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This past week was an especially busy, stressful, aggravating time for serious toy collectors, many of whom sat in front of their computers at carefully designated times and repeatedly hit the F5, or ‘refresh’ button, on their browsers in the hopes of snagging some rare, limited collectible from the internet.

Early in the week, Mattel’s online exclusive entity, Matty Collector, released a handful of new figures which have an appeal to a collector audience, but would probably not survive in a typical retail store. Of these, the most popular figure was that of Moss Man, a character from He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe. The revamped He-Man line has been fairly difficult to collect in general, but this week’s sale hit an all time record pitch of frustration.

Two different versions of Moss Man were released. While both were flocked, giving them the deliciously fuzzy feeling that the original figure had, one had flocked ears, while the other’s ears went tragically unflocked. Because I have a nascent collection of figures that are nature-centric (including a giant Lord of the Rings Ent, a Swamp Thing, and some small designer-type things), I could not resist trying to purchase both. Typically, I’ve limited my He-Man figures to characters that have skulls for faces (and there are three), but my resistance was low.

So, with a scheduled drop at noon (Eastern Time), a horde of toygeeks sat in front of their computers and hit F5 until the little ‘add to cart’ button appeared next to the Moss Men. There was a clock glitch somewhere, the figures went for sale three minutes early, and by 12:02, there was nothing left. It was as if a horde of credit card wielding locusts descended on the servers of Mattel, enduring white screens of death as pages struggled to load, and shrieking loudly on forums when they were not immediately sated. I managed to snag both versions of Moss Man, but many people were left angry.

The hardest part about this whole process is the lag time that happens to websites when they are inundated with requests for information. Mattel has set up the mechanics of their site so that your own browser page will automatically reload every few seconds until the server can process you. Effectively, this places you in a neatly organized bottleneck – but you can’t see exactly where the end of the line is. It’s hard to not conjure images of Temple Grandin and the slaughterhouse. One is very compelled to hit the old F5 button and refresh their activity, reaffirming that they are indeed still waiting patiently and present, though this action is the equivalent of being kicked to the end of the line if you express any doubt about whether or not the line is progressing at all. Any e-dissent will be e-punished accordingly.

Later on in the week was the release of 3AA’s Little Shadow figure, which was paired with a surprise release of the Cherry Shadow & Sanakhete two-pack – a variation on the Shadow figure, and variation on the previously released Boiler Zomb figure. This was announced only shortly before the drop, and was intermittently placed and yanked from the website during the initial, frantic ordering period. If you could actually get your order page to load, and you actually could hit the button at the right moment to score the two-pack, you still needed to wait for the final ordering screen to load and redirect you to payment before anything was actually yours. If someone else’s load time was quicker, the item could just as easily be pulled right from your cart, and you’d have to start all over again.

After about 20 minutes, I finally scored everything I was after. I just like redheads.

Does it sound cruel to allow you to place an item in your shopping cart, only to have someone else swing on by and put it in their own cart instead? Can you imagine any website with a 15-minute load time which people would still happily wait for? It’s a testament to the excitement of the hunt, now that we collect online so heavily, eschewing the madness of gas money and stepping over screaming kids in the toy aisle to take home a little piece of plastic art.

Earlier this month, Capcom released the tenth iteration of its core Mega Man series of games. It’s the 7th to be released in classic 8-bit style, and the millionth title that features the name ‘Mega Man’. It’s all a little confusing, but the important thing is this : there’s a brand new, unseen Mega Man game to play that feels just like it did when I got home from school in 5th grade.

While Mega Man 10 (not to be confused with Mega Man X) has been released for the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, I’m still a Wii kind of guy. So, for a scant ten bucks (in the form of Wii points) and a few seconds of wireless download time, I had a brand new game installed on my Wii – a perfect companion to Mega Man 9, which I greedily downloaded on release day in 2008 and played until I nearly went blind. It’s that much fun.

Sure, I miss holding the grey, plastic cart in my hands and popping it into the NES (though the Game Genie, because it made a better connection to the NES’s guts) and clutching the squared-off NES controller until my hands turned red – but hanging onto the Wiimote, or the Classic Controller, is pretty alright also. It’s a good enough series to want to play it for the sake of gaming alone, even without stacking it next to my plethora of NES games.

This brings up a lot of old questions about virtually collecting games on the Wii – especially because this was the tipping point between happily playing everything and running out of space. While the Wii offers spots to switch out SD cards for extra storage, it seems like it would be exceptionally simple to create a small, external USB hard drive that could easily house any and all games that are downloaded directly to the system. Instead, we need to manage our virtual game collection between the Wii’s very limited internal memory and these very tiny SD cards. As a collector, this type of arrangement is less than optimal – but as a lover of all things NES, I’ll take it.

