That clear pink Hawaiian Walking Hedoran was done in solid pink. The solid one is hard to get. It's the exact same case as the milky "revisions" of the RxH figures. Same color concept, different vinyl. With a lot of that logic one car argue the red Evil too. That red with metallic blue isn't an original RxH colorway. I agree with Alice, I like "revisited" or maybe "redux" so we can be all Hollywood about it. How about "resurrected" cause that's all metal sounding? I like the milky one a lot, but I just don't think it pops as much. That's not to discount it at all, it's pretty great on it's own. Less paint, a little more subtle.
nah I respect others, especially people here who have the guts to voice their opinions for or against and not be a baby about it. . When I create work and sell it I would never revisit it to make more money out of respect of the first buyer who had faith and support from the start. The second market is the collectors game and never the creator. When the creator starts to control this for some spotlight he is damaging his brand, his supporters and the scene whether for good intentions or not. When I read that the million should go to the creator just doesn't make any sense. The million is the value that stregthens the brand. Just like how rfso more or less was one of the reasons for killing the scene even with the best of intentions in the second market. Value is key to the life of a brand. I am just trying to observe and predict the fate of a brand I admire but you just read it as me trying to insult everyone.
Would you expand on this a little? I thought rfso was just some special limited editions created for the fans, like any other limited edition. Was it distributed differently? How did it screw things up?
maybe this wasn't Mori's intentions at all. maybe he just got tired of us foreigners begging him for the OG stuff. But I can't read the guy's mind. that would take all the fun out of it. Not that I take an opinion personally or anything (toy talk is fun), but all I meant by the "million dollar" thing was that I would personally rather support the creator by buying a revisited colorway of a near impossible to find figure (such as the red Evil), than my only option being to buy one from a collector who wants a ton of money for doing nothing but owning it. I dig some OG stuff and will pay for it if I feel that the release holds some nerdy significance to me--but I feel with some of the revisited colorways it's like Mori said "oh you like this one but was late to the game, eh? How about I just make you a new one?" I'll take that with a big smile on my face. I don't think it hurts the brand if he's giving his fans what they like--and apparently the reissues sell fast. And hey, with a reissue, the demand for the OG release will probably drop a bit so you can thank Mori for the aftermarket prices not sucking balls. See? in the end, everyone gets their toy.
It seems to me that RxH is the only sofubi line that has these regular bouts of drama and angst. Often, when people voice their true opinions, others are quick to get defensive. Granted, everyone is protective of the lines they enjoy (I was guilty of that a couple of years ago), but people seem to take opinions about RxH toys as attacks on the company or Mori. I wish we could get away from that and have an environment where people voice their opinions and let those opinions stand as that - detached, subjective points of view that spark discussion. Toy talk, not toy maker talk. I think the reason that's difficult is because this is all too personal. A very small number of people collect any of these toys, so the "maker," though not usually front and center (and not even present in most cases), still isn't too far removed. Because of that, other thorny factors emerge, making it hard to have open discussions. Which is a shame.
This has become a meta-discussion - a discussion about the discussion. And that's fine and good. But the toy discussion (at least parts of it) has certainly not been open (or maybe it has in the Internet sense of "open" which awards bonus points for being snarky). People are jumping down the throats of certain posters for expressing honest, thoughtful opinions. And that's not cool, because it will just chase them underground and we'll end up with bland threads like mayonnaise on wonder bread. The humanity!
I don't think showing your ass does anyone any good here (but sometimes it ca be funny, you gotta admit), but there's always going to be those types of post, I guess. I do think the people who are trying to have an honest chit chat about this stuff are a little ballsier than to just hide away because of some douchey post(er). I mean, we all have our reasons for collecting this line of toys--or not collecting. just try to ignore the stuff that doesn't help us understand each other. in any case, when everyone has had their say, we'll all gawk at our own collections and find that it's full of stuff that we like and nothing we don't.
Yeah I know all that's built into the cuture, and maybe that's what it boils down to. But at the end of the day, it's a bit silly when you consider the number of people who have even heard of these toys. Most toy shops in Japan haven't, or if they have, they don't carry them. So given that there are so few people even talking about this stuff, it's kind of sad that that can't be done with a little less drama.
if you have experience with other collectibles, you know that making variants of things won't do anything to the value of the originals or hurt the "brand" at all unless that just becomes the entire focus of production for an extended period (like it did with comics in the early-mid 90s). as long as the originals are differentiated in any way at all, then anybody that gets into collecting will learn about them. shit, changing the base vinyl is a huge difference compared with things you might see in other arenas (eg, everything identical except the price or some phrase's wording on the packaging/cover). if it makes you like the originals less, or if you think it's hurting your "investment", or if you're mad because now somebody else can have something that looks sort of like your super-rare whatever-it-is, you're not collecting these toys for the right reasons. like the vast majority of modern art and collectibles, down the road they will most likely not be worth any more than they are now and more than likely the values will be less. the main "value" in the hobby is the enjoyment you get out of putting together and living with your collection. and keep shit in perspective ... they're just fucking toys.
Yeah recently I've been thinking of the "greatest hits" along the lines of Transformer re-releases. I guess the main difference is it's only been 3-4 years since most of the RxH "originals" first hit the shelves, whereas most Hasbro and such redo's come out 15-20 years after the OGs. But yeah pretty consistently (and more than other sofubi lines, I think) RxH has pushed to make itself more of a toy line than a collectible line. And that's fine, but it will upset some folks who paid a lot for rare figures.
Great, because I don't like collectibles, I like toys. I leave the ceramic "Precious Moments" figurines for grandma. Sometimes I forget this is all serious bizness. Thanks Joe for a reply to my original question and the point of this thread.
Probably a stupid question but, what does RFSO mean? The only things I can think of for that acronym are filthy...
