ToyVey!

I was very excited this week to discover that Takara Tomy of Japan has a brand new Jenny website, just in time for her 25th anniversary.

The Jenny doll is Takara’s Barbie-equivalent… only she’s not, really, because the premier Japanese fashion doll (the one as ubiquitous in Japan as Barbie is in America) is Licca-chan, also by Takara. Licca has been beloved by little girls in Japan since 1967. Meanwhile, Jenny came on the scene some 20 years later, and was initially sold as Takara Barbie under license from Mattel. Licca is occasionally imported overseas as “Lisa”; Jenny hasn’t had that kind of luck, at least as a playline doll.

Over the years, Takara has seemed at a loss as to what to do with Jenny. There have been a few attempts to revive her as a playline doll (Angel’s Garden, which was anime-inspired; Fashion Station, which focussed on modern fashion), and many attempts to market her to collectors. They’ve done collaborations with lolita fashion brands! They’ve come out with monthly themed Calender Girl dolls (the last of which was cancelled, allegedly due to copyright issues over Rose of Versailles)! They did work uniforms, historical fashions, school uniforms, anything that might appeal to adult collectors. Transformers fans who remember Sports Label (Optimus Prime and Megatron transform into NIKE Sneakers! With real laces!) may recognize a pattern.

Judging from their own timeline, it looks like Jenny disappeared from the market around 2007. But she’s back, for her 25th anniversary!
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I’ve been back from Toy Fair for a week, and finally have all of my pictures uploaded. I’m still sorting through my memories and trying to make some time to come up with a good, cohesive Toy Fair Report (only a week late! Har!)

One common question bandied between collector sites at Toy Fair is “What good stuff have you seen?” (or “So what’s good at Toy Fair?” or “What’s new?”) In a similar vein, my husband asked me what was most exciting at Toy Fair this year.

Well.

Judging from how I reacted in person, the most exciting news was Hasbro’s My Little Pony [ASM link]. Specifically, the return of mermaid ponies/hippocampuses (albeit in the miniature PonyVille line) and of course the new Lauren Faust-designed My Little Ponies, including a princess pegacorn with glittery wings, Spike the baby dragon, and my own personal favorite, APPLEJACK! Admittedly, the hayseed/Daisy Duke depiction isn’t quite what I had in mind for Applejack, but I’m just thrilled that she isn’t portrayed as masculine just based on the “jack” part of her name.

When my husband showed me these pictures, I loudly squeed in excitement, despite being in line at Kinokuniya Books.

So that’s definitely something that I found exciting at Toy Fair.

The other thing that had me completely losing my composure and hopping up and down in glee was Evolvems. You may remember them from last Toy Fair, and the number of times that I’ve linked to them in the past while. It is so amazing to see a small toy company debut at Toy Fair and then *actually make it big*, or at least make it into some stores. I was so relieved when I saw that ThinkGeek.com was carrying their “transforming” plush… and I was excited to see that they not only returned to Toy Fair, but also brought along TWO NEW PLUSHES!

Proailurus to Smilodon is cute, but regrettably has a kind of same-y feel due to the fact that kitties are pretty cat-like no matter what. But props on the interesting coloration for the “saber tiger”!

Eoraptor to Tyrannosaurus rex. Oh my goodness, look at those little bitty T. rex arms!

I asked Avi (the Evolvems guy) if they got a lot of backlash from creationists and intelligent design supporters, and I was massively disappointed to find out that EVERYONE asks him that. I liked my husband’s suggestion that such people should just buy two of each plush and display them as two separate creature/toys.

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This afternoon, we’ll be driving down to New Haven and taking a train in to New York.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to attend the American International Toy Fair, but the stars have aligned! So I’m taking a moment to hype myself up for Toy Fair, and make predictions about the trends that I’ll see in toys this year…

Prediction 1: More DIY Hong Kong Vinyl-y things. Actually aimed at kids, as opposed to KidRobot’s DIY MUNNY, which is more likely to be found in collector-oriented stores rather than the toy aisle at Target.

Last year, we saw a LOT of companies jump on the Hong Kong Vinyl/chunky figurine bandwagon. I’m thinking that this year, we’ll see a lot of crossover between that and the usual “creative play and crafts for kids”.

Personally, I really dig the kokeshi-like figurines that MGA Entertainment’s Moxie Girlz “I am…” series come with.

Prediction 2: More DIY crafts in general.

I think the whole “Build a Bear” thing is going to expand into more “make your own cute plush”-type kits, probably overlapping with “make your own cellphone charms and danglers”. As cellphones become more and more ubiquitous, I believe we’ll see more emulations of Japanese cellphone straps and tiny plush and all kinds of stuff, aimed at the Kid Market.

I was impressed to see that Bandai’s Harumika has expanded its line, and has even inspired similar toys from the Project Runway toyline by Fashion Angels. Who knew that something as simple as a fashion form to mold fabric around could become an entire genre! I suspect that it’s a combination of the resurgence in fashion-related reality TV shows and parents’ fond memories of paper dolls that’s creating this interesting niche in the toy and crafts aisle.

I’m not sure what trends we’ll see in Boys Toys. I would imagine every company is scrambling to come up with their own answer to Spinmasters’ astoundingly popular Bakugan, but the beautiful simplicity of a magnetic auto-transforming ball is pretty hard to beat.

Comic Con Day 2 was a big day for fans of BBC’s Doctor Who and Torchwood series! A two-hour block was dedicated to these two series, with appearances by new Head Writer Steven Moffat, producer Julie Gardner, and Torchwood stars John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, and Naoko Mori.

