With all that was shown at Wonder Festival a few weeks back, it was easy to miss a few things in amidst all the clutter of awesome GK and the big companies vying for attention.
One of those gems was hidden in the Volks booth, next to all their usual wares. Heck, even their most recent Ayane kit didn’t really get much coverage so it doesn’t really come as a shock if you missed her.
I posted a slightly blurry pic on my Wonder Festival post a couple of weeks ago and then set out to try and find out some more info on her.
I am, of course, talking about the (still) beautiful KOS-MOS ver. 4!
Sporting an incredibly long R-BLADE instead of the usual G-SHOT, I know a few people who were more than a little curious about this little number.
But with some help from Johnson over at GKhaven, google and some helpful people over at Volks, I have a pretty good idea of what we have to expect!
Firstly, she will be made available at Hobby Round 3, which will be held this year on April 18th (thanks, Johnson!). As for the rest? I recently received an email from Volks customer support who were kind enough to answer my questions.
Hit the jump to have a read at what the rep had to say!
Dear xxxxxx,
Thank you for your email and we apologize for the delayed reply.
Thank you very much for your interest in our products.
The KOS-MOS item that was displayed at our Wonder Festival booth was a completed sample of a 1/4 KOS-MOS statue that will be offered by Volks in the future.
As such, the sword is not a separate option part.
If you wish to purchase the sword, it will be necessary to purchase the entire 1/4 KOS-MOS statue.
However please note that at this time we are only scheduled to offer this item within Japan.
Unfortunately if you are residing overseas we will not be able to sell this item to you.
We apologize most sincerely for the inconvenience.
Sincerely,
VOLKS Web Site Service Center
In summary, what we saw at Wonder Festival was a sample of a completed PRE-PAINTED 1/4 KOS-MOS!!!!
So for those who didn’t want to paint their own and want an official prepainted KOS-MOS figure, you got your wish. Not only that, you get a kickass R-BLADE as well!! So you get to one-up those who went for the E2046 gathering offering! (perhaps that was their intention?)
Of course, this leaves the buyers of the original kit out on a limb as there’s no way to get the R-BLADE parts since it seems that there are no plans to release it as a part of a whole kit or separately at present. So unless we get a Recast (and you just know that places like E2046 will be supplying them!), we have just the G-SHOT! Which isn’t all that bad, but still…
Is it still bad to get a recast for extra parts after you have bought an original and only intend to use the new parts? hmm… Damn my ethics for kicking in!
Price has not been set yet, but expect it to be fairly expensive. The kit was 50,040 yen so I would estimate the Statue to be in the 65~70k region for pricing, if you use the 1/4 Kanu figure as a rough guide.
But I want… I really do want!!!
In summary:
KOS-MOS ver. 4 with R-BLADE
Scale : 1/4
Type: Prepainted Resin statue
Available: April 18th at Hobby Round 3
Price: TBA (but likely to be around 65~70,000 yen)
and so, the love/hate relationship with Volks continues…
[pic was nabbed from Gigazine]
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Nice!!
This was the one figure/kit of KOS_MOS that I felt did her justice. I saw her in person (though not the blade version), at the Akiba Volks store and she just might be the best figure ever made.
Of course, I might be biased being an avid Xenosaga and KOS-MOS fanboy. ^^;
Looking forward to the prepainted figure. Hopefully, she’s a lot less then you estimate. At least I hope so. ^^;
I think the winter Wonder Festival was the very first time the R-BLADE was shown on any KOS-MOS so it’s no real surprise that you saw the previous R-GUN version instead. They don’t even have the new one up on their site yet!! I just happened to chance on a pic of it and went out and got as much info as I could.
Can’t say I’m that big of a Xenosaga fan tho. I much prefer Xenogears but KOS-MOS is awesome!
There is a possibility that the price will be lower but I wouldn’t say that it would be reasonable price in the end. Volks are known to charge a pretty penny for these kind of things. I mean, look at how much they charge for their other 1/4 kits or even their *shudders* Dollfie dreams…
Alright so it is going to be a goddamned pre-painted figure? I AM SO F’ED BECAUSE I WANT THIS RIGHT NOW!
65K-70K Yen though rofl. ggkthxbye I am already dishing out 75,500 Yen or so for my dollfie from them. No monies to buy another similarly priced product.
I never understood the whole lure of Dollfies. I could have afforded several by now if I was inclined, but the damn things scare me. I would only buy one if it was of a character I adore, like Sheryl Nome.
Fate came close tho. Only the problem of having to own her as a pair with nanoha stopped me from buying her (you can’t just have 1 of the 2!)
I put the dollfie boom to the “Danny Choo effect.” But I’ll stick to GK. Less creepy. That “actual” hair… Those eyes which seem to stare through you and not at you…
Yes, DC was the one who also turned the “otaku” term upside down and commercialized it. But, I hate dolls too, ever since young, blame it on the movies back in my time. Dollfies however, look closer to their anime originals, and for Sirius, she is one of the closest I can get to a catgirl. The lifelike quality is both a boon and a bane, I choose to think of it, for dollfies, as the former. I would not mind if she actually came to life as a dollfie, but with other dolls…
THIS!!! I totally agree with that DC comment, but the community which supports him is probably just as bad. Sometimes, I think that the relationship between the 2 is close to that of apple fanboys and Steve Jobs, just with a stormtrooper armour instead of jeans and a black turtleneck.
