if it was a little stylized and had its flaws that could've been remedied without making new mistakes. These remain the best DBZ figures I know easily but at the same time, considering how slow this line is, every new improvement that doesn't actually 'improve' is just a bummer.

You bring up some excellent points Silrian, and naturally this line is going to draw comparisons when you "redo" past figures. I think there are pros and cons to each side and some of them do line up to personal preference, namely the sculpts. Unquestionably the paint applications on the older figures were way better, but they also suffered from quality issues like the loose joints. While on the newer figures like Scouter Vegeta, they make weird paint shading decisions like a dark spot on his crotch? WTF Tamashii? I hope some asks Adam Newman about this at the next event.

It's honestly a matter of preference and how some of these decisions pan out. We're getting to a point where we're paying more for these figures and it's looking like $50-$60 might become the new price-point and if Tamashii fails to deliver, then they could lose out on sales.

 

[Snake Plissken]

I'm gonna say it, a lot of you won't agree, whatever, I think overall the line is declining in quality.

Spoiler

The peak imo was probably the androids or Battle Damaged Goku, but ironically, everything after is, retools excluded, genuinely lesser to me than there earlier stuff. Yes, something like scouter Vegeta was a bit more stylized in an SHF way compared to the anime. But for one, the anime, especially early on, could look really freakin crappy and impossible to directly translate to a good figure. Some things improve, like faces expression matching the anime. but in terms of paint, shading, proportions/sculpt and actually hiding joints, the 2.0 stuff is a decline imo. The OG scouter Vegeta has better, more believable and seamless proportions overall, with more elegant joints. The armor joint is utterly pointless on the 2.0 for example, because it looks terrible and is completely inaccurate. Vegeta's new head sculpt is way too big (as made evident by that photoshop of a reworked majin vegeta a few pages back). Was that the case in the anime sometimes? Yes, in older stuff, and it sucked then and sucks today. Making bad animation a base isn't a good choice to me, especially when the show made it better as time went on. There's not even panel lines, the mid torso joint leaves a huge gap, the shoulders are better on this, were ridiculous on the ssj 2.0 vegeta. And I still am BAFFLED by their ugly choice of knee joints for the upcoming goku tien and yamcha. (Try to find the later ssj4 prototype that had a new ball-based knee joint that was excellent, why was that not used?) As it stands, readily conceding it all has its good and bad sides, I like the old sculpts more. That or the new ones just aren't enough of a net improvement all things considered.

TL;DR for most of ya'll I assume.

I don't know, it's obviously personal preference, but I liked the elegance the earlier figures had even if it was a little stylized and had its flaws that could've been remedied without making new mistakes. These remain the best DBZ figures I know easily but at the same time, considering how slow this line is, every new improvement that doesn't actually 'improve' is just a bummer.

Agreed. SSB Goku is trash with that awful little hair sculpt and the paint doesn't match Vegeta's. Scouter Vegeta and Nappa have paint apps done by Jakks. SSG Goku looked great... and then they give him the wrong sized body. There's more misses than hits lately.

 

[Cooler]

You bring up some excellent points Silrian, and naturally this line is going to draw comparisons when you "redo" past figures. I think there are pros and cons to each side and some of them do line up to personal preference, namely the sculpts. Unquestionably the paint applications on the older figures were way better, but they also suffered from quality issues like the loose joints. While on the newer figures like Scouter Vegeta, they make weird paint shading decisions like a dark spot on his crotch? WTF Tamashii? I hope some asks Adam Newman about this at the next event.

They have access to facebook and forums like everybody else. All the feedback they can imagine in just a couple of clicks. But they didn't care when a lot of people pointed that A16 or Nappa was too short, blue tone/crossed arms for SSB Vegeta, Mystic Gohan's faces, Perfect Cell's skin tone and so many others things. And they won't care reading a lot of comments complaining about Majin Vegeta's hair, neither Gotenks' proportions, nor kid goku's giant head, wrong sized body for SSG goku... And all of this much months before the release of each figure. They simply DON'T CARE.

It's honestly a matter of preference and how some of these decisions pan out. We're getting to a point where we're paying more for these figures and it's looking like $50-$60 might become the new price-point and if Tamashii fails to deliver, then they could lose out on sales.

Totally agree. In a line of almost 8 years old, it's time for bugs to be minimized and have once and for all some high quality standards according the price we pay...

 

[misterW]

holy crap you guys are really ripping into the line haha I do agree there's been some questionable decisions but i dont think it's nearly as bad as you guys make it sound, although i do respectfully see and understand your opinions.

Here's how i see it, it's a bit long but thanks to anyone willing to read it! :

Spoiler

As far as height of the line i gotta say SWA Goku is for sure a big peak but im gonna add in and say broly as well. For both those figures almost everything is perfect, detailing, sculpt, artiiculation, accuracy. If a casual DB fan asked me what are the must have figuarts as they only want 1 or 2 i would tell them to get those two (broly being somewhat optional due to the price hike of it being a web exclusive and an SDCC).

