#TopTenToysof2019 by Josh Coldiron
So the TOP TEN TOYS OF 2018 serial features begin with one of my fav contributors: Josh Coldiron - who shares with us his toy-hunting adventures! And granted, while TOYSREVIL is particularly focused on "designer toys", so too am I interested in the multiple deviations of toy-genres, which interests my own eclectic tastes, and perhaps even yours? Read-On, with everything featured below written by Josh himself, and you can stay connected to his socials at Insta @noritoy / Facebook / youtube, and his www at noritoy.com!
#10 Touma Megazord: Of all places, I found this at a target brick and mortar. I usually don’t expect to see one of my favorite vinyl designers at a mass retail, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did. Last time I found one of his figures for my collection in the wild was his take on Godzilla, which is also a must own.
Touma has been making toys for quite some time, and while his style is easy to spot, it would seem he is largely doing existing properties these days.
This figure has an interesting color scheme but is unmistakably the Power Rangers Megazord. He changed the proportions. Rather than the short arms, he lengthened them and applied a touch that you see in all his designs. There were a few other colorways of this figure at other exclusive outlets, but they climbed too high in price. I guess Target didn’t hype this enough, so it was not widespread and not at every store. The target I found these at didn’t even have them in the system so it may have been a fluke they were even there.
#9 Gurren Lagann Yoko PSG Arrange Version: I first collected some of these PSG figures when I was on a trip in Japan several years ago. Before finding these figures, I had never watched the PSG anime, which stands for Panty Stocking with Garterbelt. I did like the style of these designs though. I didn’t see the figures again for some time, and online they were pretty expensive for something so small.
I am a big fan of Gurren Lagann and I saw preorders open for a second run of Yoko and Nia done in this style. I was lucky enough to get the order before they sold out again.
While it is a set of two, and the whole set is great, Yoko really stands out to me. There is not much to say about them. They are tiny plastic statues. It’s just all about the style they are designed in. After getting the figures I decided to try a few episodes of the show. If the title wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the show is not for everyone and certainly not for kids. So fair warning.
#8 SD Cross Silhouette Mazinger Z: "Rocket punch," nuff said. For this classical icon robot, I really don’t own much in respect to the design. When these kits came out in SD variety, I really liked the proportions of the design. All the online shops had been sold out of the rocket punch version, and that was really the one I was most keen on.
One day I was at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens Japanese festival, which is slowly turning into a cosplay convention, and happened to run across a vendor there with the very rocket punchy version I wanted. It’s a strange thing how sometimes these things you really want show up in the most unexpected places. The SD design is well done on this model kit. It has good proportions and poses well. You have a few different configurations and it can even go full chibi if you want it that way. As a model kit, it did not need much. It was a fun simple build, but I wish there were stickers for the mouth vents. Luckily a paint marker was all it needed, and it looks great on the shelf.
#7 Alien MegaBox MB-01: Alien is one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers. Other than the monitors and their UIs the movie very much holds up to today as far as design and story. I don’t own a lot of alien merch though. Most of it did not appeal to me, but I have been a fan of the MegaBox figures for a while. They seemed like a small company at first. They had very nice mechanical designs and this odd gimmick of all the toys turning into a box. It made them fun. It’s like transformers, except more of a puzzle box allure. Now they seem to have gotten big enough that they do not appear to be some bootleg or third-party company. They are getting legit licenses to design for, and one of them was Alien.
This figure is great. Lots of nice little details and application of different opacity plastics. I really enjoy posing this figure and admiring the style. It looks cool in photos but is one that certainly needs to be in hand to appreciate. The announced a Queen version, which I think looks ok, but this next year I will have my eyes open for the release of the Loader design.
#6 Transformers Siege Jetfire: It’s about time for some Transformers ain’t it? If you have read my previous years, it would seem I mostly collect transformers these days. It would appear the line has taken on yet again another reboot, but it also seems they are really knocking it out of the park.
I was not really allowed to watch Transformers as a kid, but one episode I caught always stood out to me. It featured Skyfire, who is Jetfire, but it seems Transformers has always had trouble with names in one way or another. He has a great design and a more interesting backstory than most.
This toy is huge. It’s a new size class and it almost seems as if it is too large compared to other figures, but he was technically a giant among Transformers. This line has managed to do a fair job at maintaining a proper scale among characters. He is loaded with lots of cool features and parts that gets me to take him down from the shelf and change out different configurations.
