Aim! Shoot!! Duck!!!

After using Borderlinx for over a year now, I guess it’s time to follow up on my previous post about it. So has my experience & recommendation changed since? Kind of. 

Now Borderlinx as a service is great & really gives people like me an opportunity to buy things from USA or UK where previously I would have not been able to. Unfortunately, Malaysian Customs & DHL makes it impossible for them to keep their promises.

Malaysian Customs needs no introduction. Any M’sian who have dealt with them knows they are incredibly inconsistent. Tax & duty is supposed to have been calculated by Borderlinx so Malaysian Customs should not be charging me again, but of course this rarely happens. I’ve only paid once, the rest of the time I managed to get off the hook after having a few chats with the Malaysian Customs supervisor in charge. The next issue I have with Malaysian Customs is their habit of ripping open my stuff for checking. Out of 10 times my stuff will get ‘inspected’ 8 times & often results in sealed packaging being opened even though the item is in clear view. This pisses me off the most as it’s hard enough to find Mint in Sealed Box items that I want, then having Malaysian Customs help me ‘officiate’ it is really heartbreaking. This also resulted in a few items I wanted to keep sealed being opened as well, completely ruining the value of the item.

Next is DHL. The issue? Their speed. It takes around 1 week or more to deliver my package from USA. This is not helped of course by Malaysian Customs holding my package as well. But what disappointed me the most is that DHL didn’t seem to have any urgency to get the package cleared from Malaysian Customs, instead opting to just wait for Malaysian Customs to get back to them. This has resulted in my package being stuck in Malaysian Customs for up to 3 days & if not for me calling DHL twice a day, it might have got stuck longer. Then of course I have to settle with Malaysian Customs so it drags on. So much for using courier service.

After running into these issues, I’ve decided to give USPS Postal service a try. USPS Priority International service is actually just slightly cheaper than using Borderlinx but it all depends on your package since USPS charges by weight while Borderlinx is by volumetric weight vs dead weight, whichever is larger. Overall I find it cheaper to use USPS Priority International when you have more than 2 items to send back at the same time. Surprisingly, it’s fast too! In fact it reaches in the same time period as using Borderlinx! An added bonus is that I have yet to have any of my packages ‘inspected’ by Malaysian Customs. * Touch Wood!!! * Overall a very good experience so far.

So does that mean I won’t use Borderlinx anymore? No, I’ll still use it as there are a lot of sellers on eBay that won’t ship internationally so for these cases I will still use Borderlinx. But of course it’s a second option now, first being to ship using USPS Priority International. Also, I try my best not to ship anything Mint in Sealed Box using Borderlinx now to avoid getting a heart attack when I receive the package.

Building on my previous post, Transformers Collection – The ‘Titans’, here’s the next batch of figures I have that fits in the ‘Titans’ category.

RID Optimus Prime/Ultra Magus

RID stands for Robots in Disguise, the US version of the Japanese Transformers Car Robots series. This is a series I’ve never watched before but the toyline has been credited as resurrecting the interest in Transformers figures for most older Transformers fans. Especially when talking about the great renditions of Optimus Primes, the RID Optimus Prime (Car Robots Super Fire Convoy) will surely be high on the list. RID Ultra Magnus (Car Robots God Magnus) is the brother of Optimus in this series & together they can combine to form Omega Prime (Car Robots God Fire Convoy), a really kick ass looking robot & the reason I got these 2 guys.

FansProject TFX-01J D.I.A. Commander

First of all, this isn’t an official Transformer product. It’s a 3rd party product produced by a company called FansProject. No this isn’t considered Knock Off since a knock off is based on an existing product, this product is an original product engineered & produced by FansProject themselves. With that out of the way, let’s get back to the product itself.

Now this isn’t really a figure by itself but an add-on kit. It’s a trailer for the Henkei/Classics Optimus that can be combined with Optimus to form the fictional D.I.A Commander.  Since this isn’t an official Transformers product, they can’t use the official names so they have to come up with fictional characters. See for yourself how cool it looks.

FansProject TFX-04 Protector & TFX-05 Sidearm

Another FansProject add-on kit & this one was just released recently. This is a trailer that combines with Henkei/Classics Rodimus to form the fictional Protector. Sidearm is a tiny robot that transforms into his weapon. For those who are familiar with that, the small robots that transforms into weapons were known as Targetmasters in Transformers. This is by far the most amazing add-on kit I’ve come across for it’s quality & appearance are top notch & easily rivals the official Transformers products.

Here are some pics of both D.I.A Commander & Protector together. They surely complement each other well.

Alternity Convoy

I guess size wise this would not count as a ‘Titan’.  But it’s still Optimus Prime so that fits the bill.

