3A IDW SDCC 2014 exclusive #1

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Knives

The adventures of Isobelle Pascha, Paschaborg 001is 3A and IDW’s first announced San Diego Comic Con 2014 exclusive

Prototype Preview ThreeZero – Mazinger Z

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Knives

Intro
I can probably trace the entire basis for my interest in giant fighting robots back to a few years of my childhood in the mid 80’s. As a kid, I lived in a small town in Texas a few hours outside Amarillo. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow my dad found this eclectic little Japanese import toy shop on one of our many trips to the “big city”. He knew I’d love it as I was obsessed with Transformers and Voltron, probably the two most popular robot franchises at that time to most kids my age in the states. But this little toy shop had things I’d never seen or heard of. They had VHS tapes full of this stuff called, “anime” and shelves full of these little backwards comics called “manga”. Most importantly of all, it had shelf after shelf of incredibly, mind blowing giant robots. The existence of that shop hooked me onto everything from Gundam to Godakin! I was instantly obsessed. That shop became a regular weekend destination for us, so much so that the shop owner had a small list he’d keep of all the bots I told him I wanted so my dad would know what to look for if he happened to be hunting a Christmas or birthday gift for me. Life was good and my plate was steadily full of random anime, manga and die-cast giant robots for a solid year. We eventually left the Texas pan-handle and moved away to the Eastcoast.
Despite not having access to a similar, amazing Japanese toy import shop anywhere near our new neighborhood, I maintained a fascination with Japanese robots, watching cartoons and movies that featured them as much as possible. Voltron, Transformers, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs, Gundam, Giant Robot and the ‘bot known here in the states as Tranzor Z.. the mighty, Mazinger Z.
I’ll admit, it’s been FOREVER since I’ve watched or read anything about Mazinger Z. But the instant I saw him teased by ThreeZero so many of those memories came rushing back. I knew I’d have to have him in my collection.

I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to preview him while he’s still up for preorder at ThreeZero’s shop. I find it a little ironic that the same toy company who is largely responsible for reawakening the toy nostalgia within me a few years back is the same one responsible for bringing such an iconic super robot from my childhood back to life.

Hate reading words? Check out our video preview!

Continue reading →

Review 3A SGR JC

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Knives

Intro:

Check out that flow of acronyms in the title! A little like trying to decipher a foreign language, init? Since we toy collectors tend to speak in our own language anyway, I didn’t think anyone would be too put off by it. Today, I’ll be using that acronym, not only to speed along writing out a character’s long-ish name over and over again, but also because the given name of our featured toy has a filthy, naughty, dirty word right smack in the middle of it. We don’t normally print copious amounts of cuss-based brusqueness over here at RtR.. despite the fact that we review a LOT of toys from 3A/Ashley Wood. Even though we tend to cater to an older audience and don’t take issue with the words themselves, we do our best to keep things pretty kid friendly. It’s been surprisingly easy to do up until now. For those of you who are familiar with today’s figure, there’s no mystery here. The acronym works because you already know his name. But for those of you who have no idea about this guy, it doesn’t. So in the name of journalistic clarity, we decided for at least a moment, we wouldn’t worry about censors and flood the next paragraph with a few, well-placed swear words.

Alright children, you’ve been warned. The next couple sentences hold snippets of the kind of language your Fox News marathoning Grandpa yells at the TV every time a Democrat gets elected into office. Continue reading →

SDCC 2013 Photos pt 2 – Toy Action!

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Knives

Here’s part II of our SDCC 2013 coverage. We finally went through the wheat and tossed out all the chaff, leaving only glorious toy photos for your enjoyment. Admit-ably, some of the prototype shots you’ll see in the gallery are no longer prototypes and have since moved on to full-on production. I still think you’ll find plenty here to start building an early Christmas list from. Check thing out after the jump! -> SDCC 2013 Toy Action

As I went through our remaining shots, I realized we didn’t have a ton of content for our “SDCC: Everything Else” category so in the name of efficiency, I decided to go ahead and toss the link for that gallery in this article as well. You can check out a few of the peeps and scenes we ran into at Comic Con last year right here- > SDCC 2013 Everything Else

That’ll do it for our SDCC 2013 Coverage. Maybe one day I’ll have the steeled nerves to revisit the long hibernating video project I started last July and release that. Maybe as an intoxicating siren leading up to this year’s SDCC. Or maybe I’ll just use that time to better plan what we’ll do for our 2014 coverage so it comes around as it should, when it should.