The longest-running weekly official statue company livestream in the history of collecting continues with the galaxy-shaping F4F Q&A #116, featuring CEO Alex Davis and marketing guru King Chockles! In this week’s episode, learn the answers to such gut-wrenching questions as:

WHOSE decision was it to make improvements to the Zelda True Form Midna statue?

WILL Vyse defeat Alphonse in King of the Ring, guaranteeing Aika gets made as a statue?

DID Cowboy Bebop Spike survive the dreaded Drop Test?

WHICH All Might figure will “no shadow of a doubt” be the first version to go up for sale?

WHY is it unlikely that F4F would ever make a Darksiders War statue in 1/4 scale?

DOES the Amaterasu PVC still look likely to launch for pre-order in May?

WHAT stage of development is the All Might PVC figure at right now?

COULD we get a Cowboy Bebop ship companion piece…?

…and more in the latest F4F Q&A Recap!

Announcements and The Week in Review:

• Chocks saw Avengers Endgame opening night, but he’s not going to be one of the dicks who go around spoiling the movie
• You can only get a number for Mini Aku Aku Mask if you also bought and validated a resin Crash Bandicoot–otherwise, the bottom of the base on the Mini Aku Akus will not have a specific number assigned on it
• Even so, you still need to validate on validation day to get the bonus reward points, Signature Edition card signed by Alex Davis and holographic sticker of awesomeness
• Reignited Resin Spyro is coming along very very nicely; life-size and grand scale busts of Spyro also coming along nicely
• “Look at my face, Chockles. Do you think I have any idea what’s going on in this company at all?” — Alex Davis
• “Fuck it, let’s be a pro streamer.” — Alex Davis
• Alex believes Spyro LSB is a little shorter than Amaterasu LSB, but the horns might make it technically taller
• Buffy is the project lead on the Spyro Life Size Bust; she has a piece of paper Alex holds up to give us an idea of the size of Spyro LSB
• Toronto Fan Expo is on Alex and Chocks’ list of things to check out
• Slightly revised base for Shiranui with water on the base has been sent to Capcom for approval; don’t want to show it again on the off chance that it doesn’t get approved
• Alex can’t wait to talk about King of the Ring IV
• The molds for All Might AF are being made right now–will take 45-50 days to be made, so it’ll be 2-3 months before the pre-orders now
• There is no PVC for the Sheikah Slate–only the life-size version, which is on the painting line right now and looking great; it’s its own thing for suresies and involves complications
• Exclusives still up for pre-order on the F4F Website: Shovel Knight Player 2, Psycho Mantis, Guts, Alphonse, Mario on Yoshi, Snake SD, Meta-Ridley, Mimic, Phoenix Wright, Warp Star Kirby
• Dark Souls Torch Torch Shirts and Ring open until May 9th
• Boom8 Super Sonic & Amy Rose pre-orders close on May 3rd! Get your orders in unless you want to be on the Wait List!
• Berserk Guts Exclusive Bloody & Non-Bloody Last Chance Week has begun! If you want the EX, you need to order by May 3rd!
• Alex has begun streaming his Let’s PlaySearch series of videos of himself playing Sekiro; he saw the announcement and trailer for the game, but didn’t look up any spoilers or tips before playing; is learning the style of a good video game streamer as he goes; he’s giving out rewards points based off of his (many) deaths; if Alex finds that the number of viewers goes down, he’ll lose motivation and stop streaming and hide his shame by finishing Sekiro offline
• Chocks posts the polls for the Mini Aku Aku Mask Signature Edition Cards in the club
• Alex is looking forward to streaming gaming sessions from the new studio for the Q&A
• Switched to a new payment processor last week to hopefully lead to less payment declines in the future
• Facebook launched subscription groups last week which hide certain concepts behind a pay window
• Tuesday Validations were like watching paint dry–Alex is so glad that Validation Day has been rolled into the weekly Friday Q&A instead
• Alex is looking to hire someone who’s savage as fuck (savage AF) to be his savage manager
• If there are any other classic Sonic characters you still really want to be made as Boom8 PVCs, let Alex and Chock know so that they can pass your requests along to GNF Toyz
• Varia Suit Samus production is still ongoing–it’s a very tough piece that the factory can only make limited batches of at once because of how complicated production is, so it’s taking longer than anticipated
• Several photos of the upcoming Neo-Cortex statue have been posted recently in the OCC
• Sneak of Amaterasu PVC (next to Amaterasu resin) and Ripto’s Rage Spyro PVC were also posted in the Facebook group last week; variant of this Ripto’s Rage Spyro where Spyro is more pink will be released if it’s approved by Activision
• Will be a couple of months at least until the Neo-Cortex launch
• No stress for the Mini Aku Aku Mask Validation, since numbers are not available during this particular Validation (only though who authenticated Crash will get a number on their Mini Aku Akus)
• A special world premiere video is played featuring the F4F Cowboy Bebop Spike Spiegel video on the production and assembly line at the factory!

