Pokémon Zukan / Zuken Collection Update (P11)
Good evening, or morning, afternoon, or night (if it is, consider sleeping instead), or whatever time it is when you read this!
I'm really stoked to make another post, I'm tempted to say more so than normally for reasons I'll explain later, but I'm not sure whether that's not just the 'now' feeling talking.
I hope you're all in for another 15 minutes (I'm assuming it takes about that long on average) of reading my insane ramblings accompanying the photos of my new gets!
New gets!
Ooh! All sorts of big new stuff, very colourful too!
Come on, under the cut you'll find close ups of everything! (Probably best to open a new tab though, it's a long post)
Knip knip knip (That means 'snip snip snip', in Dutch)
Under the cut, with plenty of space!
Let me list the new stuff:
RSE 06: Slakoth/Vigoroth/Slaking, Tropius
RSE 09: Makuhita/Hariyama
King Studio 16: Mega Steelix, Arceus
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre, Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra, Goldeen/Seaking, Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
King Studio 20: Lapras
King Studio 21: Skiddo/Gogoat
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
I'll be going through these in a different order than listed here.
For some of this stuff I've waited SO long, it's unreal. But, I'm so so happy to finally have it all here! Let's dig in.
RSE 06: Slakoth/Vigoroth/Slaking
RSE 06: Slakoth/Vigoroth/Slaking
Starting off with the Slakoth line! One of the three traditional and official zukan I got this time. The sloths are so distinct from each other, yet still make a nice whole. With Vigoroth standing out both visually and with its all-over-the-place behaviour. It's a very tightly packed zukan, barely space for all of them on the base. You can see some bluetac in the photo. Without it you have basically no hope of getting Slaking to stand.
RSE 06: Slakoth/Vigoroth/Slaking
From this angle you can see the pink dots on Vigoroth's claws, and the stripes on its back.
RSE 06: Tropius
RSE 06: Tropius
Tropius is a pretty interesting Pokemon. I've always wondered whether it's implied all bananas in Pokémon come from Tropius. (I'm drinking a banana milkshake as I type this). It's a flying type, but I don't consider this to be a bird, like, at all. It's not that reason that I wanted it. (I collect bird zukans as a sub-collection within collecting zukans at all). I just think it fits nicely with the other plants.
RSE 09: Makuhita/Hariyama
RSE 09: Makuhita/Hariyama
This is a zukan I've been tempted to buy plenty of times, but every time something else came up instead that I preferred given the budget I had. Now I finally bought it. Hariyama is a weird Pokémon. If you look at it at a glance, it looks really nice. Good colours, buff shape etc. But then why you look closer, at its head, and it's 'hair', the gloves, it's very ehhh.... Still, as long as you don't look closely, it's very nice!
RSE 09: Makuhita/Hariyama
King Studio 16: Mega Steelix
King Studio 16: Mega Steelix
Mega Steelix time! Long story behind this, and a long time waiting. I'd ordered this when the set was announced, back in, and get this.. FEBRUARY 2019. Yeah. Normally when you follow the pre-order process, it goes like this: A new listing appears with new zukens. It will say 'deposit'. You pay the deposit, and then after some undetermined amount of time, the 'deposit' will change into 'replenishment'. That means it's time to pay the rest, and then it's shipped to the middleman.
A few months after ordering it, my middleman company notified me that the Mega Steelix had arrived at their warehouse. I checked the picture, but it was the wrong one. I'd ordered the non-shiny, non-metalic version. I got the metalic version instead. Oddly enough though, the non-metallic one was still in the 'deposit' stage. I told them, and they sent it back. I'd get a replacement soon. Yeah, that never happened. It kept saying 'deposit' on the one I wanted. A few months later, I noticed it had gone to 'replenishment', ready to be shipped, but I never received my replacement. I kept bugging them, and they kept bugging the seller, King studio. King is just ignoring their messages. Fast forward to.. well, September this year or so, and I saw, for the first time ever A mega Steelix for sale. Not even the matte one like I'd originally wanted. I decided to just buy it again. In hindsight, I should've just gone with the metallic one I originally received, as I'd have had this wayyyyy sooner then, and saved money. I doubt I'll ever get the money of the first one back.