#5 Transformers Siege Omega Supreme: This is not the first time this character has been on my list. Once before a third party made a good interpretation of this character. This was something I always wanted as a kid, and my grandmother was never able to find it for me. There have been some Hasbro versions of this character since then, but none of them were all that great in my eyes. Now with this siege line, they have made the figure how we envisioned him when we were kids instead of trying to recreate the old 80s toy.
First of all, it is big and solid. They have made big figures before but this one does not feel so hollow. It has a good heft. It has a very clever method for making the rocket his arms and it just bleeds so much cool in its design. On top of all that, it has about as much poseability as a small figure. They added ankle tilt, and so many fun little gimmicks it will keep me busy for a while.
#4 Transformers Optimus Prime Watch: Back in the 80s there were transforming watches. Takara had a line of robot watches as did the Gobots. In this time of dream watches where we wanted something like James Bond had worn, we settled for having things like calculators and Nintendo games as watches. In my opinion we were better off. I did always want a traditional Transformers character as a watch, but something like that did not exist—or did it. I did not know it did at least, but I got lucky one day on ebay. One of my ways of finding good deals on ebay is I search for odd spellings or combos of words to sometimes find a deal on an item. I found a listing for Transformers Toy lot. It does not tell you much about it. It would normally be buried under thousands of other listings if you were to search for that, but something in the thumbnail caught my eye as I scrolled past it. There were several items in the lot, one was including this watch. The watch really garnered my attention, but I could not find anything on it.
I decided to follow the listing, but I assumed it would get over bid. When I had found the auction, it was on its last day anyhow, so I scoured the info on the seller to make sure it was legit. I decided to set a timer for fifteen minutes till the end of auction. I came back when my alarm when off and saw it was not bid on still. I reread the description and figured I will just bid my max bid at the last minute. I am sure there are bid snipers waiting to grab this. The last minute came and I placed my bid. I watched the clock tick down and I waited.
As the auction ended and I refreshed the screen I assumed I was outbid, but I was not. I was the only bidder. I paid immediately and waited. There was no communication from the seller, and I was a bit nervous but a couple days later I get tracking. Days later the package came, and I opened it up and examined each piece as I took it out. The anticipation grew and grew till I got to the bottom of the box. All I could think was, where is the watch? I checked everything and it was not there. In the back of my mind I figured the seller did not want to give it to me even though I won it. I decided to stay calm and send a polite letter mentioning it was not included. That went ignored and eventually things got escalated with eBay, but in the end, I ended up getting the watch.
Is it a KO, is it an OG release? Looking at this thing it is kind of hard to tell at first, but I tell you if I had this in the 80’s I’d be the coolest kid in kindergarten. From my researching this is indeed likely an officially licensed product. It is a Korean made watch by La La Toys. Not only is it a gold Optimus Prime on your wrist, but it also turns into a full-on robot of him. It would only be topped if it also turned into a semi-truck. This journey I randomly stumbled upon something I imagined I wanted as a kid and discovered as an adult. While it took a little bit of effort to get in the end it was still amazing to get it as an adult collector.
#3 TitanPower Voltron: The next few are going to be tricky. They are all Voltron. We will have to see out of these three which Voltron can Voltron the hardest.
Titan Power takes the 3rd spot of the lot. Even though it’s the most photogenic and largest of the lot, it lacks one key feature. It does not transform. It is a big gokin action figure. It has some great styling which is not for everyone and was also largely copped off other designs. It is also not an official Voltron product. It is sort of in the KO or third-party grey area. It is a wicked cool looking figure though and I would be curious to see them produce a vehicle Voltron based on these designs.
#2 Bandai Soul of Chogokin Voltron: So, we are now down to the two SOCs. This is a battle to end all battles. Vehicle Voltron vs Lion Voltron. Many are not even aware of Vehicle Voltron because the legacy of the formerly name Dairugger didn’t have the global appeal of lion Voltron. When one says Voltron, the Go-Lion derived bot is what most think of. Few even remember there was even a 3rd version of Voltron. So, which is it? This is going to be an unpopular opinion. I can feel it. For my number two spot of 2019 I am going to have to pick Lion Voltron. I am sure this is hard to expect, especially since he is considered the best SOC ever made.
