for fucks sake, engadget. you guys are no slouches when it comes to importing anything electronic that costs more than two hundred dollars, but when a 2gb flashdrive that turns into ravage is released by takara / tomy, the company that has been producing transformers in japan for 25 years, all you can find is a pre-order page on bigbadtoystore?

in the world of american webstores selling japanese toys, bigbad is a medium sized fish in a small pond; they’re mostly good for american toys, unless it’s popular, then they mark it up like nobody’s business. it’s like if ebay was a person and started a webstore. this is mostly okay, but they’re not exactly a font of reliable information, except they sometimes get images of upcoming import product earlier than other sites. (this is because the japanese companies politely ask everyone not to run early photos, everyone else plays along but bidbad just ignores them. they’re based in the us and aren’t a direct importer, so whatever, you know?)

point being; when you are dealing with mass-release japanese toys and want to get them in america? bigbad is not your first stop. this is primarily because they charge more, but also because they take longer. because they’re a re-reseller in that market. case in point: they have ravage et al listed as september releases, when they release in japan in july. three months earlier!

so hobbylink japan is your source. they’re a bigger and frankly classier company, they charge flat japanese retail with no mark-ups ever, they fill pre-orders on the japanese release schedule (aka they’ll ship out ravage in july), and they’re hooked into the japanese distribution channels, so they get more stock and are more likely to re-stock, instead of selling out forever.

but bigbad beat them to the punch on pictures. okay, point to bigbad. then the image got out, engadget found it, and bam, they have a little article.

except, like, what the hell? ignoring that you didn’t also link to the ravage pre-order on hlj, even after you’d slashdotted the bigbad page and sold out their pre-order (although they’re still listing ravage as up for pre-order, so maybe they’re ordering more now?), did you even look at the bigbad order page? specifically, right at the top, where it says ‘transformers / device label’? that didn’t pique an eyebrow? nothing?

okay, fine, i’ll carry this one to fruition myself.

oh wow, look at this! there are four other items in the ‘device label’! such as tigatron, a white repaint of ravage! also, functional laser mice that turn into velociraptory robots, painted in grimlock or trypticon paint schemes, without looking much like either of them!

or, and this is the real meat of the line for me: a usb hub that turns from a tiny laptop into broadcast / blaster, the autobot tape deck (g1’s black robot!), WHO CAN HOLD VINTAGE MINI-CASSETTES IN HIS CHEST COMPARTMENT. in addition to being a functional usb hub into which you can plug your usb devices such as a grimlock laser mouse or ravage thumbdrive HOLY SHIT I NEED NINETY DOLLARS FOR BLASTER AND RAVAGE TO GO WITH MY ATOM BASED NETBOOK WITH DECEPTICON SIGIL.

and this isn’t even doing any real research, you know? like, i haven’t found any news items on transformers fansites that probably heard about this shit weeks ago, or translated press releases from takara in japan, or anything much. and i’ve still managed to discover four extra products past the first one. and a quick google for ravage usb drive? a dozen blog posts from the 20th, the day after engadget discovered this, that all link back to the bigbad preorder page!

AND this isn’t even bringing up the wonder and the glory of the transformers ‘music label’, also (obviously) from takara / tomy, which includes the convoy ipod dock, soundwave mp3 player, and rumble / frenzy headphones.

good work, engadget. fucking epic fail here.