Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures - Season 2 (starting real soon!)

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with an exciting update!

I am back in my home country and have put aside a space and some time to start the next season of Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures (PTCGOpA)!!!

Keep reading for a quick history and explanation of what exactly PTCGOpA, or scroll down straight to the video to see what this next Adventure has in store for you!

In 2013 my love for the collectable card game known as the Pokémon TCG got rekindled due watching many youtube videos of people open up various Pokémon TCG related merchandise. It reminded me of my excitement of doing the same as a child.
I have always been a Pokéfan and have never stopped playing the video games, however I did give up on the TCG due to money, change of environment and also simply that I had no one else to play and trade with as I got older.
But youtube showed that there are many people from all sorts of demographics still playing and/or collecting the card game. I loved sharing in the excitement as they'd open up booster boxes, packs, etc and ultra-rare card and such.
So I decided to buy some of the recent TCG merchandise and chronicle myself getting reacquainted with this TCG franchise, and sharing it with the Internet. And so Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures was born.

I enjoyed doing it so much that I have decided to do it again. This time with far more merchandise and a better understanding of where to buy them, how to video the openings, etc.

I won't ramble on anymore, here's the trailer to tease what kind of stuff I'll be opening:

I'll go into some more details in the next post.

Hope you're as excited as I am for this!
Stay tuned and see you soon!

Attack Mode, Metabee!

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here and today I have am awesome collectable figurine to show off from an old show I use to love watching as a wee wipper snapper (okay, maybe not THAT old, but fairly old).

This is a figure of Metabee from the Medabots franchise.

First a little bit about the franchise: Medabots, alternatively Medarot, is a Japanese cartoons, manga and video game franchise based on large sentient robotic toys used to fight each other by children. It's essentially Pokémon with robots, but there is a twist to it (that I shan't spoil!)
Metabee here is the main character from the cartoon series. He is fiercely independent, snarky and temperamental, but very hard working and does develop a strong bond with his human "owner" Ikki.

Now for the toy itself. This one was developed by Bandai, for the D-Arts collection. Although I do not see anything about it on the packaging itself, it seems to have Revoltech maneuverability to it (not sure if that technology was applied to it).
I found this guy in Guangzhou's Comic City area, in a small shop and if memory serves well he cost me about 250RMB (roughly £22) if not cheaper. The box was not in wrapping seal, leading me to believe it is either second hand or taken from the factory. This is sadly pretty common in China. It could just be however that the wrapping seal was taken off to allow customers to look inside and inspect the goods beforehand, something they allowed me to do many times before making a purchase.

Anyways, without further ado, here are some pictures:

The box is a nice bright yellow to go with Metabee's colouring. The little window to view the toy inside is shaped like a Medal (the Medabot's soul/computer chip) which is pretty cool.

The box is a little damaged as you can see, but the figure within is secured very well.

The sides of the boxes are pretty cool. I'm particularly fond of the one that appears to give you Metabee's height measurements. 

And here's what's inside! 

I won't bother going into too much details in regards to the accessories. Instead I'll just show them on the figure itself via mostly cool poses! =P

Out the packaging... 

... and ready to Robattle!

Throwing a tantrum again!

Time to cool down, remove his medal!

The movability and pose-ability of this figure is great. The details are also great, not so much in that the figure looks "realistic" or anything, but that they included details in places you wouldn't think they'd need to bother, such as the exoskeleton of the face behind the visor! 

I must admit that one of the joints is sadly looser than the other but it doesn't affect the poses, so it's a small fault that I can live with. It is however not the only fault my Metabee came with. As mentioned above, there's a good chance this is second hand or a factory reject that was taken, some of the paint on the sides is worn off and one of the "eye visors" has a blotch on it. Luckily, the paint is not noticeable unless you look closely, and the eye blotch is not visible once put on the face.

I'd like to point out how awesome it is that the Medal is included as part of the accessories! I should warn you though, it's veeeerrrry small, so make sure to keep it safe and secure so not to lose it!

Eye blotch! Luckily not noticeable once on the figure.

Teeny Tiny Medal, barely a fraction of my palm.

Behind the mask.

Overall this is a purchase I'm quite happy with. I've seen this figure around on ebay, usually from a HK seller, with the toy itself usually going for around £35 and the shipping being ridiculous (international shipping, amaright?)

This figure is a must for anyone who has nostalgia for this old TV series, or who still follows the franchise (it's still surviving in Japan). It is very posable, not too expensive as far as D-Arts figures go and pretty unique as far as mechas go.

Good news to anyone who want more than just Metabee though, he has one of his old friends/rivals joining him in this collection =D

I'll leave you with that last picture above as a hint to what my next figurine post will be about ;)

Also don't forget that my next Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures series is coming up soon, preparations are on the way!

Lots to do, lots to open, lots to show!