As far as quality and heft he is certainly the best one I have held. I did not find him to be great looking in photos, however in person that all changes. I missed the first release and managed to get the second release all because I just happened to on the Robot Japan forums the morning preorder links were being posted live. This was a high demand figure, where on the second market it was going much more than retail. Between fighting the lines with scalpers collectors that want a 2nd or 3rd for their collection and those who missed the first run it was hard to get. I saw plenty of people venting their frustrations as they missed each of the preorders that popped up. Even though I did not think it looked perfect in the pics I gambled on getting it. Once I had it in hand, I knew I had made the right choice.
#1 Bandai Soul of Chogokin Voltron: Through the powers of deduction, you most likely figured out our winner. This was not an easy choice, and it is not the first time I have had to make this choice between the two. This time, we ended up with different results. I remember being a kid in a ToysRus in the 80s. There was a stack of Matchbox Lion Voltrons and Vehicle Voltrons in the middle of an aisle. Like any kid I wanted both. I think deep down I liked the idea of combining vehicles over lions, but there was something cooler about the lion Voltron and that is the version that went home with me. I enjoyed my choice as long as I had the figure, but I never got another chance at Vehicle Voltron. At least till now.
I expected to like the lion version better. I had more memories of it, and it really is one of the best made figures I have had my hands on. That said, once I got to mess with the vehicle variant, I found the engineering to be so damn clever. It was fun to mess with. It did “feel” more fragile than lion Voltron, but I was enjoying messing with it more. It also had a gimmick that added to it greatly. By having some classic fists as well as modern ones you could have it look like a retro toy with its oven mitts or make it more modern and dynamic just by swapping out the hands.
I enjoyed messing with vehicle Voltron slightly more but even with that said that puts them about equal. This was a hard decision, the final factor that really made me pick one over the other is I simply think Vehicle Voltron is a better-looking bot. He looks better in photos and I prefer looking at him in person. They look great together and both are must haves, but the enjoyment he gives me nudged him into my 2019 top spot.
Happy New Year! It’s time for a new decade and to leave another year behind. Oh, and what a year it’s been. It’s was a very busy strenuous year for me. So much, that I actually quit reviewing toys, and have a pile of toys in my studio I have not even opened yet. I had not even been hunting toys as much since I was working my butt off to finish school. Fortunately, school is done. I just graduated from SIUE. I had made a game for my senior project and put it on display in an arcade cabinet. I was focusing my research on merging my disciplines of design and software development. It all leads up to my direction I will be taking with a lot of my projects, and I plan on sharing some of that journey on my youTube channel once I catch my breath and perhaps even some sleep.
Even though this year flew by, and I almost lost track of all the things I had gotten, I managed to keep a list of my favorite things. Every now and then I would have to bump something out of the top 10 as the year went along. Some things were found by luck while others just took some cold hard cash. Some things I had a hard time taking off the list. This year has very much been a year of collecting during the journey of life. Many things were stumbled upon or gotten by a chance. So, let’s see what kind of toys topped 2019 for me. ~ Josh Coldiron.
#10 Touma Megazord: Of all places, I found this at a target brick and mortar. I usually don’t expect to see one of my favorite vinyl designers at a mass retail, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did. Last time I found one of his figures for my collection in the wild was his take on Godzilla, which is also a must own.
Touma has been making toys for quite some time, and while his style is easy to spot, it would seem he is largely doing existing properties these days.
This figure has an interesting color scheme but is unmistakably the Power Rangers Megazord. He changed the proportions. Rather than the short arms, he lengthened them and applied a touch that you see in all his designs. There were a few other colorways of this figure at other exclusive outlets, but they climbed too high in price. I guess Target didn’t hype this enough, so it was not widespread and not at every store. The target I found these at didn’t even have them in the system so it may have been a fluke they were even there.
#9 Gurren Lagann Yoko PSG Arrange Version: I first collected some of these PSG figures when I was on a trip in Japan several years ago. Before finding these figures, I had never watched the PSG anime, which stands for Panty Stocking with Garterbelt. I did like the style of these designs though. I didn’t see the figures again for some time, and online they were pretty expensive for something so small.
I am a big fan of Gurren Lagann and I saw preorders open for a second run of Yoko and Nia done in this style. I was lucky enough to get the order before they sold out again.
While it is a set of two, and the whole set is great, Yoko really stands out to me. There is not much to say about them. They are tiny plastic statues. It’s just all about the style they are designed in. After getting the figures I decided to try a few episodes of the show. If the title wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the show is not for everyone and certainly not for kids. So fair warning.