The Nissan GTR has been my dream car since it was announced so a Optimus Prime transforming into a Nissan GTR was like a match made in heaven, for me at least . Anyway, this was released back when the real Nissan GTR was released in Japan & was very sought after until the prices got inflated beyond reasonable range. Luckily a recent reissue pushed the price down & allowed me to own this gem. Anyway, Alternity Convoy actually comes in a few colours, Silver, Red, Black & a White version for Ultra Magnus. The red colour version is the most sought after & overpriced & this was the one that got reissued recently.

Alternity Megatron

Yay, a Decepticon! Haha! I don’t seem to have many Decepticons in my Transformers collection. Most of my Decepticons are Megatron & Starscream. Guess they are the only ones worth picking up it seems.

The Nissan 370Z Fairlady is an update to the very popular Nissan 350Z Fairlady. Megatron isn’t as popular as Optimus so I was able to get this for much cheaper than Optimus. Still, it looks great both in car & robot mode. This also comes in Silver, Blue & Black. Though most will prefer the Silver or Blue versions, the Black version actually has very nice colour contrast & actually makes it look like a genuine Samurai warrior in robot mode.

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed the post.

It’s been a while since I last did a pictorial showcase of my individual figures. But with the number of figures I have, it’s going to take a lot of time to do each of them. So instead of doing each & every figure, I’ll just concentrate on a particular theme. This time, it’s on the ‘Titans’ in my collection as well as my bro’s collection. What are these ‘Titans’? They can refer to the characters that are the main pillars of Transformers, characters who you’ll see in pretty much every version of Transformers. Also, they can refer to the size of the figures. But for pretty much all the figures I’m going to show here, it means both

ROTF Jetfire

Jetfire is known to those who watched the G1 & Unicron Trilogy series though the movie version doesn’t seem to be based on these series at all. Here he’s an old cranky SR-71 Blackbird, a majestic looking plane even till today. But the robot mode leaves much to be desired. Besides that, he can combine with ROTF Leader Optimus Prime to form Jetpowered Optimus Prime yet the combination still leaves much to be desired. At least it does look kick ass, but there’s very little posing you can do with the combined mode for the figures. Oh ya, this is an unofficial combination mode, the official one looked too sucky to me.

Optimal Optimus

Unless you watched the Beast Wars series, you won’t know who this guy is. Beast Wars was one of the more entertaining Transformers series I’ve watched. The ones produced by Americans always have more sensible story & great humor compared to the ones done by the Japanese. Optimal Optimus is the result of Optimal Primal combining his spark with the spark of Gen 1 Optimus Prime. Yeap, the original Optimus Prime. How did that happen? You have to watch Beast Wars to find out.

Beast Wars Transmetal figures have a very high degree of accuracy to the series, even down to how transformation is done. This figure has 4 modes, a sort of tank mode, a flying tank mode, a beast mode & a robot mode. The last pic shows it in comparison to a deluxe Transmetal Rattrap figure.

* This figure belongs to my bro.

Galaxy Force Optimus Prime

Galaxy Force is the Japanese version of the Transformers Cybertron series. This is the last series in the Unicron Trilogy & the story as well as animation originated from Japan. As a result, there’s a lot of absurd plot twists as well as a story that at times makes me wanna whack the people who made the series. The Japanese sure have a weird storytelling mentality that I just can’t get used to.

Optimus Prime in this series has been called one of the best versions of Optimus Prime among all the Transformers series. Design wise it sure looks great & it has 4 modes as well. A firetruck, a flying firetruck, a normal robot mode as well as a Super robot mode where he combines with his trailer. Robots combining are a norm in the Unicron Trilogy & one of the most best combination to come out is the Optimus Prime Sonic Wing mode (last pic), a combination with Wing Saber & definitely the coolest looking combination to me.

* This figure belongs to my bro.

ROTF Leader Starscream

For those who remember, I already have a ROTF Voyager Starscream which I quite liked & was definitely the best movie Starscream figure during that time. Well, that has now changed with the release of the new Leader Starscream. This figure is definitely the most accurate looking movie Starscream figure & beats the Voyager figure by miles. Originally I didn’t plan to pick this up but I couldn’t resist during a huge 30% annual sale at a local toy store. Though the plane mode is a bit fat on the underside, at least there’s no ugly hands sticking out like the Voyager Starscream.

Masterpiece MP-5 Megatron

If there is a Megatron figure to get, this will be it. Well, besides the Henkei/Classics figure which is also a great figure, this Masterpiece Megatron figure is classic Gen 1, though proportion wise it might not be correct as it’s a bit skinny but it’s still looks correct. His cannon is kind of too big & heavy. It actually weighs more than half the figure itself! Also, this figure has the reputation of being the most easy to break when transforming among the Masterpiece lineup because of it’s very thin plastics. I managed to break one of the arm supports myself but thankfully, it’s not something vital & doesn’t interfere with transformation. Overall, I still like this figure a lot because of it’s great look, especially if compared to the other Gen 1 based Megatron figures which you can see here.

Ok thats it for this update. As mentioned in the comments of my previous post, I’ve a new display cabinet. Here’s how both of my cabinets look like side by side.

My Display Cabinets