See you all next time!

Opening 4 Flashfire Booster Packs

Hi all!

Welcome back to another blog post, this one being a Pokemon booster pack opening!
I'm still in China, so as usual these are booster packs I found in Hong Kong at a good price of 30 HKD (i.e. £2.50).

This time round I found some XY Flashfire booster packs! It was my first time opening up any boosters from this set, so I was pretty excited.

Enough chit-chat, wanna see what I got? Check out my opening video on my youtube channel; here.

OR

Scroll bellow to see pictures of what I ended up pulling.

Out of four packets I got two rare cards, the dynamic Lopunny and the sour looking Qwilfish.

My holo is a Carbink. The holographic pattern is not very obvious on the card due to the picture's dark background as well as the sleeve. It looks good though.

And an Ultra Rare Full Art Kangaskhan-EX! So glad to have gotten this one!

I'm not going to rant on in this post, I'm just glad to have gotten these cool new cards. Out of 4 packs I got a really good ratio, a holo and an ultra rare? Thanks Hong Kong! You're booster packs have been giving me great pulls all these months!

Anyways, that's the end of this post and of any future booster pack openings in China. Next time I do a Pokemon related update it is hopefully when I'm back in the U.K. Once there I'll start the next series of Pokemon TCG Opening Adventures. I'm excited and I hope y'all are too.

This doesn't mean I'll (completely) neglect this blog until then though. I have at the very least one more post to make. 

So hang around! Till next time.

The Terrible Tyrant - Schleich's Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with a none-Pokémon related update!
"*GASP* Blasphemy!" I hear you cry. Calm down calm down, I'll have an update for that up soon.

For today, I want to show off my first Schleich dinosaur toy (as far as I'm aware). Of course I had to start with the king of kings, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I bought this toy in a regular toy store that was part of a sort of supermarket/mall hybrid in Guangzhou. It was quite expensive, about 200 RMB, that's about £18 roughly. This figure is available in most countries, generally around that price range. In the UK it goes for between £16-£20, so it's not like I got "ripped off" by because it was an important item or anything.

This T-Rex is from a collection known as "World of History" by Schleich. This is the 2012 sculpt. There is in fact 2014 sculpt out at the moment which looks more or less the same except for a few tweeks and a recolour.

The 2014 re-sculpt is of a light green colour, whereas this one is a dark green - which I personally prefer and why I chose it over the new one. In having said that though, there appears to be some other recolours going around on the market that look pretty sweet. I have not seen them myself but I'll link you to some pictures of them via the Dinotoyblog: The light green version, the gold version and the red stripy version. (Heads up: the two last links lead to the Dinotoyblog forum, you might need to scroll down the thread a little to find the images).

Now, lets take a closer look at this guy!

First thing's first. This guy is pudgy. I get the impression his body has been compacted slightly, perhaps to help with balance. The toy does have a big head and I can tell that the feet have been made bigger to help with the balancing, so who knows, maybe the rest of the body had to be modified for this reason too. It's not an issue to be honest, but it is obvious when you compare it to the more long, streamlined looking iterations of this animal in today's toys and media.

The paint job looks cool, it's not a dreary brown or grey, but it's not a vibrant explosion of colours either. A simple dark green, with yellow spots (for some reason), browns and yellow highlights. As a mentioned above, not as exciting as some of the recolours but in my opinion a lot better than the light green version.

Along with the stocky look and yellow spots they decided to give it a collection of very odd spots starting bellow the eyes, circling them almost and ending on its forehead. Why they did this when there is no evidence to suggest the T-rex had anything like this in real life I don't know. Maybe it's to highlight the scowl it seems to have.

For some reason they decided to give it an explosion of acne around the face and neck. Dino puberty? 

On the subject of accuracy; there is quite a bit wrong with this fella. I am by no stretch of the imagination a paleontologist - not even an amateur -  but I do know that this guy's hands are facing the wrong way. They should be facing inwards. There's also a distinct lack of feathers of any kind. 

These are not actually criticisms that bug me in any large way, the toy is just going by what the mainstream idea of what a dinosaur looks like. There are probably thousands of other inaccuracies that I can't identify that no one aside from an expert would really care about.

The toy itself is made of a hard plastic. It is not posable in anyway except for its mouth, that can open and shut. It's a toy that is clearly designed to look good and allow a kids imagination to do all the actual moving with. From my point of view as a collector, I have no problems with this. Its static pose makes it look more natural, like a moment caught on picture. It means it also lacks any visible seams, aside from the one connecting the neck and head/movable jaw.

Despite its pudgy build and unexciting colour pallet, I do overall like it. Its sculpt it very detailed, especially that mouth! (just look at its tongue), the paint is well applied and it stands upright perfectly well by itself. It's not the most accurate or dynamic of rex toys out there, but it's a cool addition to any collection. Unless you really don't like chicken feet, then avoid this one at all costs!

