Got a little surprise in the mail today...
I have totally forgotten about some of these goods. When I originally bought them in Japan via my trusty go-to deputy service SMJ this parcel failed to be delivered and was returned back to Tokyo. Nick and his awesome team at Shopping Mall Japan kindly held on to it for me until one of my later purchases reached storage time limit and everything was auto-shipped together. I was surprised to see I apparently must have been lucky enough to find another sealed mini red card Nina figure a few months ago. This is one of only a rare few I have ever come across, and it's in even better shape than the other ones I have, so maybe now I can finally stop buying them. There's also the unopened Nina & Anna Williams Tekken 2 garage kit figure set I tweeted about, the Tekken 2 Hyper Visual Book brimful of character renders, cheap looking Tekken 2 collectors' cards, a special Tekken 2 telephone card that was given to subscribers of some Japanese gaming mag back in the 90s when telephone cards and videogame magazines were still around, darker times better times, the Nina-Xiaoyu-Asuka Tekken 5 figure set, three Tekken 3 piggybanks, GamePro's September 2004 issue (#185) with the Jin+Nina variant cover (the other one was Jin+King), issue 106 (Nov 2000) of French videogame magazine Consoles Plus (again, Jin+Nina... was that a thing back then too?), a poster advertising the release of the Tekken 2 Strike Fighting Vol. 2 game soundtrack and a UK Death by Degrees poster.
Nice haul!
ReplyDeleteI don't recall Nina + Jin ever being a 'thing' before T6 (at which point it exploded for obvious reasons - personally, I'm no Jin fan, but I casually support the idea if only to laugh at the reaction from the deranged parts of the Xiaoyu fanbase) so I'm gonna assume the T5 mag cover was just personal bias on the part of the designer - good taste, whoever that was - and the TTT one...well, let's be honest, that render of 2P Nina was so much better than any other promo art released for the game that you'd have to be insane NOT to use it. (on a personal note, while I first fell for Nina in T2, it was T3 and that outfit - and the censor-baiting exposed bra - that made me her fan/slave for life)
I'd never seen the garage kit before your tweet either...I know you'll want to keep the parts in package, but you don't happen to have any reference pics of what the completed models would look like? Because they look pretty sweet.
And that small T5 promo figurine of Nina is presently blu-tacked on top of my TV set, and has been for years. I don't know why, it's just a decoration. Plus I paid through the nose for it and wanna get my money's worth. :) Also, I recently picked up a T2 Nina keychain/dangler thing from eBay; it's a little chibi model of her in her 2P camo catsuit, holding a pistol and making a very odd face. No idea where it was released, as the inclosed scrap of paper is all kanji and means nothing to me...sound familiar?
How did you reply so fast?? Mere minutes after I posted this. Ninja? Wow, this is giving me funny TrumanShow vibes. And not only do you read my stuff and reply to it in the time it takes me to spell check my post, we've apparently also been living the same life haha
Delete"that render of 2P Nina was so much better than any other promo art released for the game that you'd have to be insane NOT to use it. (on a personal note, while I first fell for Nina in T2, it was T3 and that outfit - and the censor-baiting exposed bra - that made me her fan/slave for life)" = MY LIFE, like exactly the same.
I thought it took a huge stretch of imagination when I came across the Nina+Jin pairing. But people see what they want to see and ever since Nina was made Jin's bodyguard she was basically guaranteed a spot in the limelight, right next to the Mishimas, and all these tears that were shed over Jin+Ling sure did taste delicious >:-D
I can take some close up pictures of the garage kit for you if you like, should give you an idea what the assembled thing would look like. I really hope I can find a second set, or at least another Nina, since I can't wait to tear the wrapper open and put her together. It's basically a bit of an Anime-esque representation of Nina in her purple Tekken2 whatever-it-is-that-she's-wearing. Sadly I haven’t been able to find any reference photos. I vaguely remember seeing a TK2 Nina garage kit many years ago on eBay Belgique and then never finding that thing or any info on it again. Years later I saw a VF Sarah Bryant kit somewhere, and after a little online research brought up more pictures of that particular set I realized it must have been her all along. I've seen people mixing up Tekken 2 era Nina and Sarah quite often. Then, years later, this thing shows up on Yahoo Auctions Japan.
There were chibi key-chain figures produced of all the main characters of TK2, TK3 and TTT, each of them in a 1P and a 2P outfit version. As far as I know none of these were ever sold. Instead, they were given away as prizes like a lot of the cheaply produced Tekken things we now spend serious money on whenever we’re lucky enough to find them. The Chibi Tekken 2 Law could even be found as a Bruce Lee branded collectors' item in some Japanese stores, even though it still had the ‘Namco Limited’ imprint on its bottom. :-D
Ha! The fast response was, I think, just down to opportune timing - I was actually dropping by to see if you'd replied to my comment on the last post, and this one just happened to be here.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, some close-ups of the kit would be appreciated. :)