…Unfortunately, we don’t have any pictures to share from the panels. Instead, please enjoy the following pictures taken while I shuffled through the line to purchase San Diego Comic Con exclusives from Mattel. It was only an hour long wait, thank goodness, and we were able to get the exclusives we wanted.

We’re at San Diego Comic Con, where the air is hot and heavy with excitement over the latest comic, gaming, and pop culture news.

Wednesday night was Preview Night, when preregistrants were permitted to enter the exhibit hall early to get a glimpse of what’s in store. Here are a random selection of things that we found exciting or notable… the My Little Pony 25 Ponies for 25 Years project, the 3 3/4 inch Hellboy action figures, and some upcoming World of Warcraft action figures!

Sam & Max Season 2 Episode 4: Chariots of the Dogs
From Telltale Games (http://www.telltalegames.com)
Available now

Okay, I admit it — I’ve been a lousy reviewer this season. It’s not Telltale’s fault! The Sam & Max Season 2 episodes have been good! But between traveling for work and Toy Fair and basic procrastination, I keep missing my chance to review the new chapters until it’s too late.

Well, not this time, bucko.

We’ve had a pretty good season up to now. There’s been more variety of locations and storylines, a few new characters, and lots of good gags. Just like last season, there’s generally been one puzzle per episode that’s stumped me for hours until I’ve finally slapped my forehead and said, “DUH.”
Okay, I’ve needed to ask Max for help a couple of times, too. Yes, this old-school adventure gamer is ashamed. But I also appreciate this season’s clever new hint system, which lets you set the frequency at which your loveable lagomorph companion offers vague chatter to gently steer you in the correct direction without outright hitting you over the head with it. And I especially like that the default setting for this hint system is “off” so that I can continue to feel good about myself and my awesome puzzle-solving skillz.

So hey, new episode! Flying saucers! Time travel! Faces from the past, present and future!
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Tamagotchi Connection V5

Manufacturer: Bandai

MSRP: $14.99

Availability: Mass retail, now

Website: tamagotchi.com, TamaTown.com

Question: What’s even cuter than a Tamagotchi virtual pet?

Answer: A whole bunch of Tamagotchi pets, bouncing around on your screen!

Bandai’s fifth-generation Tamagotchi virtual pets have arrived, and they’ve brought their entire family! Old-school Tamagotchi fans may remember the whispered rumors of secret codes that would let you have twin Tamagotchi. Now, thanks to the miracles of modern technology, you can raise an entire family of Tamagotchi brothers and sisters at once. No special codes required! Just pull out the tab, set the time and your birthday, and you’re immediately presented with three bouncing Tamagotchi triplets, each with its own unique appearance and personality.

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Oh, what a day.

We spent the bulk of our day travelling from shopping mall to shopping mall, getting clothing repaired and returning items and picking up items and buying the World’s Tiniest Unicron and hunting down the elusive Sector Seven Truck.

Yes, Sector Seven, the highly secretive government agency from the 2007 Transformers Movie had brought its Mobile Command Unit to Springfield to assure citizens that NBE (Non-Biological Entities) absolutely did not exist.

Locating the Sector Seven Mobile Command Unit was no easy task. Keep reading →

Introducing a new segment of ToyVey: TOy GeVault! A catch-all for old toy reviews, items in our toy vault that we’re just now unpacking, and anything else that’s not quite new-news.

Tamagotchi Connection V4

Manufacturer: Bandai

MSRP: $14.99

Availability: Mass retail, now

Website: tamagotchi.com

In past years, I have been a veritable Tamagotchi maniac. I bought Tamagotchi-related books while in Japan, translated any Japanese information that I could find into English and put it on my website, and kept copious notes on the results of my inhumane experiments in light deprivation and so forth.

With Tamagotchi Connection V4, though, I’ve been considerably more relaxed. In fact, my Tamagotchi Connection V4 lay dormant and in-package for some time after I purchased it (the glow in the dark one which was the winning design in the Great Tamagotchi Shellection Contest). I didn’t do any research on what the “good” Tamagotchi characters looked like… or even which characters were part of the teen stage and which were part of the adult stage.

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What does June 2nd mean to you?

For some, it was the same as any other Saturday… the beginning of a weekend, with the promise of fun in the sun, fireworks at night, and many other early summer pleasures.

For Transformers fans, it was the street date for the toys and associated products for the upcoming Transformers live action movie, aka Shiny New Robot Toy Day.

Here at ToyVey, we joined our Transfan brethren in setting up a detailed plan of attack.

8 AM sharp, be at the local Target store for the opening of the doors!
Make sure to get the Target Exclusive Transformers Stratego game, as well as the Target Exclusive Robo-Vision Prime action figure!
Don’t forget to get one of their Transforming gift cards!

10 AM, be sure to swing by Radio Shack to pick up their exclusive Transformers ZipZaps remote control cars!

We ran into a few fellow collectors and swapped tales of the hunt. “The Wal-Mart in the next town over has had the whole movie assortment out since last week!” “I hear there’s going to be a sale on some of these tomorrow…” “I already got the Movie Preview toys and all the Deluxes at a different store.”

The toy-hunt intensified with the late-breaking news that some of the Optimus Prime Voice Changer helmets (“with real movie voices!”) had the voice of Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime’s voice-actor in the original series and the live-action movie), whereas others had a voice that sounded like Gary Chalk (Optimus Primal from Transformers: Beast Wars, as well as the more recent Transformers cartoons).

We ended up getting the Gary Chalk variant, and will be keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the Peter Cullen version. We apologize in advance to Target and Wal-Mart customers for the endless cries of “I… Am… Optimus Prime!” that will echo through stores as we mash buttons in an attempt to figure out whether the helmets sound sufficiently like Peter Cullen.

In the meantime… we have some serious toy opening to do!