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| New York's American International Toy Fair September 30 - October 3, 2023 |
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Statues and Countdown Characters! In the world of licensed character products, it's hard to find a company that's doing something new, or building it out. This one had a few pretty neat ideas - the 1:4 scale arcade cabinets are stalwarts you probably heard about already on Retronauts, and seeing 1:4 scale stools and Pepsi machines were neat additions to a growing, small arcade. But what knocks my socks off is when you see a new category. They already did a nice job with statues (and some are shown below), but what surprised the heck out of me were their Countdown Characters. Miles Prower, a Stormtrooper (no US license yet), the Enterprise D, Shrek, and more were being sold as a not-quite-advent calendar. You buy a box, and count down to an event - be it Christmas, a birthday, whatever - and build a surprisingly nice plastic statue bit by bit. They're meant to be taken apart so you can do it again next year, too. I remember when I saw "statues" interpreted as "model kids" by Kotobukiya nearly 20 years ago, and this is a lot like that - putting a familiar product through a new lens or a new process, in this case invoking a holiday product, while delivering a statue that is excellent.
| Images - More 16bit.com Toy Fair 2023 Coverage and Pictures Below |
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The Star Trek: The Next Generation NCC-1701-D looks nice, but compared to the others was on the small side. The rest all seem on par with the kinds of statues you may have seen from Diamond Select or Gentle Giant or BanDai - admittedly, not necessarily as ornate as some, but up there in terms of personality. The Stormtrooper was particularly striking by appearing in a pose I hadn't seen on a product before. These guys have a lot of interesting ideas, so be sure to keep an eye on them in the coming years. But not at Toy Fair, apparently we won't be having another one of those until 2025.
--Adam Pawlus
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