King Studio 16: Mega Steelix
With all that stuff out of the way, let's on focus on the actual figure! I now actually quite fancy the metallic sheen! The mouth looks a little silly, especially from this angle, almost like a really, really wide smile. The rocks are so detailed though! It's a bit of a juxta position with the smooth figure, but it oddly doesn't bother me at all. The orbiting metal plates obviously do not actually orbit, nor float. They're held up by this ring piece with pegs on all sides. It works pretty well.
King Studio 16: Mega Steelix
A side view.
King Studio 11: Onix;, DS Studio 11: Steelix; King Studio 16: Mega Steelix
And a familly picture! The whole evolutionary line! One thing to note though, despite being a bit taller, and just bigger overal, the Mega Steelix zuken is significantly lighter than normal Steelix! Probably due to it being made of a different plastic, that is clear (with the silver etc painted on).
King Studio 16: Arceus
King Studio 16: Arceus
All hail our Lord and Savior, Arceus! It's been 3000 years! I ordered this on the same day as the Mega Steelix, but here, it's not that something went wrong with a wrong item being shipped or anything. No. Here, I just straight up got not a single update for TWENTY-ONE MONTHS straight! Then it FINALLY showed up as 'replenishment', and not much longer after, I received it. An ungodly amount of time waiting, I mean, I'll have spent about a percent of my entire life, waiting for this one figure to finally arrive by the time I die (assuming age 80). That's nuts!
It was worth the wait though!
King Studio 16: Arceus
Standing on the clouds with a heavenly gate. Or perhaps on the smouldering remains of an unruly civilisation just laid to waste. Surrounded by all eighteen plates. It's a truly gorgeous thing to behold.
King Studio 16: Arceus
It was actually quite a challenging choosing. Just like with the official Arceus set.. this was available in ALL types. Now, I'm not crazy enough to buy this entire thing 18 times, with some different colours. I already did that with the official 17. .. Seventeen, not eighteen. Because the fairy type did not yet exist back then. And there comes the conundrum I faced. Which version to get? Normal? Or the one type I still miss, Fairy?
As you can tell, my choice ended up being the Normal type, it just fits this scene better.
King Studio 16: Arceus
Even on just the gate, the detail is remarkable!
King Studio 16: Arceus; DP 12: Arceus
Here's a comparison between the King Studio- , and the official Arceus. Other than the obvious difference, the base, ring and pose, there's some slightly more subtle differences too. The King one's body-ring is a sort of cheddar orangey yellow. The official zukan is more of a mustard yellow. I think the difference is due to how the depiction of Arceus has changed a bit over the years. The new colours seem to more closely match Pokémon Home's depiction.
Oh, I should mention, the stand for original Arceus came with this King Studio zuken. I'm not sure why, but I figured I'd give it to original Arceus to spice it up a bit.
King Studio: Palkia, Dialga; DP 04: Uxie/Mesprit/Azelf; DS Studio 19: Giratina; King Studio 16: Arceus
A lovely family shot!
King Studio 21: Skiddo/Gogoat
King Studio 21: Skiddo/Gogoat
Onto something a little more tame! These two fellas are quite cute, and detailed. I missed them on the pre-order, but later found them on a new site I hadn't seen before, RELXELF. I decided to try out the site with something small, (this set), and it worked just fine! They'd done the strangest thing with packing it. All the corners of the box had these weird plastic caps on them. Really neat, as it makes the package sturdier, but I've never seen this before. Used them to make a weird ball thing, pretty fun.
King Studio 21: Skiddo/Gogoat
Gogoat Gadget activate goat bum! .. wait, what? I dunno. The grassy coat looks really soft and detailed. Still, with how goats like to ram stuff, probably best to stay away.
King Studio 20: Lapras
King Studio 20: Lapras
A giant Lapras! Seriously! This thing is way bigger than I'd expected! The clear blue water, with somehow ice on the bottom? (Maybe the ice is made of heavy-water?) Lapras looks to be using Surf too!
King Studio 20: Lapras
It looks a little silly from the side, like it wasn't really meant to be viewed from this angle.
