Monday, March 29, 2021

Sonic Stuff Abundance: Continuing in 2021

 The abundance of stuff seems to just keep going!
2021 so far has made the site continue to keep having 'larger than usual' type updates, just to keep up. The 2 usual sources are still in effect, which are Target & Amazon. But really, Target is going quite wild on Sonic for whatever reason. The pandemic doesn't seem to have slowed anyone down. Great news for fans until...

Jakks Pacific bungling their distribution on both figures & plush.
Some Targets NEVER get the plushes (they're supposed to appear in the electronics area), and some others skip entire waves of figures, all the while scalpers try to have an expensive party over on ebay with the stuff. The thing that defeats the scalper is good supply and good distribution. Hopefully they can improve in the future, while continuing to have the great figure variety everyone is enjoying so far.

Preview for blog-readers only: They will release Super Shadow.

Unique but not Useful: Sonic Bath Robe.
What is a bathrobe even for? Does anyone even use these? So you take a bath or a shower, dry off with a towel, put that robe on and then...what? Walk from the bathroom to your room to either get dressed or put on pjs? That's what, an entire clothing item that you wear for probably literally no more than 20 steps and 3 minutes? What is even the point? 
Apparently, many people had a similar feeling, as it did not do well in Target and all of them went to the clearance rack pretty quickly.

A Sonic First: The St. Patrick's Day Tee
Sonic & the color green are always an uncommon combination in merch, but of course, this holiday is all about the green. It's also interesting as an item because it shows how much you can/can't change on him until he looks fake. Annnnd....with the blue parts set to camo-green and the beige parts to gray yeah...he looks fake on this shirt.

Phunny Tails / Styleization -
Stylized things have their place in a line/a franchise, but when EVERYthing that comes out is stylized, it's not as great. Phunny joins the lineup with their blank-eyed 'chibi-attempt' dolls. But with Jakks Pacific making their 'little' line as well, you can't get an actual-Sonic-Sonic and that's annoying.
Stylizing as a crutch:
ABSOLUTELY. Want to make something but NOT have to hold it to the standards of good design? Want to be able to cut corners and go off-model with characters? EZ solution! Just claim 'oh that is my STYLE' and keep going. Do a good job still and have a good style and it can succeed, but....

It's good to see bed sets again. Kids get REALLY happy if they can get one of these, it is always a big crowd / fan pleaser to have a bed set available. Very nice.

Fads:
It's fine to follow fads, in this case, flippy sequins on the tee. Having Sonic 'keep up with the times' will always involve applying fads to his merchandise. If kids want to turn sequins over, then let 'em loose with the tee. It's an ok gimmick, if a bit hard to care for.

Item of the Week: 
Abandoned building--just because it is so mysterious and a first-sight of that kind. Usually when something goes into disuse like that, it is in an area where it's torn down/turns into something else right away but this thing had either pampas or fescue going wild around it like some kind of post-apocalypse type deal. Very odd. 

Next Week:
Maybe the site gets caught up and the email backlog can start getting taken care of. If you've sent something in, hold on because it may get on there that week and get responded to. It'll be nice to get the stuff under control again so it covers all/most of the current things and people can know where to go buy/find them.