Temptation Thursday TT Polls and King of the Ring IV:

• Transistor TT: 290 Votes; 104 Yes, 186 No; “Where are the indy fans?”
• Assassination Classroom TT: 279 Votes; 50 Yes and 229 No; Lots of bitching about the character choice of Nagisa instead of Koro-sensei [What the heck, Chock? =P ]
• Peggy is in France living it up large in Paris right now!
• Time to choose the next three Temptation Thursday Polls!
• F4F Alumni Jeffrey Lee makes a surprise cameo in the livestream chat room!
• Horizon Zero Dawn TT coming up this week! A ‘AAA’ selection!
• Steamworld Dig TT next week!
• Soul Eater Anime TT in 2 Weeks!
• #F4FHB (Horse-Bitch, of course) is this week’s hashtag for a chance to win 500 Rewards Points on the next episode
• King of the Ring IV has begun!
• The first match of the new tournament is Dark Souls Ornstein vs. Soul Calibur Nightmare! Ornstein has an insurmountable lead as of the Q&A and will almost win beyond any shadow of a doubt.
• When Ornstein advances to Round 2, it will eliminate 17 entrants from King of the Ring IV–9% of the original number of entrants
• Alphonse from Fullmetal Alchemist vs. Vyse from Skies of Arcadia is next week’s match; 98% of the club has predicted Alphonse will win this battle
• Alex thinks due to the long time since Vyse was released, Alphonse will definitely win and Vyse will garner less votes than Nightmare

The Spike Spiegel Drop Test!

• The first Cowboy Bebop Spike statue drop test ends in… failure! Alex is just too strong, and his violent tossing of the box through the air and onto the concrete over and over again leads to the death of Spike’s legendary cigarette! Alex believes this is the first time he’s shown a broken statue from a failed drop test. Milestone!
• The second DDT drop test for Spike is a success after making some changes to the packaging! Spike Spiegel will be ready to ship in Australasia in mid-May!
• With Spike just about ready to ship out, his bounty-hunting partner Jet Black is finally about to go up for PO on Friday, March 3rd!
• Jet Black was shown at ACG HK almost a full year ago, and launch time is upon us at last! Alex wanted to make sure that Faye and Ed & Ein were decently far along in development before soliciting Jet so that there wasn’t a huge gap between Jet and the third member of the crew. Faye has now been finalized as far as Alex is concerned, assuming she gets approval.

The Q&A!:

• Peggy is on vacation!
• No shadow of a doubt, the Silver Age All Might will be the first one to come out since that’s the one Deku does the legendary scene with in the anime
• Alex is really good look at card holders this week
• Mini Crystal Dragons mold should be ready soon
• Can’t offer discounted games that Alex streams in Let’s PlaySearch; can only offer points; game giveaways are not easy to get
• Changes to True Form Midna were 100% Alex’s choice–the quality needs to be what it needs to be; completely F4F perogative to improve it
• Any hope for Samurai Champloo? Rally the fans.
• Crash Team Racing statue still needs more development time–that’s why it can’t have a PO near the release window of the game and why Neo-Cortex and Jet Pack Crash Bandicoot are both likely to be up for order first
• Will show another video of Shovel Knight production this week
• Working hard on Grayfox; PO not so soon
• Newer pieces and unannounced licenses have made F4F reconsider 1/4 as a standard
• Tetris 99 could be a nice game to play with the OCC once the new studio is set up
• If Vyse beats Alphonse in King of the Ring IV, Alex is making Aika and even Fina! Rally the Skies of Arcadia fans!
• All companion pieces will have signature editions going forward.
• First4Figures never did purely 1/4 statues to begin with; 1/4 market is getting so expensive now and prices are only going up, so in order to get below the $500 sweet spot, F4F needs to aim for 1/6 now
• Jet Black is the next pre-order
• Amaterasu and All Might won’t be up for PO for a while–recoup your wallets for now
• Alex hasn’t really done anything about Crystal Cloak Alucard–will look into it a little bit later on; no rush; expects to see Dracula soon
• Morrigan is coming along amazingly; final touches are always the hardest
• Standing poses are much easier to do than dynamic poses; would consider sitting or kneeling poses again in the future
• Alex is invited to be a Twitch affiliate! He can start earning from his 14 viewers for Let’s PlaySearch!
• Chocks has no snack this week, so there’s no snack review
• Still things to be done before Yakuza updates
• Jinjos and Jiggies after Crystal Dragons for Mini Figures
• “Hell yes” you should get Sekiro if you’re a glutton for punishment
• No changes to Ornstein EX besides the lightning light being changed to yellow
• At least 2 months before the All Might pre-orders
• No updates on Ed & Ein yet; will turn attention to that now that Faye design is sorted out
• Will make sure the goatee color is correct on the mini Aku Aku Masks
• Packs of Jinjos, Notes and Jiggies are at the top of Alex’s list
• No Zelda news this week
• Won’t stop playing Sekiro for a while unless people get bored
• Looks like the Amaterasu PVC won’t be going up for order in May because Alex got the newest prototype last week and wasn’t happy with it; needs to make changes
• TBD what to do with the Spyro PVC color variations; will be a retailer conversation; will look to do a different color in-game version of the new Ripto’s Rage PVC
• “Do I run the company or does the company run me?” — Alex Davis
• “Running this company really prepared me for Sekiro.” — Alex Davis
• How far will Alex get in Sekiro? “We’ll see.”
• Not sure how well Classic Amy and Super Sonic Boom8 figures have sold
• Wouldn’t do Darksiders War in 1/4 because it would be too expensive for fans; Alex originally would have said 1:4 was a no-brainer, but in the current marketplace Alex doesn’t believe the market can handle an $800 1:4 War; doesn’t think people can afford that; Ornstein is far thinner and easier than War, and Ornstein is already $600 and went up for order a year and a half ago–the price-point for a 1/4 War would be much higher if First4Figures ever got the Darksiders license
• Cowboy Bebop Ship Companion Piece? “Who knows? Let’s get through the line.”
• “The world’s shortest Q&A!”

Alex and Chocks will be back at it again on May the 3rd with F4F Q&A #117, featuring the long-awaited Cowboy Bebop Jet Black statue pre-order! Will you be coming back next week for reserve Spike’s partner for your collection?