I never realize how butt ugly american toys are
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There's probably a rose-tinted glasses effect, but I'm remembering having some pretty cool toys back when I was a kid. There were some ugly ones. I generally found that human faces were fucked up, but I had some nice-looking Ninja Turtles, Aliens, Predator, and others.
It's definitely not just rose-tinted glasses. There was a distinct point when toy quality took a rather sudden and sharp turn back in the early 2000's. The timing coincides with the drop in quality in kids programming/cartoons and the gaming industry becoming gigantic almost overnight.
I wonder if investors just jumped ship in droves, all at once?
American toy companies could never make a half-decent toy of a human character to save their lives. Even if the characters were cartoony or stylized, they'd still fuck em up.
Maybe I'm dating myself a bit but the starcom toys were leagues apart from anything you could get today at a toy store. High build quality, well engineered, durable metal parts and powerful magnets and motors, and cool as fuck.
I think toys got ugly because people went nuts for those goddamn Cabbage Patch Kids ....
In fairness these are exclusively Disney toys, there must be other toy makers in America.
Quality toy companies have been increasingly eaten up by larger ones over the years. Hasbro being one of the more note worthy examples. RIP Kenner.
I didn't think of it until now, but this was probably one of the first signs of hyper-consumerism I became aware of (driving production costs and sales prices insanely low, along with the quality).
McFarlane Toys is pretty decent IIRC.
They are much higher quality than Disney's crap and they don't cost that much more.
By comparison, I look at some of the videos of model and figurines in Japan and I'm already calculating shipping costs, where to display it, do I need to hide it if kids come round etc
These just make me think its a waste of plastic.
I hate funko pops for a very good reason
also good grief it's becoming cheaper to just ship stuff I want than buying local. Everything here jumped up while I was on trip. the fucking macross kit I want was like 45 bucks there, here it's like 90.
Almost everything in America is butt ugly. The cities, the suburbs, the small towns that have fallen on bad times. Most of the entertainment, a hefty chunk of the obese people, all the tats and piercings. Clothes, modern cars, modern Protestant churches... The wilderness is lovely though. Older buildings tend to be pretty. Not nostalgia if the past really was better.
Protestant here. I agree the "form follows function" view has resulted in extremely bland church interiors, including my own.
I admit it--Catholic and Orthodox church buildings have vastly more beautiful aesthetics. I respect that.
They look like office buildings. I miss the old white churches and pointed Victorian style churches. And yeah, the Catholics and Orthodoxy have beautiful churches.
That clearance bin sure is diverse.
It's race to the bottom economics of how much manufacturing costs they can cut down on in order to satiate the "eternal growth" expectations. It's not enough to simply maintain a profit, it has to grow exponentially. Tying executive benefits to quarterly growth was a retarded scheme that has irreparably damaged society.
My post on that topic earlier was mainly to see who the fuck caused that and how can we solve it.
dude I've seen gunpla prices in japan that are way cheaper than the usual toy stuff you see in big stores, for regular retail prices.
Seriously who actually likes all this capeshit?
Yep, it's amazing. Older High Grade 1/100s go for $20 or less on the Gundam store, old Master Grades around $30 (EDIT: maybe not, maybe I'm just filtering to very particular results with those prices, the MGs vary a lot in price, from $50-80). Almost makes me want to see if there's one I want to order, but I think all the ones I want are sold out, and I have a mech model sitting in my room I've yet to assemble as it is (a Type-00R Takemikazuchi).
Man, suffered through watching some Nickelodeon recently and the toy ads felt like hamfisted satire from the 90s.
Here's Barbie's dream house, oh look black wheelchair Barbie just bust down the door in her nasty cheap plastic wheelchair. Now here's a fat dumpling in a frumpy dress.
Want some hot wheels, here's a crummy basic double figure eight track and some all plastic cars with no interiors. But it's exciting because we have neon green designated crash zones!
What kind of grown-ass man cares enough about kids’ toys to record, edit, and post a half-hour screed on the topic? They’re not for you, dude.
well they're certainly not meant for kids either.
Dang, no. Now that you’ve made me think about it, I believe you’re right. Wow.
I’m just going to continue believing action figures are for kids, even though I’m likely wrong. Cause to accept the fact that these toys are legitimately intended for adults is too depressing.
The collector's market, dude. It sucks the fun out of fun stuff.
Remember, they removed the gum from baseball cards because the collectors didn't like the smell getting on their precious cards that the rest of us used in our bicycle spokes.
To be fair on that one, that gum had both the distinct flavor and texture of baseball cards, haha.
Do kids actually want most of this crap? I'm guessing not really. I can't think of any of my nephews or cousin's kids that would have wanted any of that stuff at any point in their lives, excluding the little infant age stuff but eh they probably don't like most of that either. Action figures anymore are sold to people who put them in the box on a shelf next to their funko things.