Book in Figure Blue

Oh my God!!! I finally got a copy of Book in Figure Blue! Yaaaaaay~!!! A million thanks to Forest Cat, my friend in Hong Kong!!! (^_^) Also, another million thanks to JH, who brought it to me during his vacation. Oh~~~ I've been hoping to get this ever since Red. I'm soooooo happyyyyy~!

This whole Book in Figure thing pisses me off. Here's little background info.

Red: 12oo yen. Came out Dec 2004. Limited special order edition, but still easily available today. Price ranges form 400 yen (Yahoo Japan auction) to 1600 yen (Amazon Japan Collectibles).

Blue: 1400 yen. Came out Aug 2005. Same as Red, a limited special order edition. Sold out right away. It was entered into "Re-release.com" in Oct 2005, just 2 months after release! Today, only second handed copies (may or may not be used) are available. Price ranges from 4090 yen to 7980 yen (both from Amazon Japan Collectibles, as it hardly ever show up in auctions. Here's one on Yahoo Japan sold for 3800 yen).

I bought my copy of Red for $25 at a toy store last summer. Who would ever imagine, a few months later, it was on sale at the only Japanese book store in town for only $10! And it took a while to sell out too! At that point, I kind of suspected Red wasn't selling well in Japan.

My suspicion was confirmed. Many Japanese fans were reporting the same situation on their blogs. There were still piles of Red lying around in stores. If it was a limited edition, the only way this could happen, was that the stores over-ordered. (Or, could this "limited" thing be a hoax?) Nevertheless, instead of admitting they over-stocked, the stores decided that this series wouldn't sell, and drastically cut the number down on Blue. On the other hand, fans saw that it wasn't necessary to actually place an order for Red, it might just be the same for Blue. Wrong! So a lot of people missed out on blue.

BTW, this "Book in Figure" series was published by Square Enix. They seemed to think anything to do with FMA would sell. Look at their trading art figurines. (Ouch... don't get me started on that...) So, serves them right for Red.

Haha... enough ranting. Back to the Blue figure. Standing at 9.2 cm, the details are great for it's size. Although everyone says Blue is smaller than Red, the characters are actually at the same scale. (Head sizes are the same.) Just because Al is huge, and Ed sits high, Red looks bigger. Just like the tall glass vs wide glass trick. (But I can't deny that Red is heavier.) I'll do a more detailed review at my toy site later.

And I haven't finished reading the book yet. Maybe I should leave it till later too. Right now, I wanna keep working on starting a FMA site.

Oh, one last thing. Red and Blue each contains half of a coupon set that gets you "Black" for free. It only makes sense to publish one on the Homunculi after this army book. But too bad, the project seemed to have fallen apart. Black turn out to be 3 pins, no book, no figurine.