King Studio 20: Lapras
A giant translucent piece like this is just asking to be lit! it Gives a really mysterious vibe I think.. Oh wow, that's the most cliche thing ever to say. Oh god, hm.. How about.. The light emminates an icey cold that freezes over the whole ocean from below, as Lapras looks on in terror and confusion as to what's happening. Yeah, that's better. Way more original.. and disturbing ^_^'
King Studio 20: Lapras; DS Studio 7: Lapras
A comparisson between DS Studio 7's Lapras, and this new one of King Studio. I'm really not sure why this one is so much bigger. Lapras is 2.5 meters tall, according to the Pokédex. 6.25 cm is the 1/40 scale. I've meassured both. The new Lapras is from belly to ears pretty much that size, while the DS Studio one is from tail to head about that size. Again, confusion as to what 'size' means. Maybe the DS one is just a youngling?
The quality of King is higher, smoother surface, better painting. But, by all means, I don't think I prefer either over the other. They have very different things going for them. One thing I do prefer of the new one, is that here Lapras is actually removable from the base entirely, resulting in a clean, holeless Lapras. the DS Studio one has the water and bubbles attached. I didn't take a picture of this though, as it can't stand upright on its own.
Now.. queue the theme and get ready for..
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
Dear lord! If there's any Pokémon with a radiating and godly aura, then it's gotta be this thing. All stats raised, one-shotting every team member. This is what a battle against a 'legendary' Pokémon oughta be like. This thing is BIG, huge even! By far the tallest figure I own. It doesn't actually give off light, was actually really rather tricky to get this effect. I put a desk lap exactly behind it, took photos at several exposures, photoshoped the neck of the lamp etc away, mixed them all into HDR photos with different tonemapping, mixed those into a final result, and expended the white space digitally, cause it wasn't big enough.
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
Here's a more neutral lit photo. I'd seen this zuken in one picture, once. Then I suddenly saw it on ebay, and knew I had to bid on it. Thankfully no-one else was seriously interested apparently, as I got it for 'just' 112 dollars or so, opposed to much higher prices for smaller stuff I've seen being auctioned by the same seller.
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
A slightly side view.
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
This thing was not meant for side-viewing I think.
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma
Nor really for viewing from the back.
King Studio: Ultra Necrozma; DP 12: Pikachu
Tiny tiny Pikachu sitting on Necrozma's chest spike. .. heh. chest spike.. that sounds like a euphamism for.. well, let's not get into that. It's got really interesting eyes. I wonder how they work.
King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
Ferrocious sharks! I'm.. really not sure what to say about this one to be honest. I already made the Lody/Lodah/Lodon joke a few posts ago, with the normal Sharpedo zukan. It looks really cool?
King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
A better shot of Mega Sharpedo's mouth. They fit really well into the waves.
King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
It may not look like it from the side, but the base is actually literally a rectangle xD I don't know why, but somehow that's funny to me, just a rectangle of ocean.
King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
Lights on! Just like with Lapras I couldn't help but try it, and it looks nice!
RSE 07: Carvannah/Sharpedo; King Studio 18: Carvannah/Sharpedo/Mega Sharpedo
A comparision between the original zukan, and this new one. Quality wise, pretty much no difference. It's just that this one has Mega Sharpedo as well, and the base.
King Studio 18: Goldeen/Seaking
King Studio 18: Goldeen/Seaking
Now we're getting into proper interesting territory! Back in .. I don't even remember, like.. April 2019 or something, King Studio set 17 was announced. It had many awesome zukans with special bases, including one with Tentacool and Tentacruel in an underwater base. The underwater scene, with rocks, and coral and such really appealed to me, even more than most special base zukans. I'm not sure why, I've always loved the sea, but that's typically more related to the sea shore, not so much underwater. Maybe it played a role. I showcased the Tenta line last time btw. Anyway, a few months later, King Studio opened pre-orders for set 18. I was competely blown away. Half the set was filled with more underwater scenes, including a gigantic Primal Kyogre scene! Kyogre is one of my favorite legendaries, and its primal forme, massive as it is, is also so ellegant and beautiful I think. I had to have it. I could only afford to buy it, and the Horsea line. Later, when I got more money again, I saw the pre-orders were still open, and I got this one, as well as Mega Sharpedo line too.
