One of my first stops at the 2015 New York Toy Fair today was the Kotobukiya booth, which I cruised into with a sparkle in my eyes and dreams of seeing the Kotobukiya X-Men ARTFX+ statues in my heart. Unfortunately, those dreams were shattered.
But as a consolation prize, I did get to see the just-revealed Avengers: Age of Ultron Kotobukiya Iron Man Mark 43 ARTFX statue!
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Last week, Kotobukiya knocked the respective socks off of Marvel collectors everywhere when they revealed their first two Avengers: Age of Ultron ARTFX+ statues: Hulk and Hulkbuster Iron Man. At the time, I predicted that these would be the two most expensive Kotobukiya Marvel ARTFX+ statues released to date–and I was right. But while the price range was what I expected on Hulk, the ARTFX+ Hulkbuster Iron Man is a, uh… ‘little’ more than I expected: the Kotobukiya Hulkbuster Iron Man and Hulk statues are now available for order!
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When it was announced a couple months ago that Kotobukiya was producing Avengers Age of Ultron ARTFX+ statues, my gut feeling was “Meh. It’ll take a lot for Kotobukiya to impress me with movie-based ARTFX+ statues.” Well, today Kotobukiya unveiled the very first two Kotobukiya Age of Ultron ARTFX+ statues, and it’s time for me to open my mouth and eat some crow, because both are absolute must-buys: the Kotobukiya Hulkbuster Iron Man and Hulk ARTFX+ statues have now been revealed!
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When we get into the second half of 2015, Star Wars is going to be everywhere–and I mean everywhere. But we’re still in the first half of 2015, and for now, everything is coming up Avengers! And in honor of what may become the highest-grossest superhero movie ever, a new series of statues has now been announced: movie-based Kotobukiya Avengers Age of Ultron ARTFX+ and ARTFX statues!
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This summer Kotobukiya began teasing Marvel collectors about their next line of Marvel NOW! ARTFX+ statues that would be following up the hit Avengers ARTFX+ series.
Once Kotobukiya declared the series would be of another ultra-popular Marvel superhero team, it didn’t take a genius to guess who Kotobukiya was talking about, but today Kotobukiya announced it officially at NYCC 2014: the Kotobukiya X-Men ARTFX+ statues series will begin in 2015!
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…Well, that was fast. Kotobukiya hasn’t exactly been trying to keep it a secret that they have a grey X-Force Deadpool ARTFX+ variant statue in the works for next year, what with them openly talking about it at San Diego Comic-Con 2014 last month and showing off sneak peek photos last week. Even so, for some weird reason I thought that this variant statue wouldn’t be going up for sale for a while yet, as it was scheduled to be a store exclusive. I thought wrong! The statue will be exclusive to all retailers who use Diamond Previews, and the exclusive Kotobukiya Deadpool X-Force ARTFX+ statue variant is now up for order!
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It’s impossible to have a conversation about modern comic book characters that have exploded into ‘A’-List headliners for their respective companies without mentioning the Merc with a Mouth himself, Deadpool. Despite having only first appeared in 1991, the fairly recently-created Deadpool has become one of the most popular and recognizable characters in the entire comic book world. So it’s only natural that for their first non-Avengers Marvel Now! ARTFX+ statue, Kotobukiya would select one of Marvel’s most trendy characters–the Kotobukiya Deadpool ARTFX+ Statue has now been revealed!
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Just because we’re only three weeks away from San Diego Comic Con 2014 doesn’t mean that every company has played all its cards already as far as Marvel SDCC 2014 exclusives go!
Today, Kotobukiya revealed a third exclusive statue that I had a feeling was in the works–the SDCC 2014 Kotobukiya Gray Hulk ARTFX+ statue has now been revealed!
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It’s taken about a year since the first prototypes were shown and a third of a year since we saw the unpainted sculpt of the final piece in the series, but the Kotobukiya Avengers Now ARTFX+ statues have finally assembled! Though Kotobukiya stole his spotlight away by announcing a red-and-gold Iron Man variant on the same day as his painted premiere, the black-and-gold Marvel Now Kotobukiya Iron Man ARTFX+ statue is now fully revealed and available for order!
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This week Kotobukiya premiered the first paint photos of what I fully expected to be the final entry in the Kotobukiya Avengers ARTFX+ statues line: Iron Man. But while Iron Man was the sixth statue revealed for a line that was only expected to include six figures, Kotobukiya had a twist for us: a previously totally unannounced seventh Avengers Now ARTFX+ statue that’s also Iron Man! Coming to stores at the end of 2014–the Avengers Kotobukiya Iron Man variant ARTFX+ statue in classic red and gold is now up for order!
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Things have been pretty quiet on the Marvel Kotobukiya statues front ever since they released the Avengers Hulk ARTFX+ statue that I reviewed last month.
But while we’re still waiting for the pre-order and painted prototype photos of the last statue in the ARTFX+ Avengers Now lineup (Iron Man), we’ve got something new to get excited about–the second (and in my opinion, best-looking) of the Kotobukiya Avengers has now been released: the Kotobukiya Black Widow ArtFX+ Statue is now in-stock and ready to be ordered!
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After salivating over the Kotobukiya Marvel NOW! Avengers ArtFX+ statues since last summer, the first (and biggest!) character of the series is now shipping to stores: the 1/10 Avengers Kotobukiya Hulk ArtFX+ Statue!
Non-coincidentally, it’s time for my inaugural Kotobukiya review, focusing on the aforementioned Hulk statue. The Kotobukiya Avengers Hulk statue is now in-stock and available for order–but is it worth your sixty bucks?
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Sometimes you wake up in the morning and it is legitimately the perfect day. For me, this morning was one of those mornings. Not only did I wake up this morning to discover that the first Guardians of the Galaxy trailer had premiered overnight (an event which I knew about but somehow forgot to watch anyway), but then I logged onto my computer to discover a totally unexpected statue announcement–the Kotobukiya Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket Raccoon and Groot ArtFX+ Statue is now available for order!
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Last week Kotobukiya posted a teaser photo of a certain black and purple bow, so it didn’t take someone with the IQ (or humongous, bulbous brain) of The Leader to know that the Kotobukiya Hawkeye ArtFX+ Statue was about to debut in painted form. And sure enough, Kotobukiya has now opened pre-orders for the Hawkeye Kotobukiya Avengers statue! But while ol’ Hawk-guy is the statue I was most anticipating out of this series, something feels a bit off about this figure…
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Now that the holidays are at an end (at least for a couple weeks), I’ve got a chance to step back and discuss some news items I didn’t have time to talk about during Thanksgiving break. First up on the list is the third release in the Marvel NOW Kotobukiya Avengers ArtFX+ line: Captain America! Cap debuted at SDCC 2013 in July, but was M.I.A. when NYCC 2013 rolled around in October. Luckily, he’s returned safely from his mission and is now fully-painted! Even so, he’s probably my least favorite of the Kotobukiya Marvel NOW Avengers ARTFX+ Statues thus far…
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