At the very least I was after an official explanation of what exactly happened between design and production, a minor apology if they could squeeze it in there, and a promise of a corrected reissue.

This is at least a step in the right direction. I honestly hope they'll consider a substantial price drop for the re-release. Enough to take the sting out this whole situation.

 

Somehow I think its' going to be a lot of disappointed people. Failure QC wise or not 99.5% of us had the chance to return a defective/possibly defective item and get our money back. I get people being disappointed,but its not like we had him for a 4 months; and 4 months and one day later its crack city. The closest your going to get is the explanation already given Gamerlingual and a reissue of fixed Hound. I don't even think the Japanese buyers were expecting an apology, and if they aren't expecting one, no one on this board is getting one. The dude from Fanstoys actually post on here and he doesn't apologize for jack, so I don't know where waiting for Takara who operates separate from this board to make a statement is coming from. My only guess as to why they recalled RID Optimus, because Encore reissue aside it was originally a toy meant for kids, making it something totally different then something designed for adults.

 

FWIW, I returned mine WAAAAAY past the return period at AJP.

 

Disappointed or not, maybe they should've issued a total product recall once word got out. It's cool though, they caught it and hopefully that'll be the end of it for major QC issues for the time being. EDIT: I'm not sure if they could've even issued a recall on that level while saving face as a company, it was just an errant thought.

I agree that an apology is unlikely, it's just an extra sign of goodwill if nothing else. Any sort of statement made at this point on their part regarding this whole issue would be welcome.

This is also ultimately a very niche line, just one more ripple in the oversized lake of the competitive industry of toys geared towards adults with disposable income.

 

I will be on that fixed reissue with the quickness.

I returned my extra to AMJ and explained exactly what was going on with that copy as well as why a large number of buyers discovering cracks/breaks even directly out of the box were also returning theirs.

They accepted it but their reply was "okay you can return this but we will never accept any other return from you kthxbai!" So, I wonder if they had gotten fed up with others' returns or the reviews for him.

As for my first, he has developed two additional cracks on him despite having been stationary for months now.

 

Was this after the 30 days? I didn't have any issue returning by original/or replacement. Told them the same thing, that they should probably pull this from overseas sale because of so many failures.

 

I had to check to be sure, but it was 25 days after delivery, and had two different representatives contact me about the return.

 

I guess it depends on which representative you get. I'm just surprised someone told you, you were out of returns but they were accepting thiem back well after the 30 days so obviously they knew they had an issue with it.

 

Great news!

 

I know right!!!??! It’s brutal and snarky and confusing as hell! Know where I got it? Angelica Pickles in Rugrats almost 30 years ago.  

 

I'm honestly dumbfounded that Takara never did anything on the lines of that with Hound, especially with how widespread the breakage was.

 

Which they did with Encore GodFireconvoy. Even amiami pulled out their stocks. For this, nyet. No pull out just sales % off. Just to be clear, my Hound as purchased from amiami (no damage yet since December 2019).

Why Takara didn't do the GodFireconvoy reall is really the story for this.

 

I assume God Fire Convoy wasn't of the best quality either? We talking similarly to Hound or something a bit different in this case?

 

Agreed. But the Encore price range is waaaaaaaaay beyond that for kids. Maybe overgrown kids.

 

If you read the horror stories on that release, you'll melt in despair ( Hound issupposedly sensitive to just staring at it, GodFireConvoy issues were like not the materials per se but on how it was assembled, mold degradation, voice chip errors......Takara must have lost a big bundle on it) like the Indy Jones Ark scene.  I was also hyped to get that one(I already own the vintage sans the Sword) but fortunately decided not to (great decision on my part)

 

Yeah, it still baffles the mind why they pulled Encore and not Hound as they probably had the same failure if not worse for Hound(flawed copy) percentage.

 

Maybe a new doctrine of deny deny deny and the public will forget? 

 

$279 for God Fire Convoy. I honestly can't fathom how ANYONE would pay that much for something that used to cost give or take $40 in stores, all due respect to anyone who collects Encores.

 

Great news. With that, I've cancelled my restock pre-order. I can wait longer!