Then.. ages went by. It was agonizing. I wanted these underwater ones so badly. Despite waiting shorter for these, than for Arceus or Mega Steelix, it almost feels longer. Then at some point the Tentacool line of 17 was released, and I knew it'd be a matter of months till these ones'd come.
King Studio 18: Goldeen/Seaking
The two goldfish, Goldeen and Seaking look quite nice. The Pokémon themselves I find to be very unremarkable, but the red accents in the scene with the green accents of the plants synergize nicely. Cool to see some transparency on the tails and fins.
King Studio 18: Goldeen/Seaking
The rockwork on these is phenonemal. All the little holes, as if it's really been eroded by the ocean, partially disolved. The colours of the algae and such growing on it!
A big reason of why I go through all this effort of taking photos like these, is because sometimes it's almost easier to just get the photos ready to gawk at it, rather than the actual figure. On full size, the photo is like 10 times bigger than the figure, easier and more acccesible to apreciate all the detail.
King Studio 18: Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra
King Studio 18: Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra
The next one of the sea set! I always mix up these names. My mind goes like "Horsea, Seadra, Seaking, oh, wait, no, Kingdra", every single time pretty much. It's quite annoying :P This figure though is not annoying! .. actually, it kinda is, I'll say in a bit. The same compliments of the Goldeen zuken work here. The detail, the way the blue and green go together.
King Studio 18: Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra
The absolutely MASSIVE Slowbro Shelder shell just laying there. How did it get there? Was there some titan Slowbro one day, that died, whose corpse sank to the ocean floor, only to leave this behind centuries later? Who knows!
It's a bit weird how the round ..eh.. snout hole of Horsea becomes triangular in Seadra, and then round again in Kingdra.
King Studio 18: Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra
Oh yeah, the slightly annoying thing, it's really quite minor, but still. Seadra is SO hard to orientate well. It keeps rotating downwards, ending up upside down, and its fins fall off easily. Other than that, perfection.
And with that, ladies and gentleman, it means it is now time for.. the main course:
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
Pretty much the singular most anticipated arrival for me ever. Where to even begin?
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
Maybe its weight is a good starting point. This thing, it's insane, it's like it's made of solid rock or something. It weighs like 4 kg, maybe more, the scale only goes to 2! Way heavier than Wailord, or anything else I have!
The base is just.. god tier. The ancient pillars, with the emblems on them. The Blue Orb in there, being giant too. Seriously, how would anyone carry that? That's like.. an orb 1.2 meters in diameter or something.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
It looks good from literally all angles. Here you can more easily see the emblems I mentioned, as well as the giant plateau sponges.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
The construction is made quite ingeniusly, I must say. No pegs or anything, instead, there's this hole in the wide colum, in which the bubbles fit, and then the bubbles go into another hole on Kyogre, to support it. That's the only place where Kyogre is supported, and it's entirely stable!
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
The split tail flippers look great, as does the coral.
Oh! The way it was packaged though, was a nightmare! Normally zukens are packged into foam cut to the exact sizes of the parts. Not here. It was in styrofoam instead. Two half blocks, with cutouts on the inside for the figure to actually be in, entirely wrapped in ducttape. From the outside I could not see where the two parts split, so to say. I tried cutting it open, the tape, which worked, but jezus christ, so much styrofoam balls ended up getting everywhere. On my bed, my floor, wall, clothes, chair, desk. All the little holes of the coral were filled with styrofoam balls. Straight up a nightmare. At least it arrived in one piece though! .. well, I suppose technically not.. as you have to assemble it a bit, but.. you know what I mean.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
I'm honestly not even sure what angle looks best. Oh, btw, Primal Kyogre was also available shiny, but I prefer the normal one.
King Studio 17: Tentacool/Tentacruel; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre, Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra, Goldeen/Seaking
The underwater family complete! Well, not really a family, but just the underwater sets King studios made. So much for the eyes to see. It takes me back to like, a book I had as a child. A picture book of underwater scenes in different ocean biomes, where you'd have to find stuff everywhere in the picture, types of fish, sunken treasure, plants. Absolutely goregous illustrations of the deep sea, coastal pools, ice sea, kelp reefs, coral reefs, ancient sea, and much more. .. I think that might be why I like these so much.
