F4F Q&A #68 Recap: F4F Shiranui Exclusive Revealed! F-Zero! Xenoblade!

There’s an electrical excitement in the air today, as for what seems like the first time in forever, a new First4Figures statue that we’ve only seen in the shadows up until now will finally be revealed in all its glory: the F4F Okami Shiranui Exclusive Edition statue is now up for order! While we’ve had a few glimpses at the Celestial Doggy, he/she/it got a grandiose spotlight that a Brush God deserves as the main event of today’s F4F Q&A #68! There were also be the usual thousands (okay maybe not thousands) of collector questions answered, so stay tuned for the LIVE Recap…

[The F4F Q&A Recap is NOW LIVE! Follow along as this post is updated throughout the livestream with all the news and information, leading up to the Exclusive Shiranui statue pre-order coming up at the end!]

The Week In Review:

The Guts pre-order is still ongoing, as Guts hasn’t hit 1000 pieces yet. We’ll get an update as to the current number of Guts statues ordered next week.
The pre-order calendar on the F4F website has now been updated, although there are still some surprises in Q2/Q3 2018 that aren’t on the calendar!
Shiranui documentary will be posted when the Shiranui statue pre-order opens up at the conclusion of the livestream today. It’s a short 50 minutes this week! Shiranui was super easy(-ish) because F4F had learned so much from making Amaterasu.
The 4th Baby in the Davis household is on the way! Alex has already gotten in and placed his order for the edition size of 1, and its anticipated delivery date is October 31st 2018! The shipping cost should be cheap, as the warehouse is right down the road and Alex expects to pick it up in person. One more baby and it will have to be First 5 Figures!
Alex wants to push for his baby girl to be named “Clementine”, after the primary character in the Telltale Games “The Walking Dead” video game.
Alucard Edition Numbers!
Alucard Exclusive Edition: 450 pieces
Alucard Twilight Edition: 575 pieces
“Thank you so much for the unbelievable support! We will do you proud! Dracula is deep in development! Death is far down the line as well!”
Shout-out to Alex’s Lovely Wife with Baby #4 on the Way! Alex is being told he needs to get the snip-snip!
The majority of members in the club voted that Shiranui is a girl.
The Furry Fandom and General Wolves ad groups performed extremely well in the Facebook ads for Shiranui. Plushie Toys performed well in addition.
Alex’s dog Bella in the Shiranui Pose was a top post in the F4F OCC group this week. Alex was delighted to see photos of so many club members’ doggos.
This will be the last launch where you can order multiple statues in one order–next week the website will be updated so that you can only have one thing in your cart at a time.
Donkey Kong is at the top of popularity polls for the next character in the Super Mario line, with Luigi in second. Alex will be speaking to the Big N at the Las Vegas Licensing Expo about this and more next month.
Super Shadow poll is in-progress this week–no goal number has been set for this poll by Alex. 550 is not the goal for this poll (unlike the Blaze the Cat poll that Alex specified has a 550 goal).
Sonic 25th Anniversary Statue arrived at the office this week, and Chock posted a photo of the box in the F4FOCC. Should begin reaching collectors around June–watch the calendar on the F4F website for updates. Tekken Jin was also shown off this week–only in two pieces and easy to assemble.
Alex has been to the cinema twice this week: went to see “Isle of Dogs” (which was stop-motion and very impressive), as well as “A Quiet Place”. Chock has been busy watching “Lost in Space” on Netflix, which is “not bad”.
There are new and updated leaflets that have been printed to include with future First 4 Figures statues shipping out (shown below).

Temptation Thursday Polls (TTs):

Attack on Titan TT Poll #99: 174 ‘Yes’ Votes, 169 ‘No’ Votes; Tough because a lot of people prefer humans and a lot of people prefer Titans/diorama pieces; Attack on Titan Season 3 trailer appeared today, so we’ll see how this goes
Shin Megami Tensei TT Poll #98: 46 ‘Yes’ Votes, 132 ‘No’ Votes; Low vote count; “TTs never die”; maybe a different character will be chosen for another TT later on
TT Poll #100: F-Zero Captain Falcon TT Next Week! For the character, not his vehicle.
TT Poll #101: Xenoblade Chronicles in Two Weeks! Rally for the series as a whole and worry about the specific characters later.
TT Poll #102: Vagrant Story in Three Weeks!
This week’s hashtag is #F4FSnipSnip for a chance to win F4F Reward Points next week!

