Party City Closing: Buy Sonic Supplies Now

 2025 begins and hopefully it'll be another great year for Sonic! (And fans)
Last year's "The Year of Shadow" went really well, there was plenty of merchandise for him, Sonic Shadow Generations game did really well, and popularity for all things Sonic continued in fine form around the world. From expensive pre-order bonuses in Japan (gee whiz 250 dollars worth of stuff), to all sorts of wacky and wild new things in the USA, 2024 was a very fine year for fans and merchandise. Sadly, the SonicGear site didn't really keep up with it all despite efforts. (Well, more effort did need to be applied but...)

However, 2025 also starts off with some bad news for shoppers in the USA Party City the party supply super store is closing all stores very quickly in 2025. They'll all be erased by February of this year. It's significant for Sonic though, because it was an easy and reasonably priced enough place to grab OFFICIAL Sonic party supplies without the pollution of a billion fake trash like on Amazon. Party City policed their stuff and only sold the real thing so you wouldn't have disappointed kids with ugly or nasty fake characters or unsafe materials like you do online.

Party supplies themselves are often a cool collectible because like a Sonic plastic cup doesn't have to be for a party you can just buy it for a dollar and use it for fun daily use. Posters, balloons and other stuff can decorate rooms as well as party areas. The supplies were also a constant on shelves, this stuff would be easily available for all fans for years at a time. Designs would refresh and then be re-added to shelves and then documented on Gear. Inexpensive, fun, long lasting and easy to get is a real winning combination--which is why this store going out of business is so sad to see.

So: If you see this post and want Sonic party supplies, get over there and grab while you can.

Why is it going away?
Of course all retail magazines and etc have something to speculate (the non-consumer side) but it seems from the outside that they got price-beat too often by online stuff like Amazon. Parties are rarely last-minute items, so ordering online and waiting for shipping to save dollars (rather than cents) was probably a big factor vs them. They had tried to diversify, like selling candy, and giving stores a makeover but it didn't work. There's also that mysterious "Debt Load" stuff that they 'couldnt pay off', which seems to be 'evil banker secret code' for what Bane Capital did to Toys R Us in order to ruin them, put it out of business and then eat all the land that the stores were on. Looking up what happened to TRU in the USA (not Canada) is actually quite a rabbit hole to go down.
Did something similar happen to Party City?
With 'debt load' being mentioned, it could well be, but they were also hit with going against Amazon's prices and free shipping, last-minute balloons buying couldn't sustain big footprints like that, and the general reason of inflation keeping people from...well doing as much fun stuff like decorating for parties it seems. 

A new years resolution this year is to get the updates going better.
The stuff seems to never end (a very good thing) but posting it all seems to just go further behind and it's rather frustrating to do the updates. Things also get in the way of them (like new internet installation that didn't go as well as planned) which results in more pile up of stuff. Hopefully 2025 is the year of the steadier update and catching up on things like the email where possible.

Fall Season Starts: More Merch Ahead

 Fall begins and so does the pre-holiday merchandise flood, apparently.
There's more Sonic than ever before and the site continues to...not keep up with it because it seems like for every item that goes on there 10 more of them show up somewhere else. Even with multiple items over 9 categories this time, it's still not good enough. Hoping for maybe some kind of mid-week update or something to heap on more clothing.

Fall is the season for back to school:
So, there'll be back to backpacks, lunch boxes and probably winter wear incoming. Of course, October will bring the much anticipated Sonic Shadow Generations game, which will be cause for much more merch most likely. Have you noticed the secret (but easily missed) not really an Easter Egg that's been going on with the updates? Every single one has Shadow in it somewhere, and this will continue through the whole Year of Shadow, at least 1 thing per update (but probably more) will have him every time to help celebrate the year. 

Item of the Week:
Sonic suitcase. When utilities like this appear and are also pretty well done it's always cause for celebration and to point it out. A fun rolling carry on from Bio World--hopefully at less than 80 dollars for it. Hopefully someone finds this at a physical store to chime in for the entry--lots of people will want this as its excellent storage in the home as well as while travelling. Fill it with your Sonic shirts collection! 

Why wasn't the item of the week the crystal cubes? Aren't those cooler than luggage?
Yes, they are cooler than it, but you also know that almost nobody is going to be able to get these. They're prohibitively expensive, even in Japan and they're (of course) not making many of them, so it's another of those semi-bothersome 'oh you can look at it but you'll never own it so go get frustrated' type of things that I am currently ambivalent about. 