I can understand what those “otaku elimination” people are trying to do. It’s just a shame that it’ll add to nothing more than a small insect bite on the issue.
I’m still managing to steer clear of dollfies for now. Besides, articulated figures aren’t really my thing. but for them to come alive? maybe you should take a break from all that rozen maiden watching!
Hey don’t mention it.
So glad this is going to be a pre-paint. If they release another GK with the R-Blade it would just leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Credit where credit is due!
I know what you mean about it being a prepaint. This may be the first time I will buy a recast for a long while simply because I just want that sword part to swap out with the R-GUN from my original. The rest can go to heck so I would find it hard to justify buying another even if it was a kit! It might still be. stuff may have gotten lost in translation…
wait…so uh..the new pre-painted version you get the sword And the gun? shit, if I have the money I might just go for another, maybe..but is it gonna be another polystone version? now why can’t they just do prepainted resin instead
Actually, I think you just get the sword this time round. so no R-GUN to swap out.
I’ll update when more details are released but we’ll just have to wait until Volks is ready to give it to us.
ah I thought its gonna be something like this, that makes more sense(and I knew this was going to happen in the first place lol). I kinda want this one too, imagine to have two of them side by side, two different eye colors, two different weapons, and in my case two different style painted…think its gonna be pretty badass
are you sure this is going to be resin and not polystone? but really 70000yen could be lots of other things too and to think I was finally able to pay off my dept to the proxy…damn volks!!!
what if…just a thought, we should combine our money with other volks haters out there and hire some yakuza to take them out eh
The resin comment was on Gigazine so it *might* be just for the sample, but since the rep said that it was a completed sample, then they probably won’t change anything. It might still be polystone but judging from the other items in their prepainted line, they just say coldcast, which suggests resin to me!
And I wouldn’t really want to take Volks out. Think about it, if we did that, then we wouldn’t get any more cool stuff!! I wouldn’t mind burning their dollfie division to the ground tho, just to see the reaction of the western dollfie community.
Is it prepainted for certain? It doesn’t really make it clear from their email, it just says its a completed sample
since there has been no official notice from Volks, there is a margin for error but I’m confident that it is prepainted. There are some tell-tale clues in the email. The biggest one is that the rep only referred to the new item as a statue. Even when I was told that the sword would not be sold separately, I was told that I would need to buy a statue and not a kit. If it was a standard Resin kit, which required assembly and construction, they would have said kit as they have done in the past in my emails to them.
The second clue is actually in the photo (and I missed it first time around). The sign in front of KOS-MOS reads 1/4 ArtDisplay KOS-MOS ver. 4. ArtDisplay is a recent addition to the Volks line and consists of nothing but prepainted coldcast statues. Currently, the have Dis-Astranagun from Super robot wars alpha 3, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Kanu in the line.
So from the above, I’d say that it will be prepainted.
I really hope E2046 doesn’t make a resin of the blade. >.< It would kill the purpose of having the real thing & not the recast version.
Unfortunately, It’s almost a dead cert that they will offer it prepainted as part of their gathering series, but for those who bought the original resin kit (like myself) their recast may be the only way to get the R-BLADE to replace the G-SHOT since volks have said that the Statue is the only way they will be offering it!
Given the choice of 2 KOS-MOS or 1 KOS-MOS with a recasted part, I must admit that I am erring towards the recast. Finding space for one of them is hard enough, let alone 2!!
isn’t the blade called the dragon tooth?Cause i saw this in hobby japan review article.Yeah,i may a little pedantic
It depends. I know that it’s called dragons tooth in Super robot wars OG saga, but it was never named by KOS-MOS in the US version of Xenosaga ep 3 and it was subbed as R-Blade so I stuck with that since I’m guessing more people are familiar with the US version. (technically, the R-BLADE is a shorter multi-hit weapon but still a sword)
ooohh cool
http://www.volks.co.jp/jp/figure_complete/art_kosmos.html
It’s a pre-paint.
Indeed! Actually, I got another email from volks a few days after my post and they basically confirmed everything. I just didn’t think it was worth an update. Not until they release a price at least!
yo gundamjehuntykai, do you have any extra “kos-mos” stickers for the head piece? this morning I was trying to put the head piece on and accidentally scratched off the OS- part and now it looks like K mos..if you have spare mind selling a piece to me
Sorry, Can’t help you there. I checked my kit and I would give you a spare if I had one, but it uses every single decal on the sheet so there’s no spare to give I’m afraid.
If anything changes, I’ll let you know.
a..supposedly I’ll have to figure something out myself, damn stickers..
That is really good news for GK noobs like myself. Will this be my very first 1/4 scale figure? I’d love it to be, but where would I put it?
Don’t get too excited, I can pretty much guarantee that the pricetag won’t be something to scoff at. in fact, it will probably make grown men cry! looking back, I could have bought a whole kendo armour set instead of my 1/4 unpainted KOS-MOS and then I wouldn’t have my sensei breathing down my neck to get one now! But I have no regrets, other than the fact it’s going to take a while longer before I get to work on her!