#8 SD Cross Silhouette Mazinger Z: "Rocket punch," nuff said. For this classical icon robot, I really don’t own much in respect to the design. When these kits came out in SD variety, I really liked the proportions of the design. All the online shops had been sold out of the rocket punch version, and that was really the one I was most keen on.
One day I was at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens Japanese festival, which is slowly turning into a cosplay convention, and happened to run across a vendor there with the very rocket punchy version I wanted. It’s a strange thing how sometimes these things you really want show up in the most unexpected places. The SD design is well done on this model kit. It has good proportions and poses well. You have a few different configurations and it can even go full chibi if you want it that way. As a model kit, it did not need much. It was a fun simple build, but I wish there were stickers for the mouth vents. Luckily a paint marker was all it needed, and it looks great on the shelf.
#7 Alien MegaBox MB-01: Alien is one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers. Other than the monitors and their UIs the movie very much holds up to today as far as design and story. I don’t own a lot of alien merch though. Most of it did not appeal to me, but I have been a fan of the MegaBox figures for a while. They seemed like a small company at first. They had very nice mechanical designs and this odd gimmick of all the toys turning into a box. It made them fun. It’s like transformers, except more of a puzzle box allure. Now they seem to have gotten big enough that they do not appear to be some bootleg or third-party company. They are getting legit licenses to design for, and one of them was Alien.
This figure is great. Lots of nice little details and application of different opacity plastics. I really enjoy posing this figure and admiring the style. It looks cool in photos but is one that certainly needs to be in hand to appreciate. The announced a Queen version, which I think looks ok, but this next year I will have my eyes open for the release of the Loader design.
#6 Transformers Siege Jetfire: It’s about time for some Transformers ain’t it? If you have read my previous years, it would seem I mostly collect transformers these days. It would appear the line has taken on yet again another reboot, but it also seems they are really knocking it out of the park.
I was not really allowed to watch Transformers as a kid, but one episode I caught always stood out to me. It featured Skyfire, who is Jetfire, but it seems Transformers has always had trouble with names in one way or another. He has a great design and a more interesting backstory than most.
This toy is huge. It’s a new size class and it almost seems as if it is too large compared to other figures, but he was technically a giant among Transformers. This line has managed to do a fair job at maintaining a proper scale among characters. He is loaded with lots of cool features and parts that gets me to take him down from the shelf and change out different configurations.
#5 Transformers Siege Omega Supreme: This is not the first time this character has been on my list. Once before a third party made a good interpretation of this character. This was something I always wanted as a kid, and my grandmother was never able to find it for me. There have been some Hasbro versions of this character since then, but none of them were all that great in my eyes. Now with this siege line, they have made the figure how we envisioned him when we were kids instead of trying to recreate the old 80s toy.
First of all, it is big and solid. They have made big figures before but this one does not feel so hollow. It has a good heft. It has a very clever method for making the rocket his arms and it just bleeds so much cool in its design. On top of all that, it has about as much poseability as a small figure. They added ankle tilt, and so many fun little gimmicks it will keep me busy for a while.
#4 Transformers Optimus Prime Watch: Back in the 80s there were transforming watches. Takara had a line of robot watches as did the Gobots. In this time of dream watches where we wanted something like James Bond had worn, we settled for having things like calculators and Nintendo games as watches. In my opinion we were better off. I did always want a traditional Transformers character as a watch, but something like that did not exist—or did it. I did not know it did at least, but I got lucky one day on ebay. One of my ways of finding good deals on ebay is I search for odd spellings or combos of words to sometimes find a deal on an item. I found a listing for Transformers Toy lot. It does not tell you much about it. It would normally be buried under thousands of other listings if you were to search for that, but something in the thumbnail caught my eye as I scrolled past it. There were several items in the lot, one was including this watch. The watch really garnered my attention, but I could not find anything on it.
I decided to follow the listing, but I assumed it would get over bid. When I had found the auction, it was on its last day anyhow, so I scoured the info on the seller to make sure it was legit. I decided to set a timer for fifteen minutes till the end of auction. I came back when my alarm when off and saw it was not bid on still. I reread the description and figured I will just bid my max bid at the last minute. I am sure there are bid snipers waiting to grab this. The last minute came and I placed my bid. I watched the clock tick down and I waited.