The knee cap thing coming on the upcoming 2.0's i understand the that people think is ugly, while it seems like a good idea it's really an inbetween solution that doesnt look perfect either way. If you have him standing you can kind of see the separation, and if you bend the leg you can tell it's a knee cap (IE trunks and krillin). I'm also not sure why they went with this vs the rounded hinge joints, they use those rounded joints on other figuarts already like their star wars or naruto for example. I think they mightve thought that fans liked the knee cap idea more, which wouldve been okay if they had done it like they did for broly, his knee joints were all molded with detail. Understandably, he's a bigger character so it's easier to do that with him, so like many others i agree the next best thing was rounded knee joints. With the 1.0 style the bent knees look ugly, but if you stand them straight it's completely hidden.

On the point of detailing, definitely some of the past figures have done it better. Biggest example is OG scouter vegeta, excellent shading and detail and tons of accessories. but the OG SSJ vegeta doesnt look too good imo, way too much shading on the skin and he just looks like he came out of a tanning salon or something. At the time all the 1.0s were the best dbz articulated figures to date, but some of the articulation is pretty dated especially the goku body and the old vegeta body. I personally like the super vegeta 2.0 alot more than the OG, aside from shading on the armor i feel that that was a decent 2.0, the shoulders were a bit much but really once you pose him you dont really notice it too much anymore (at least for me anyway).

Personally, i feel the sculpting and articulation are much better with the 2.0s, as far as hiding the joints are concerned it's the exact same way imo. In fact the knee joints look a bit better on 2.0 vegetas as they are the same color and material. The OG scouter vegeta the knee joints arent even painted it's a glossy plastic while other parts are painted matte. But in terms of techniques the elbows and bare knees (meaning non baggy pants characters) are all the same method and dont look different to me, hinged joints for elbows and knee joints that look like knee caps. What i think is holding it back is definitely lack of effort on detailing and shading. The old figures definitely make for better quality display pieces because of that, especially for people saving space with vanilla poses. The 2.0s however, need to be in expressive or dynamic poses to get them to look better due to lack of paint shading (also wth is up with the crotch shading they keep doing lol it's really dumb).

So overall, there's good improvements but i think what 2.0's are really suffering from is lack of paint detailing. For example, black series Qui Gon jin for star wars, first look, it seems terrible, but a customizer reapinted the head sculpt and actually, it's quite accurate. Same for the mezco bvs superman, final product seems to be barely passable as henry cavill superman, but again some customizers have repainted the sculpts (no modding) and actually the sculpt is quite accurate. Paint detailing goes a long way when it comes to how figures look, and really i think if tamashii put the same effort into detailing as they did into the 1.0s we would really be blown away. I love all my 1.0s theyre great, but im also an articulation buff as well, and the 2.0s can be posed much better and more natural looking imo.

Also yes, im just as disappointed in the final SSG product, they dropped the ball on that BUT the SSG hair sculpt being reused as a normal goku hair looks great (ie goku black) and shows yet again better sculpting than the original imo, it even has the striations in it like some of the other later artwork of dbz, not saying the OG goku hair is bad (it's quite great actually) but yeah. I also dont feel that the SSB goku is trash either, i think it's a pretty good figure, i do agree the hair could be flared out more as it's kind of too rounded in, but it's not trash, it has alot of new sculpting in it and is a decently done figure aside for maybe the gi being too red. Originally, the hair was gonna match SSB vegeta's but they changed it on the final product but didnt change vegeta's, so dunno why they changed one but not the other, i personally like the way it was gonna look and the way vegeta's looks more. I also dont know why they continue to use ball joints for ankles when other figuarts already use the peg hinge joints (which allow for way better up and down and pivot etc). I also, like the new vegeta hair sculpt, although i agree it's a bit much for normal black hair vegeta it doesnt look too bad to me still, although as far as facial accuracy goes i think SSB vegeta faces are more accurate but the new ones arent too bad.

Sorry for the long post guys, but that's just my 2 cents as well. Tamashii definitely needs to up their efforts though and stop trying to pull a hasbro bucky cap and reuse body molds for everything even on things that dont fit (ie SSG goku), theyre doing some things right but rushing and trying to save TOO Much money resulting in new better sculpts not getting detailing etc and ending up appearing a bit worse despite being better sculpted.

 

[crisis]

All of yous guys bring up valid points. Despite my criticisms which have been documented as well, I will continue to support this line, in hopes of receiving characters that otherwise never had a figure, or are considered niche by the fans such as Yamcha. Dunno if I'll support that 2.0 Vegeta though. AnthonysCustoms perfectly summed that figure up in one word, it looks "unfinished"

Many people forget that at one point this line was flat out cancelled. Tamashii had totally lost faith in the DBZ license once upon a time. In that sense we have become a bit spoiled, otherwise we would only have Piccoro, SS Vegeta & Goku in our collections and that's it. They would've left us wondering "why the hell didn't they make more of these?" Even when the quality dips, we are still hella lucky to even have such a large selection of characters at this point in the game. If the 2.0's dont meet their sales expectations, then it's very possible their business strategy will change & the future of the DBZ line will be in jeopardy once again. Just something to consider

 

[Snake Plissken]

I'll continue to support it too, but there is some nonsensical creative choices in there. Majin Vegeta looks ace so that's all that matters to me right now.