We help the helpless (fanfic writer)

It's kinda funny to look at my collection and think how much of it I wouldn't have now if I'd had my goals and preferences figured out earlier. And yet a lot of things I wouldn't have bought have found a home on my shelves now and I have no intentions (as of yet) to move them along.

What's got me thinking about this is that Hasbro has announced the first box set to be released in celebration of the Beast Wars 35th anniversary-- the entire S1 Predacon team .

Here's the thing. The molds used in the box set are all from the Kingdom and Legacy lines, put out a few years ago. It's hardly unheard of for old toys in new, premium decos to be released for celebratory purposes, of course. But here's another thing. This is actually just a collection of the Beast Wars Again two-pack releases put out by Takara. Which, okay, it's actually pretty cool to get them in the US since they were an Asian market exclusive and, well. We all know what importing has been like these last couple years, yeah? There are always going to be people who are new to collecting; people who didn't want something when it came out but have developed an appreciation for it later; people who didn't have the means when they needed it.

This isn't really about people, though, it's about me and my collection and my collecting. I managed to get a few of the Takara two-packs for a good price not very long ago, so I know how impressive these things look in-hand. I also have plenty of gaps to fill, so a box set wouldn't be too egregious of a double-dip. But one of the reasons I haven't yet gotten the rest of those Takara sets is that I decided to reconsider and reprioritize after getting the handful I have now. Those molds are generally good and the updated decos elevate even the weakest of them. But even so, they're a touch... off. Whether or not they're too off is a question I've been able to avoid having to think too much about since I've not yet found comparable deals on the figures I still need to finish out the lot.

My main rule for myself these days, at least as far as modern toys go, is that I give a pass to anything I can't imagine as The Definitive [Character] in my collection. No picking something up just because I think it's cool or even because it's a favorite character. Even if it means having gaps in the lineup, some things are best appreciated from a distance. There are exceptions to this rule, don't get me wrong-- gimmick lines that I want as their own display group (Missing Link), small things that made for good desk toys (Blokees, Yolopark, Auldey), anything I need to make a "shrine" display (proto-Arcee, WheelRatch), toys that do better to represent different versions of characters (Animated). None of those exceptions really apply here, though. These toys have a theme, sure, but they're bereft of gimmicks. They're not desk toys. I don't have any shrine plans (Dinobot and Blackarachnia would be contenders here but I don't like enough of their toys, lol). And they don't do a great job of representing the version of the characters that I care about, even if the redecos do make a stronger showing, because their alt modes are molded to look more like the "realistic" animals seen in WfC: Kingdom than like the original cartoon models Takara's retooling is minimal. Not to mention some of them are egregiously out of scale, though, surprisingly enough, that's not something I've ever paid much attention to with them.

On the other hand... I really, really want the show cast in my collection with modern articulation. And I could just hold out for a full lineup of MPs to scratch that itch, I guess. But do I want to? A CHUG lineup already stands out from my vintage BW but that's in a way that I find visally appealing. For the whole lot of them to be wildly too big, Idk. The Beasts are important to me and I have to admit that the show cast is one lineup I'd prefer to have in every scale. But then again, that's a preference. It's a thing I want, not a necessity. And having a lineup of toys that represent buyer's remorse as much as they represent my favorite characters isn't better, imo, than leaving that want unfulfilled.

This is a really good box set, something Hasbro can't usually boast. The corresponding Maximal set, not yet formally announced but known to be coming, will be too. The prices are even decent. And if they doesn't sell well, Hasbro could take entirely the wrong idea from that and we just don't get another shot. We might not get another shot anyway, since Hasbro has only fairly recently paid attention to the love there still is for this series and have mostly capitalized on it by homogenizing the Beasts with the more standard mechformers in whatever G1-adjacent thing is new. So, I find myself pinging between "are these the toys I want representing these characters in my collection?" and "do I think we're getting anything better?" And, I mean. It's hard to guess about these things even at the best of times but let's be real. New toys of these characters could be off the table for a slew of reasons unrelated to whatever direction Hasbro decides it wants to take the property. And their being off the table will be among the least of the concerns related to those reasons. There's an element of escapism vs reality here and once I make myself be a grown-up and confront that, admittedly, it hardly feels worth even worrying about.

So, uh. I wasn't sure where I was going with this when I started, really, and I wasn't expecting to Get Real about it. But I guess this was a lot of words to eventually say, "maybe if they go on sale."