The Q&A!:

Amaterasu Life-Size Bust is being produced at the factory that’s making Silver the Hedgehog and 25th Anniversary Sonic. Ammy LSB will go into production full-force once Silver and 25th Sonic are complete.
True Form Midna pre-order will drop as soon as she’s ready–she’ll be put up before anything else once she’s ready.
Gravelord Nito 3-D file being tweaked.
Edward Elric is ready to submit for approval in the next day or so, then they will go to 3-D print.
Dante is being improved and has a slight change to the base being done.
Spyro box will be revealed when Chock has it in the office or when Alex does a production video at the factory–whichever comes first
Banjo-Kazooie PO coming in July
Crystal Dragon–Alex is pushing for approval
Neo-Cortex is coming along nicely
Flying Jetpack Crash Bandicoot statue possibly coming in a couple of years time
The F4F Website can’t deal with collectors choosing personalized names for their statues just yet, but it’s something Alex is thinking about
Alex will talk to Activision about doing a Spyro PVC again at Las Vegas Licensing Expo–was told “No” before the Remastered Spyro Trilogy was announced
Alex has thought about having a Combo Pack for Spike and Jet and offering them up for PO at the same time (although Jet has had his head redone); Chock says “No way!”
Unusually high number of orders for the regular version of Guts–not an unheard of number, but an atypical number
Thumbs up for the Blaze the Cat poll; Alex wants 750 votes up from the 550 he asked for two weeks ago
Alex picks Brock Lesnar to defeat Roman Reigns in Saudi Arabia at the Greatest Royal Rumble today
No update on the Sif replacements yet–Alex will follow-up
No relation between the Mimic pre-order date or Solaire’s release; the Artorias SD statues should be in the market before the Mimic PO though
No news on Crystal Dragon or Midna to report right now
Chibiterasu is definitely coming out in the Okami line; Alex will post more Okami polls after the Shiranui PO opens
No talk of a Shiranui LSB yet
Alex agrees that a Samus statue without her helmet would be beautiful; Alex will discuss Metroid with Nintendo at the Licensing Expo
Alex had dinner with Nintendo and Capcom at both Las Vegas Licensing Expos that he’s been to
First 4 Figures has a great relationship with Gaming Heads and won’t do God of War statues, since Gaming Heads is doing them
The Amataerasu Life-Size Bust is part of the Okami range, so you have to buy that LSB in order to guarantee keeping your number in the series
No hints at the 4th Berserk statue for a while
No photos of Skull Knight or Genos for a while
Alphonse is almost there
Haven’t looked at the current Guts sales numbers–will update in next week’s Q&A
1:1 Scale Puck from Berserk could be possible in the future
Won’t approach Nintendo about SD until the line is better-established
Bayonetta guns are almost ready; will be first release in the Bayonetta series; the Bayonetta figure itself is way far away
Will go in whatever direction for Berserk line that fans want
Any chance for Berserk props? F4F hadn’t been thinking about it, but would love to hear if fans are interested. Alex will start an official poll next week.
Alex already did Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter statues when he worked at Gaming Heads
Shantae: “TTs never die.”
Gwyn would be cool
Next PO after Shiranui will be announced the week before the pre-order goes live; nothing to announce right now
Alex has to think about how people on 12-month plan for Artorias SD can authenticate to keep their same number for Solaire SD
First 4 Figures won’t step on Gaming Heads’ toes
Alex would love to redo a new Fierce Deity Link; could absolutely revisit it after 10 years since the original came out; would have to be in a different pose
Is Reala still happening? “Locked up tight. Very painful since she’s at the physical stage already.”
7 “Dabs” by Chock
Alex is drinking English Breakfast Tea today that tastes like shit; usually drinks Oolong tea during the Q&A
The Amaterasu PVC is “far”–back end of the year for pre-orders if F4F is lucky
Alex doesn’t think environmental statues have a lot of traction–but prove him wrong on F4Funday
Tokyo Ghoul can be a future TT
Alex needs to sit down and discuss with the team about how the direction of the company and its resources would be affected if First4Figures seriously went after the Kingdom Hearts/Disney license
Artorias SD Regulars are being wrapped up right now; Exclusive Versions should be ready in a few weeks
F4F will sign bases that collectors bring to Gamescom
You can only collect Reward Points from resin statues purchased from the F4F Website; the PVC statues released thus far have all come with pamphlets with reward points codes so far
License deals sometimes are for specific characters and sometimes are not
F4F doesn’t have many secret licenses that they hold right now–not very many (if any) right now
50K Reveal: Alex doesn’t even know what it’s even going to be yet; Chock thinks he knows what it is already and Alex isn’t sure
Some people will be happy with the 50K reveal and some won’t, the same as with every announcement
Sneak peeks for Banjo-Kazooie locked down until pre-order
Nothing to reveal about Nier Automata
Probably no Soul Calibur statue pre-order this year
Taki production video could possibly be taken next week
Nothing to discuss about Yu-Gi-Oh
Not enough orders for Guts yet for a Skull Knight tease
Nothing to report about Samurai Champloo Jin
Anime TTs don’t do as well because the built is group on video game fans; F4F is growing their anime base of collectors now as only one anime statue has been released to date (Saitama)
First4Figures is hoping to see more anime fans come in and vote on anime TTs as more of the anime statues are released
Kiryu isn’t coming along very fast; nothing to report
Disney license is a big beast to look into; more important than just votes
Alex’s favorite meal: Chinese cuisine; Steak
The name “First 4 Figures” was chosen because the company was originally “business to business”–a distribution company–and the name was geared toward that
Warp Star Kirby will be up for order this year; maybe Shadow Fighter Kirby by the end of the year as a variant
Lines stop from being finished mainly because of low sales figures (but there can be other factors like losing the license)
Nothing is added to the shipping schedule until there’s a firm date from the factory–that’s why the shipping schedule is so empty
A very small percentage of people had issues with their Fighter Kirby statue; leaning isn’t a big issue with it, but some replacements are being made anyway
Steps are being taken to make sure that Mugen doesn’t have leaning issues–there’s a metal pole that goes through his whole body
Paypal is integrated into the website and can be used already to buy statues
No T-Shirt with Shiranui statue
No plans for Shiranui LSB just yet
Alex will be running polls to see what other Okami characters people are interested in
Bayonetta is super-super difficult and won’t be for a while, but her guns are already far in development
Nothing to report on Starfox right now
Alex could raise the possibility of Majora’s Mask Moon with Nintendo
Alex goes back and forth in his mind about the Disney license; a lot of requirements; it would really be tough and needs to be discussed with the team