I’ve also purchased virtual games on the Wii that I already own in their original versions, simply because I don’t currently have the space to set up all of my original consoles at once. Over time, I think it’ll be worth five bucks if I don’t have to plug in the NES every time I want to play Super Mario Brothers 3. My kingdom for a dedicated TV and appropriate shelving. And a sister who doesn’t toss your console on the floor because she needs a whole shelf for a single pair of her scandalous undies.

All of this aside, Mega Man 10 is a completely stellar, original game, and it feels far more difficult than its predecessor. I hope that this is because the game’s creators amped up the difficulty, and not just because I’m getting old. After an evening of profanity, all of which was deserved and fun, I’ve barely made it bast the third robot boss. Thankfully, the game retains the ability to save your progress, and after you’ve mastered the game, there are multiple tasks that you can accomplish by replaying the game over and over with varying degrees of skill. Should you complete this huge array of herculean feats, you can download new levels, and replay the game as two alternate characters with different abilities. In this way, the series remains relevant to modern gaming, while still feeling completely, purely 1990s.

I’d like to say this to Capcom : I would gladly pay up to $100 to own a cart version of this game, as well as Mega Man 9. I know it’s possible. You should really make it happen. I totally appreciate the vintage styled box art that you’ve put together, but take it all the way!

It’s a series that has the potential for infinite, fun continuation on the same basic platform that it has been formed around. Find a theme for a robot, design a stage around said theme, go. After playing Mega Man endlessly since I was ten, I’m still completely entranced. Yes, even through Sheep Man.

I recently had the honor of being a participating artist in Topps’ 5th series of Star Wars Galaxy trading cards, a series that I’ve been watching since the very beginning. Instead of using still frames from the films which we’ve seen a hundred times already, the Galaxy line of trading cards invites artists from all genres to create their own visions of the Star Wars universe. Recently, Topps stretched their participating artist list to include those who are known (or even relatively unknown) within the designer toy & street art worlds, and that’s where I came in. As a result of this project, I was given a complimentary box of cards.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve gone through a whole box of something and tore into randomized packs of stuff, but it’s a good feeling. It was one of my favorite aspects of collecting Heroclix – the lottery of trying to score a rare or powerful piece for your collection. As far as boxes of Star Wars cards go, each box of 24 packs is guaranteed to have one original sketch card – which is what everyone buying these packs is after. In terms of buying this set for its secondary market value, none of the many varieties of chase cards are nearly as valuable as these original artworks that are slipped into the regular packs of cards, and they come in three varieties : sketch cards, manga sketch cards, and shaped sketch cards. Some of these are sold for around $300, with many hovering around $50, and the occasional card not selling at all.

The basic set contains 120 cards in a huge variety of styles, from comic book, to beautifully painted, to propaganda-poster styled works which would look even more amazing if they were done up in actual poster size. Of course, you look at these images much more closely after you tear through the packs searching for chase cards.

Nearly every pack that I opened contained a chase card of some kind. While most were foil cards, depicting a character on a shiny background, one was a much rarer ‘gold foil parallel’ card of Darth Maul, only 770 of which were made. This accompanies the regular and bronze versions of the same card, which have backgrounds in slightly different colors. There were also 4 etched foil cards, which use an aesthetic that was once very, very rare when searching through packs of Marvel trading cards in the 1990s. It’s almost strange to see these types of cards as commonplace, but I don’t object to the new variety of chase cards featuring original art at all.

Finally, as I was nearing the end of my box, I found my chase card – a picture of Greeata (one of Jabba’s dancers) done by a mysterious artist whose signature was a scribble. If there is an element of disappointment in this, it’s that certain artists approached their sketch cards by producing the same image many, many times, instead of using each card as a new canvas for a new character, a new visual problem to solve. I had seen this card before, as someone else on the Scoundrel Publishing boards (where Star Wars card collectors gather and trade) had pulled a nearly identical card. Regardless, it was still an original artwork, and the art is expertly done, so I’m pleased to have a little part of someone else who participated in this set.

A full box yielded enough cards to complete a base card set as well, and enough to stick in the spokes of your bicycle, or whatever one does with extra trading cards now. Cut them up into little Tie Fighter replicas?

At this point in his creative career, Hayao Miyazaki has directed nine different animated feature films under his Studio Ghibli label, and every single one of them is available in the US, thanks to Disney and their talented team of translators, voice actors and dialogue-reconstructors. Take advantage of this.

While I have said before that I’m not a fan of what US television has done to anime, the films of Studio Ghibli feel like a beacon of intelligence among the horrible battling-trading-card-and-monster-shows-that-sell-merchandise which we’re now drowning in, or those cartoons that show just a few too many shots of schoolgirl underwear. While many of Miyazaki’s films focus around innocence, children, and the mystical circumstances they stumble into, rest assured that there are no underpants to contend with.

