Cool One Piece Strawhat Figure Sets

Eh, I'll post the rest of the One Piece Sets I was looking at.  If you look at my last few posts, it's obvious I've been looking for a really good full Strawhat set.  I ended up going for Megahouse's Chess set, but here are the various sets I was considering.  I think they're all pretty nice.

1. Ichiban Kuji

2. Megahouse Chess

3. Half Age Characters

4. Chozokei Damashii One Piece Straw Hat Pirates Gekitou! Fishman Island Battle

Some other sets I considered were the New World Figuarts Zero and POP Strong World.

By the way, if you don't know about it already, the One Piece Toys Tumblr is really fun to browse through and keep up on One Piece figures.  I've definitely spent my quota on figures for the year... but there's no harm looking.

One Piece Ichiban Kuji Strong World

Since I posted the One Piece Chess Set, I'll post this other Strawhat set I really liked.  I saw this rare set in person and loved it, although not many share my appreciation. It's an Ichiban Kuji One Piece Strong World set. You had to buy tickets to win these toys instead of buying them outright.  You can read more about Ichiban Kuji here.

What I love about this set is the cohesion. Not only do the pieces link together, but more than any set, I think these figures show the Strawhats as a unified group. Each piece is pretty large, about the size of a figurearts zero. The major downside is that the quality isn't anything to write home about.

If you'd like to buy the set, I've seen them on ebay and mandarake. They're expensive, but I really do like them.

One Piece Megahouse Chess Set

The Megahouse/Megahobby One Piece Chess Set Collection R looks awesome.  All the current Strawhats are represented, the poses look cool (it's a more serious looking set), and I've heard the quality is good.  Each figure is 90cm, or 3.5 inches.  There are two versions of each figure, one with a black base and the other with a white base.  Take a look for yourself.

http://www.megahobby.jp/products/item/814/

Luffy: King

Nami: Queen

Sanji: Bishop

Zoro: Knight

Usopp: Rook

Chopper: Pawn

http://www.megahobby.jp/products/item/894/

Luffy: King

Shirahoshi: Queen

Zoro: Bishop

Robin: Knight

Franky: Rook

Brook: Pawn

The first set came out April 2012.  The second set comes out in September 2012.

The R in the title apparently stands for Rebirth/Reborn/Return. Megahouse did another set in 2004, you can read about it here.  This new set is also post-timeskip.

It's a really nice Strawhat set, right?

It's good enough for display, using them

for Chess isn't really neccessary.

I really do love the set, but of course I'm not without my wishlists and minor complaints. First off, I don't like that Shirahoshi is in the set and I don't like that there are two Zoros. For me, they disrupt the cohesion of the set... like a nickel in a collection of quarters. I'm fine with the two Luffys, but I don't really like the legs crossed version... it just looks awkward to me, although I know that many men do it.

If I was in charge of the line with the same cost/set constraints, I'd do the following. Two Luffys still make sense to me, but I tried to make the sets Strawhats only, match characters to pieces better, and balance the sides. Ideally, there would be two versions of each of the strawhats, although it wouldn't be neccessary. What do you think?

King 1 - Luffy

Queen 1 - Nami

Knight 1 - Sanji

Bishop 1 - Brooke

Rook 1 - Franky

Pawn 1 - Thousand Sunny

King 2 - Luffy

Queen 2 - Robin

Knight 2 - Zoro

Bishop 2 - Chopper

Rook 2 - Usopp

Pawn 2 - Going Merry

Personally, I prefer all the strawhats to be on each side. Yeah, it still means eight pawns, but now there's just one of everyone else. It would also allow an option to create rival chess sets. With all the characters, it would probably be confusing to play this way... but sets like these aren't really for real use. This set is actually doable with the current set.

King - Luffy

Queen - Nami

Knight1 - Zoro

Knight2 - Sanji

Bishop1 - Robin

Bishop2 - Brooke

Rook1 - Franky

Rook2 - Usopp

Pawn - Chopper

You can find the blind boxes at several figure importers such as www.amiami.com.  If you want a complete set of figures, you can find some on ebay or yahoo auctions japan.  So... all the usual places.  If you want a complete chess set... that'd be pretty expensive.  I would love to see images of a complete board though.  I ordered a black base set myself... I'll post pictures when I have them all.

Easy Youtube to MP3

FYI, this is a pretty nice tool. It allows very easy conversion from a youtube video to an MP3. The URL is http://www.youtube-mp3.org/.

There are also browser addons that add a button to the youtube page itself so that the tool is even easier to use.

Firefox Youtube to MP3 addon

Just do a search on your own for other browser addons. I haven't tried them out and I don't want to recommend anything potentially dangerous.