That's this little look at my first Schleich dino over, hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to update more often with more random collectables and Pokemon TCG stuff, of course.

Cya round!

Opening 4 XY Booster Packs

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here with the last batch of Pokémon booster packs I bought from Hong Kong to open up. These were slightly more expensive than the previous ones, at 30 HKD each (making them roughly £2.50). These are the first XY Base Set TCG merchandise I'll be opening up, months behind the rest of the world, but well, what can I do about that? I'm excited about this anyways. So, without further ado lets get to it!

As usual, if you want to see the video of these pack openings click here to go to my youtube channel.

Now, I've heard (and seen via other youtube videos) that the holo-to-rare ratio in this set is not great, so unsurprisingly I ended up with many rares:

A Rhydon, a Tauros and a Grumping. The Reverse-Holo is a Furfrou, usually a holo, I actually quite like it, it is one of my favourite mons from the 6th Gen.

No holographics after this lot sadly, buuuuuuuuuuut I did get this guy:

A beautiful Xerneas-EX. I'm glad this is the EX I got, as cool as Yveltal is, Xerneas is my favourite of the two.

I have to admit, I'm not too fond of the artwork of the XY Base Set. From what I can tell, compared to Flashfire and Furious Fists it looks somewhat underwhelming. And although I'm not usually one to poo-poo rare cards (especially if I haven't already got them) these ones don't look great and I know I'll be getting many of these as doubles in the future (yup, that's a hint to having some XY merchandise to open up for Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2). The Xerneas-EX is a fantastic pull though! I'm pleased with that.

Overall, good pulls for the price I got them at! Thanks for reading and look forward to my next update!

Till next time!

Opening 4 Plasma Storm Booster Packs

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, and first thing's first; sorry for the long absence!
This video/blog post was meant to go up a month ago, but both work life and computer problems made that very difficult to do. I have currently found a temporary solution to the computer problem allowing me, for now, to finally upload some stuff.

So here is the long overdue booster pack opening filmed some time ago; 4 Plasma Storm booster packs!
Check the video opening here if you want.

First off, the rares:

Two Team Plasma cards, a Garbodor and a Bouffalant. Thankfully I have these two already, because these cards are slightly damaged on the bottom right hand side. A fate most the old cards I purchased in Hong Kong have suffered (damaged due poor storage or delivery, I don't know, oh well!)

The Holo I got is a Team Plasma's Klinklang. Not the most visually stunning picture I must admit, not to mention a card I believe I own already. But still, a good pull.

And for my EX... *pause for dramatic effect*... a Team Plasma's Zapdos-EX!

Zapdos was never my favourite of the legendary birds, but this card is very handsome nonetheless, with a great lightning effect surrounding the borders of the card, very cool. The card is slightly damaged at the bottom like all the others, but a N/M card is still a good card. I'll gladly put it in my collection =)

And that's it for this week's update. Next week I'll attempt to upload the XY Booster Pack opening! I've already done the video and I can guarantee some good pulls, so come back to check it out ;)

(yes I know XY Base Set is a little old now, but I'm in China, I was surprised to have even found these out here in the first place! Hopefully you can join in the excitement with me anyways~)

M'bye bye for now!

Opening 4 Emerging Powers Booster Packs

Hi all!

Amateur Collector here and as my very boring but straightforward post title implies, I'm opening up four Pokémon Black & White Emerging Powers booster packs.

Just like my last Pokémon TCG related update, I purchased these booster packs, along with 8 others, in Kowloon - Hong Kong in a small shop at In's Point.
They cost me 25 HKD, which is roughly 1.90 GBP or 3 USD. Not bad at all! In fact, a very good price considering the pulls I got. Lets check them out, shall we? (scroll bellow to see pictures or click here for the video)

First off, here are the rares. 

I pulled a Darmanitan, a Leavanny and a reverse Gigalith.

I'm pretty sure I have this Darmanitan already, but I think I may still need the Leavanny.

A Holo Gothitelle. I'm sure I have at least two of these already. But glad to have pulled a holo nonetheless. 

And here is the gem of the bunch:

A Full Art Tornadus. This card may not be worth much at all, but I'm very happy to have gotten it, it is an Ultra Rare after all. It's interesting to see that it's not in this set that they started leaving "finger print" like patterns on Full Art cards.

Overall this was an okay bunch of booster packs. Emerging Powers is the smallest set from the BW era of Pokémon TCG with only 98 cards, only 2 of which are Full Arts and 10 holos- so I'm pretty glad that I managed to get a Full Art. 

Well, I'll leave you here. My next Pokémon TCG update will be soon. I'll be opening up four Plasma Storm booster packs. Looks forward to that! 

See ya next time!