Disney has recently re-released some Miyazaki classics which you may have seen on the shelves a few years back : My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. So, let’s dissect the differences of the US releases. It goes without saying that these are all excellent films – you can find detailed criticism elsewhere.

My Neighbor Totoro was released in 2002 by Fox, though this edition of the DVD was missing the original Japanese language track, and was presented in awkward fullscreen. It was again released in 2004 by Disney with an entirely new English voice cast, and again in 2010 – both of which are 2-disc sets which differ in special features.

The 2004 release, which features a colorful fishing scene over a river on the cover, includes a featurette with US voice actors Elle and Dakota Fanning, as well as the original trailer in Japanese and the complete film in storyboard form. The 2010 release, which uses a dark blue, rainy scene on the cover and a gold slipcase spine, features an extensive exploration of Studio Ghibli as they were making Totoro, previews for a few other films, and the same storyboard version of the film as the 2004 edition – as well as a beautiful little lithograph of the cover scene.

As a completist, do you want both? My favorite part of any animated DVD is the voice acting stuff, but the choice is yours. This film is so iconic that Ghibli uses Totoro as their logo. The earlier editions are currently out of print.

Castle in the Sky, which is also sometimes called Laputa, or a combination of the two, (and not to be confused with Howl’s Moving Castle, also by Studio Ghibli), was first released by Disney on DVD within the US in 2003. This version has a light blue cover with a tress in the center, and includes an introduction by Disney’s John Lasseter, the option to view the film as the original storyboards, the original Japanese trailers, and a behind-the-scenes feature with the voice talent.

The 2010 release, which has a floating girl and a gold slipcase spine, also includes the introduction from Lasseter, the original storyboards, and a new featurette about the awesome steampunk worlds of the film – but leaves out the voice actor features again, while including a small print of the cover. Both versions are still available at the time of this writing.

Kiki’s Delivery Service was also released in 2003, featuring a cover which uses a large portrait of the protagonist. This includes the same four types of features as ‘Castle’, while the 2010 release (depicting a girl on a broomstick flying over a cityscape), mimics the three features of the 2010 edition of ‘Castle’ also. All three of these films are being re-released now to accompany the release of Ponyo, which is the newest Miyazaki release.

One thing worth noting is that all of these are, and have been, available from other publishers which are not US-based. I’ve had a few experiences with attempting to purchase anime DVDs from discount distributors before, and the results have been completely disastrous. Unless it’s a producer that you trust and has a solid reputation for releasing films in the US, buying cheap anime DVDs is a colossal waste of money – unless you speak Japanese. Most often, the subtitles are completely unreadable, having undergone translation into Korean or Chinese, and then to English. Try doing this with any sentence in Babelfish and you’ll see what I mean. So, the only sure way to get your hands on these Ghibli releases and to enjoy them is to buy the real, Disney versions of them.

I have an intense appreciation for animation, so I’ve collected just about everything that Studio Ghibli has released here in the states. To call Ghibli ‘the Japanese Disney’ would be a disservice to both studios, but both create things of such epic atmosphere and depth that it’s no surprise they’ve joined forces to make the best possible stateside releases of all of Ghibli’s classic films.

The translation of Japanese animation to a US audience is usually a very dicey procedure when it’s cheaply done. You get subtitles that read like drunken haikus, enormous spans of plot inconveniently cut for brevity and clarity, and subtlety drained from the very core of what makes some Japanese animation stand apart from what US kids are usually given. So, even when Disney loads the American voice cast with celebrity names, and a few names pulled directly from their own teenybopper talent farms, they do a great job, such as with Ponyo, which was just recently released on DVD & Blu-Ray for the first time.

Subtlety is the key. Instead of fairytale princes in this retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid’, we have a regular kid. We have quiet magic interwoven so intimately with everyday life that all of the regular folks approach it calmly and with a sense of wonder, instead of suspicion and distrust. Instead of computer-heavy graphics, we have a film that was drawn by hand in the most tedious, organic way possible – but revealing none of the tedium in the final product. It’s the kind of quiet, real beauty that we don’t get enough of, so I’m thrilled that we’re getting this treat over here – and on Blu-Ray no less.

There are two versions of Ponyo out there – a simple DVD version, and a DVD / Blu-Ray combo pack that’s only very slightly more expensive. Let me just note that, as a collector who is new to Blu-Ray, the only things I have in this format so far are Disney and Pixar films. Both preserve the original soundtrack in Japanese and present the option of subtitles, if you’re a purist – but the English voice acting is really very good and completely undistracting.

The DVD includes a 5 minute featurette about the making of Ponyo, though it doesn’t really explore it in any depth. All of the real details are on the Blu-Ray disc, which explores these things from multiple angles, and adds even more neatness to the behind-the-scenes stuff that’s been accumulating on all of Disney’s Ghibli releases. No Ghibli or Miyazaki collection is remotely complete without this exceptional, inspiring animation.

[DVD graciously provided by BVHE]