Upcoming Annoyance:
Gotta be that Neo Metal. You can sit and watch Mephiles on Amazon just crank his price higher and higher as the time goes by. As of this Sept. 23rd blog post he's up around 48 dollars already. How high will he go? Neo Metal will likely go higher because Sonic 06 was such a...not the greatest/and the only game that had Mephiles in it so. Hopefully Jakks sees some sense and re releases these guys because everyone is clearly clamoring, scalpers are scalping at top speed and nobody's happy. 

Speaking of scalpers...
"at least I dont want chibi stuff" directed at Monogram Inc. and their irritating bag clips. Really, asking people to spend 8 or 9 dollars for something they don't even WANT? I do not understand and never will not allowing people to buy things they desire and tricking them with rubbish packaging. It's pure greed. If you're afraid something won't do well? How about you.......don't make it then! NOVEL! "Oh but you're supposed to trade them when you get duplicates". Nobody's trading their 10 dollar stuff! If it was 5 or less maybe but it's still a bucket of frustration.
And into that bucket also goes those weird Australian mining kits. Make a mess on the table and then get a repeat figure, whee. 

Next update:
Probably a clothing cleanup where tons of stuff appears over 1 or 2 categories only to try and clear out an image bin between the updates so they can handle more stuff. The point of this place is supposed to be that it alerts you and the fans when things are actually out to buy...not ages afterward because everything was too slow. 

Gotta Go Faster- Double Updates Hopefully

 The recent theme seems to have been 'gotta go not update'
But, hopefully now the updates can be better. Been trying to do about 2 of them per week to clear out the images and support more of the stuff that's coming out right now...as the site's specific function (Let Sonic fans actually find Sonic stuff they want) is to at least be timely enough to call out things while they're still buy-able.

And, with Halloween on the horizon, and back to school in the thick of it now, there's absolute tons of stuff coming out to try and keep up with. Spirit isn't slacking this time either, as there's factory photos and fan reports of new stuff arriving again--so all that has to go on before it's trick or treat time this year. (It's also that Hot Topic is apparently hot on the Sonic trail too they seem to release a new selection of stuff practically every couple weeks or so which is wild--the entire batch of socks this bonus update is all their stuff and it's sssooo many pairs.)

Item of the week:
The glow in the dark socks. It's a wacky concept but the socks are actually pretty stylish (as those things glow) if the glow is inherent in the thread to make them (and not something that can wash off) they will be quite a nice thing to own because it's just so unusual.

Anti-item:
The mutant gear! WHY GOO! Why don't you just GOO AWAY! Stupid things! Things like the absurd hair scrunchie won't get seen or do very well because it's absurd and small, but having the toy aisle bogged down with really ugly stupid obvious-cash-in-trash like the goo mobiles and hideous 'facial distortion' hotwheel cars is not a good look for Sonic. Like, as a fan, you want him associated with cool looking quality stuff, not ugly badly designed cash grabs for drooling toddlers who don't know what anything is--which is obviously what that tripe is designed for. 
They (meaning Sega) needs to stop approving every stupid idea that comes down the road because it makes the brand look bad if you go down the toy aisle and every other thing is a mutant blob creature or distorted failure. "chibi stretch" this, "he is a ball" that, the character's messed up heads are fidget spinner orbs, the characters heads are disgusting car stretchers, those stupid squishmallow lifeless-demon pillows, little goblin funko pops...EVERY single item can't be some "messed up on purpose" version of the characters or what even is the point?

Next Week:
It's going to be the full thing of 6 categories but with 2 items per category. It seems to be working pretty well to have a mid week many things-1 category and then a normal update for the 'more' stuff. A clue about something new that will appear is...Tao Paipai? (Yes that IS from Dragon Ball, so what's it doing here...next update will find out)

So Much Stuff & More on The Way

 What's the update supposed to do?
There is just SO MUCH STUFF coming out seemingly all the time. The updates can't keep up with it, and there's not infinite time to just keep doing 'huge updates' or 'multi updates' or something to try and clear out the image bins AND deal with the inbox mail.

That's right (and if you couldn't tell...well...that's because its going badly) the Gear Submissions inbox IS actually operating but everything is buried under so much piles of new stuff that the responses/answers and additions aren't going as planned at all. It's all basically under a back-log so if you sent in anything and didn't get a reply, this is pretty much why.
It extends to questions too because they get buried in the items mails. I'm trying to keep after it, but it may take some time to get it back to more normal. 

