There's a lot of negativity around 'urban vinyl' or whatever you fancy calling it and I try to stay on the glass half full side of things but dammit sometimes new releases make that really hard and that's the case here.

A new ultra-mini series from Kidrobot "Thoughts in Jeremyville" launches next week with 20 individual figures. A teaser postered earlier on of the eye-pyramid provoked a strong reaction, mainly due to it showing some distinctly average QC.

Having interviewed Jeremy for Clutter and as the author of Vinyl Will Kill this guy has been around the vinyl community for a long time doing his own and creating some interesting characters. But this post it's not meant as a dissection of his work it's about a wider malaise. Oh, get me and my fancy words.

Because in theory this series could work well for western collectors. I say 'in theory' because as seems to be a trend for KidRobot and other designer toy makers there's a huge and seemingly ever widening gulf between 'theory' and 'execution'.

I love super mini figs and gachapon, moreso after my recent jaunt to Japan where Gacha really is a way of life and contains some fascinating creations by the likes of well-known studios such as Devilrobots and Pansonworks. It also includes some slightly dubious and downright odd series which still in their own little way rule.
 

For Y200 you take your chances and normally end up with a pretty cool little figure - nothing fancy, not even really a 'collectable' but a nice, well made little object, well designed and presented in an interesting way.

Which is where this new KR series fails miserably. Not just fails but with an epic amount of facepalming too. Blind-boxed 1 inch figures are fine but KR doesn't seem to have a clue or the vision/ideas to even think about how you sell the designs and offer something truly creative. Why not do 'ultra-mini' as they describe it as a gachapon/capsule toy? Why not import gacha machines to your store and make this the start of new ultra mini series (even if that meant the same 5 people they always use being the designers...zzzz....)

Old vinyl collectors will, i'm sure, fondly remember the early Monsterism capsules and the amazing work (again out of Japan...i'm seeing a pattern here, are you?) done by the Sony Creative team with the like of James Jarvis. Super7 also got it bang on with their Neo-Kaiju series a few years back all lovingly capsuled up.

Then to top it all while most ultra minis come in at Y200 - that's about £1.50 to you and me - and so Kidrobot decide instead that UK collectors can pay £3.75 for the priviledge of owning a 1 inch figure. Talk about adding insult to injury. £3.75?!?!?! I believe the expression rhymes with "duck off".