As the auction ended and I refreshed the screen I assumed I was outbid, but I was not. I was the only bidder. I paid immediately and waited. There was no communication from the seller, and I was a bit nervous but a couple days later I get tracking. Days later the package came, and I opened it up and examined each piece as I took it out. The anticipation grew and grew till I got to the bottom of the box. All I could think was, where is the watch? I checked everything and it was not there. In the back of my mind I figured the seller did not want to give it to me even though I won it. I decided to stay calm and send a polite letter mentioning it was not included. That went ignored and eventually things got escalated with eBay, but in the end, I ended up getting the watch.
Is it a KO, is it an OG release? Looking at this thing it is kind of hard to tell at first, but I tell you if I had this in the 80’s I’d be the coolest kid in kindergarten. From my researching this is indeed likely an officially licensed product. It is a Korean made watch by La La Toys. Not only is it a gold Optimus Prime on your wrist, but it also turns into a full-on robot of him. It would only be topped if it also turned into a semi-truck. This journey I randomly stumbled upon something I imagined I wanted as a kid and discovered as an adult. While it took a little bit of effort to get in the end it was still amazing to get it as an adult collector.
#3 TitanPower Voltron: The next few are going to be tricky. They are all Voltron. We will have to see out of these three which Voltron can Voltron the hardest.
Titan Power takes the 3rd spot of the lot. Even though it’s the most photogenic and largest of the lot, it lacks one key feature. It does not transform. It is a big gokin action figure. It has some great styling which is not for everyone and was also largely copped off other designs. It is also not an official Voltron product. It is sort of in the KO or third-party grey area. It is a wicked cool looking figure though and I would be curious to see them produce a vehicle Voltron based on these designs.
#2 Bandai Soul of Chogokin Voltron: So, we are now down to the two SOCs. This is a battle to end all battles. Vehicle Voltron vs Lion Voltron. Many are not even aware of Vehicle Voltron because the legacy of the formerly name Dairugger didn’t have the global appeal of lion Voltron. When one says Voltron, the Go-Lion derived bot is what most think of. Few even remember there was even a 3rd version of Voltron. So, which is it? This is going to be an unpopular opinion. I can feel it. For my number two spot of 2019 I am going to have to pick Lion Voltron. I am sure this is hard to expect, especially since he is considered the best SOC ever made.
As far as quality and heft he is certainly the best one I have held. I did not find him to be great looking in photos, however in person that all changes. I missed the first release and managed to get the second release all because I just happened to on the Robot Japan forums the morning preorder links were being posted live. This was a high demand figure, where on the second market it was going much more than retail. Between fighting the lines with scalpers collectors that want a 2nd or 3rd for their collection and those who missed the first run it was hard to get. I saw plenty of people venting their frustrations as they missed each of the preorders that popped up. Even though I did not think it looked perfect in the pics I gambled on getting it. Once I had it in hand, I knew I had made the right choice.
#1 Bandai Soul of Chogokin Voltron: Through the powers of deduction, you most likely figured out our winner. This was not an easy choice, and it is not the first time I have had to make this choice between the two. This time, we ended up with different results. I remember being a kid in a ToysRus in the 80s. There was a stack of Matchbox Lion Voltrons and Vehicle Voltrons in the middle of an aisle. Like any kid I wanted both. I think deep down I liked the idea of combining vehicles over lions, but there was something cooler about the lion Voltron and that is the version that went home with me. I enjoyed my choice as long as I had the figure, but I never got another chance at Vehicle Voltron. At least till now.
I expected to like the lion version better. I had more memories of it, and it really is one of the best made figures I have had my hands on. That said, once I got to mess with the vehicle variant, I found the engineering to be so damn clever. It was fun to mess with. It did “feel” more fragile than lion Voltron, but I was enjoying messing with it more. It also had a gimmick that added to it greatly. By having some classic fists as well as modern ones you could have it look like a retro toy with its oven mitts or make it more modern and dynamic just by swapping out the hands.
I enjoyed messing with vehicle Voltron slightly more but even with that said that puts them about equal. This was a hard decision, the final factor that really made me pick one over the other is I simply think Vehicle Voltron is a better-looking bot. He looks better in photos and I prefer looking at him in person. They look great together and both are must haves, but the enjoyment he gives me nudged him into my 2019 top spot.