While this sounds gloomy...
It's actually pretty much good news because it means more Sonic things than ever before are showing up everywhere so collectors and fans are no doubt super happy. It's just, as a collector site it's hard to keep up with. If Gear was just a photo showcase or something, it wouldn't matter as much 'to keep up with', but it's where lots of people go to actually find out about what's available now--because it's not like GE or Bio World or something is advertising on TV and making announcements of products that everyone can see. How are you supposed to know where to look for new products especially if they're hiding socks in the electronics section? (and other random things sometimes) 

In an effort to do something about it:
There may be the return of the 'themed update', where an update only has 1 kind of thing on it to make it go faster and push more items onto the site at once. Also, if you sent something in to the email, do have patience because it'll get-gotten-to, just not as fast as probably expected. Nothing's broken, it's just buried under stuff.

Next Week:
That said...prepare for t-shirts! 
Any category that has loads of stuff in it/maybe an update to itself to see if that helps anything to go faster.

How about that new game announcement Sonic Shadow Generations?
The trailers look great so far, everyone seems pretty positive about it. Hopefully the positive continues because Frontiers is a lot to live up to--but it seems like this newer era of Sonic could actually do it. Like Frontiers really gave him/the team/whatever the ability to turn over a new leaf and stop getting distracted by weird stuff. (Or, an interesting theory posting about online is that having Sonic have like a zillion gimmicks and what-not in the mobile games keeps the main games more focused somehow or is a base to let them try things without consequences) 

Fearless: Year of Shadow Blog Post

 In April...once the year's already been going for 4 months...Sega declares this, 2024 to be the "Year of Shadow". But what does that mean exactly? Why? They updated the site with a cool CG of him, some mystery explosion, added a logo, and then didn't tell you why it started in April. It has this to say about it

"In 2024, we’re bringing Shadow into the light with a new fan celebration campaign – Fearless: Year of Shadow. While we ran with our successful Fast. Friends. Forever. program last year, our new annual campaign this year celebrates what it means to be Fearless, and embracing your inner Shadow:

BREAK BARRIERS

BE UNAFRAID

BE AT YOUR BEST

AND DO IT ALL WITH A POWERFUL CONFIDENCE."

Is there anything particularly 'Shadowy' about this year, more-so than others? Sssorta? He'll appear in the Sonic X Shadow Generations, a remaster of Sonic Gens that adds unique areas for him to go (remember he's not Classic ever) and he'll appear in that 3rd annoying Sonic live action movie. The mobile games of the time Sonic Dash & Sonic Forces Mobile also get Shadow-centric promoting things but those change weekly just about so it's not like that's major news. There may of course be something else undisclosed yet, but those seem to be the biggest things so far....unless...

Merhandise!
Of course, this is a merch site and a merch blog so here we go! While he's an add on in the game, and 'appears in' the scrungy movie, in the merchandise that they're really ramping up, he's the star. This means the only thing Shadow fans have to fear in this 'fearless year' is their wallet as cascades of Shadow stuff are coming from all angles. 

Sega is making sure that all companies with a modern license are doing something with Shadow this year. The website has only the lego set on it, but there's enough stuff for a whole update with just him (This week's) plus more stuff will be flowing onto SonicGear on future updates because they're not stopping now with stuff for him. It'll probably continue all year long, and this is a great thing because his merch usually sells really well and is popular across the board with fans. Having him on 'solo stuff' is also a good move that they seem to be starting off with. 

Serious Shadow:
Hope this gets handled well or it turns to cringe quick. Notice how the characters have a role in promotion, themes and art. Sonic is cool, Tails is cute and fun, Knuckles is a tough guy, Amy is cheerful/colorful, and Shadow...he's the serious/dangerous one. Each character brings something to the table for design and what people want to see. So, some characters work well on 'wacky joke' merchandise like silly hats for toddlers to wear & etc while Shadow...doesn't. Hopefully they can keep him in his cool lane. (Ex. Batman isn't the cheerful hero of rainbows and flicky birds and he shouldn't be, because that's not his desired role.) 

Opinion Zone:
Good idea, let's see how it plays out. How about that slogan? I guess it mostly fits...I mean it's mostly ok advice for several situations (and terrible advice for others--you should be afraid of lightening bolts) It's at least mostly fitting for him because 'be at your best' is something people cannot do at all times but it is something that Shadow would expect himself to be at all times. He's also confident when he's wrong, so I guess that's a lesson in there too. (Notice in the games he's not always on the 'right side of history' as it were & so may clash with other characters as part of the plot) 

Add ons:
Further research provides that they'll add another Shadow Food to the Sonic Pop Up Cafes, and add some of his music to the Symphony Orchestra Sonic music tour that's going on over the world this year as well. 

What's Next?
Expect Gear to be keeping up with the Year of Shadow as each merchandise is added each week that keeps getting found. 
Next Week:
After having total themes for 3 weeks in a row (very rare and unusual to happen) it'll be back to more variety so no one feels left out