On Okami and the Exclusive Shiranui Statue Pre-Order!:

Knew that Shiranui would be the next PO the week before she was announced as the next PO when something else was suddenly pushed back
The licensors were very particular about the Shiranui face markings and the way that they should look and be done (based off the official artwork)
Poses like jumping in the air were considered for Shiranui, but weren’t quite practical
Some people had problem with Amaterasu’s reflector breaking over time; will talk about in the Shiranui documentary
We won’t see Chibiterasu for a while–maybe will be up for pre-order in about a year with some sneak peeks before then
Price and size of Shiranui will be revealed later in the show
Much bigger and more beautiful reflector on this Shiranui statue than on Amaterasu
Reflector diffuses oranges into greens in a very natural way to give an effect where the colors are flowing in-between
Ishaku is on the top; and won’t break as easily as Issun did
At first glance you might think this is Amaterasu, but it’s actually Shiranui–who Amaterasu is a reincarnation of
Shiranui has far more–and more intricate–red patterns on her side than Amaterasu does
There’s some subtle black paint on Shiranui’s mouth to make it stand out
Shiranui Exclusive Edition Pre-Order will open up after the end of the Q&A Livestream is now open!
Shiranui’s reflector has a peg with a larger surface area to increase strength of the connection and to keep the reflector safe; F4F learned from their work on Amaterasu’s reflector
Should Shiranui have a brush stroke on the bottom of her tail? Let F4F know!
Shiranui does still have a visible butthole (of course!)
Amaterasu and Shiranui look fantastic as a pair together–look really great next to each other; same size
Very subtle differences in the 19 “tendrils” emanating from Shiranui; different to see under the Q&A lighting, but every single one is separate and will be attached one-by-one
Base has a similar theme to Amaterasu’s so that the two look good together
The Exclusive Shiranui Edition will come with LED Light-Up Function that can be “Always On” or “Fully Animated”; F4F will work on making the light-up function brighter
There is a mirror on the underside of the reflector–the light-up function will go around the mirror on Shiranui (unlike Amaterasu)
Shiranui’s pre-order will be open for exactly four weeks and a weekend–so she’ll be up for pre-order from today (April 27th 2018 to), but you need to order between now and Validation Tuesday (May 1st 2018) to get the Day One Edition; pre-orders will close on the 29th of May
Shipping Pricing: United States — $55; EU — $55 USD; Canada — $75 USD; Japan — $85; Hong Kong/China — $35; Australia — $115; Other — $135
Payment plans of up to 12 months will be available for Shiranui with only 10% deposit due today; you can also just place an order without a payment plan and just pay the deposit today
Far more complicated than Amaterasu; bigger; over two-and-a-half years after than Amaterasu–so unfortunately, the price on Shiranui is quite a bit higher than Amaterasu
On 12 month plan, monthly fee is $36
Shiranui Exclusive Price: $485 (including $48 deposit)
Regular Shiranui Price: $485 (including $48 deposit)
Alex has a sad heart that F4F couldn’t get the price on Shiranui quite as low as the price on Amaterasu was, but it’s years later and this statue is larger and more complicated–couldn’t be done
Don’t forget to come back and hit the “Validate” button on Tuesday May 1st to validate your order for the Day One edition
First 4 Figures wants people to buy statues for love of the characters, not for perceived scarcity
If Shiranui EX sells over 2000 Edition Size, Chocks says there can be a Shiranui Life-Size Bust

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