Monday, September 09, 2013

JW Surprises & Halloween Prep

This week, you'll notice a new page/category for Gear!
It's "Sonic theme Halloween". I realized that Accessories had like way too many costumes and masks, so anything devoted totally to Halloween (just the holiday, not 'dress up' stuff) had to get it's own page/it was over-due. The page is full already. If anything else turns up, it would need a page 2 already. So...there was quite a pile of items.

Halloween has (until...now-ish) been a holiday of irritation for Sonic fans & parents of fans.
Every year, without fail, Gear would get tons of letters from parents freaking out that their kid couldn't dress as Sonic (or anyone else) because nobody made a costume and whoever it is can't sew. Improvised costumes, fits, and many a dollar were had upon ebay looking for a trick or treat solution that was always hard to find and usually disappointing. People who wanted to dress themselves up for a party too, would write in, only to be disappointed.

This year, however, at least for kids (mostly) you can put together a decent costume from store bought stuff. The Knuckles/Boy suit with the Knuckles play stuffed fists & Knuckles character cap/w/facepaint would be a good starter combo. The only thing left out is the shoe covers.

Adults have a bit of trouble still since the women are stuck with the "theme dresses" which seem to be some kind of wierd fad (not restricted to Sonic) these last 2 Halloweens or so. A lot of people don't agree with/like the theme dresses and will write about that as well. Really, there should be both (unless there is actually 0 demand for theme dresses & it's only manufacturer assumption combined with desperation that drives them) theme dresses & also costume character suits for everyone to pick from.

Theme dress solution for anyone:
Use the character shirt part, sleeves, collar, gloves & shoe covers. BUY matching character colored pants and put those on. Add a character hat/cap, makeup and ditch those bogus ears. Then go wild with trick or treating/whatever you were going to do.

Jazwares surprises?
Yes, once more they launch new stuff without mention of it anywhere/it just shows up in stores. What's wierd is we know about a batch of things they're supposed to be letting out, but it's not THAT stuff that shows up, it's something completely else. Oh well though, because it's kind of cool.

Mini Morphed Figures are OUT:
The mini morphs are starting to show up in some people's Toys R Us stores. They should be 5.99 or 6.99 each, which is WAY more reasonable for a small non-posing display figure than the previous 9.99 that online retailers have had. Just go to your local store. TRU website hasn't bothered to post a photo yet.

Item of the week:
Sonic Gold Ring. I am a total sucker for "props". If something looks like it is FROM the game/movie/book/show whatever I will generally automatically want it more than I do like...some mug with a picture of a character on it. Like if you could choose: Goku Mug or Scouter Prop from DBZ....I would be all over the Scouter. So an actual ring is a buy for me. It's sized pretty much like if 'you' (whoever buys it) are Sonic, so that's nice too.

It isn't perfect though:
Why are there 2 buttons that do the SAME thing? Just make 1 of them make the "1 ring" sound and the other "multi ring". All both of them do is play both sounds, one after the other. Its nonsense.

The other 2 things are the "Role Play Masks"
They remind me a lot of the masks in PSO2. They're really well made though and actually look pretty decent. I can't really think of much of a use for these things other than Halloween. Still, they're the best 2 Sonic / Shadow masks ever made outside of a professional mascot suit.

In all, it was an interesting week, unexpectedly so. But it was all pretty much good things!