King Studio 17: Tentacool/Tentacruel; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre, Horsea/Seadra/Kingdra, Goldeen/Seaking
First picture to show just how huge its wings/flippers are.
I remember, some years ago, when making the post with the other big water scene (with Gyarados and such), stating that it'd be a long time before I'd have a gets post with more exicting stuff than that. Other than the whole water line there, I'd also gotten like, Pidgeot, and Mewtwo and Zubat in Cerulean cave and more. It was a really good set of gets. I'm not sure, but I think this might have exceeded it. It's either this, or never anything and the gets quality back then will remain unbeaten forever. I'm seriously in love with this stuff though! (figuratively).
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre
The face of not giving a f***.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DP 12: Pikachu
And then Pikachu starts riding it.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DS Studio 18: Kyogre
The size difference is pretty gigantic!
GSC 06: Kyogre; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DS Studio 18: Kyogre
The official 1/50 zukan of Kyogre just looks puny in comparison, a little guppy baby Kyogre, and that's WITH it being on the foreground, and thus closer.
GSC 06: Kyogre; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DS Studio 18: Kyogre
With it in the background, it's almost like it's just not there.
DS Studio 18: Kyogre; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DS Studio 10: Groudon; BBQ Studio: Primal Groudon
Here the base is a bit unfair, it makes Primal Kyogre look way bigger than Primal Groudon, while they're really about the same size, also the figures I mean.
Another thing to note about Primal Kyogre, it's got some transparent bits, that look really cool when you shine a flashlight into them. However, to do that, the flashlight needs to be placed right onto the figure, making it kind of impossible to photograph in a manner consistent with all these photos. I opted to not show it.
DS Studio 18: Kyogre; King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; DS Studio 10: Groudon; BBQ Studio: Primal Groudon; HS Studio: Mega Rayquaza; DS Studio 08: Rayquaza
It's getting really busy here! The entire Weather Trio in all forms! .. Oof, that's one place I would NOT want to be caught in the middle of. This is also about as much as I can fit in my white space, jikes!
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; HS Studio: Mega Rayquaza; BBQ Studio: Primal Groudon
A little more breathing room! Primal Groudon, Kyogre, and Mega Rayquaza! I've always wondered why Rayquaza never got a Primal, and instead is called Mega. I saw a video on it a while ago, was pretty interesting.
Of course.. there is one.. very important.. question remaining.. "But Max? How does it compare to Wailord?!!" My friend, I gotchu.
King Studio 18: Primal Kyogre; LOTTERY: Wailord
Wailord's significantly bigger! Still, Kyogre, and especially primal reversed, absolutely obliterates any Wailord it wishes! Size doesn't always matter!
And, with that reused joke we reach the end of my post, once again.. .. hm? Oh? Right! Nevermind, I took 4 more photos. (I legimately forgot when writing this).
I took some extra photos of my lit display case. After receiving Primal Kyogre a few days ago, I rearranged basically everything. I'm happy with how it turned out, and so I took pictures. This is only my lit case, my unlit case doesn't look nearly as nice, even though it contains 2/3rds of collection.
Top Shelf
This is the top shelf, with the extra dimensional, and the upper-sky/space Pokémon I have. The light really works well with Necrozma, alsmost as well as the lit picture I showed earlier.
Second Shelf
Second shelf is for the birds, not quite everything fits on there, but it'll have to do.
Third Shelf
This one is for underwater. it's a bit too cramped, but again, not a lot of room.
Fourth Shelf
This shelf is more for Pokemon at the surface of the water.
The fifth shelf is empty, for what's to come. The other case has a foresty area, a cave area, a mountain area, a off-scale area, for all the 1/50 etc figures, and a sort of 'other' area. I'm not quite happy yet with how it's arranged there, and without lights, I chose to not photograph it now. Maybe next time.
Speaking of next time, given how I'm seriously running out of shelf-space, and floor space for new cases, and given how basically all studios stopped making 1/40 figures.. there might not be more than one update left. I still have some exciting stuff coming, in pre-order status, enough for another sizable post, but after all that's here, I don't know. Time will tell.
For now though, thank you so much for taking the time to look at all this! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.