Quote:
Originally Posted by boibleu22
cheap crappy vinyls that are geared towards kids?
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I started collecting figures/statues many years ago, with anime PVCs. Then I also developed an interest for Western ones simply because I could find more characters I liked. But seeing people being snobbish against PVC/vinyl still makes me roll my eyes so far back into my head that I should probably be auditioning for exorcism movies. I "love" it when these materials get associated with "toys" and are unfairly called "crappy" or "cheap" when the irony is that yes, plastic is objectively cheaper than cold casts or porcelain. But you know what else it is? Far easier to mass-produce without major quality issues. You have cold and frail materials that are hard to produce, hard to keep safe, hard to correct when they're riddled with QC issues such as pegs not fitting... and all at a higher price.
The first thing I noticed when I got non-PVC figures is the general crack in quality between pieces of the same size and the same (or even higher) price as PVC. For 150$ you will get an American "statue" with visible problems in casting, sticking the pieces together and the paint application. Not to mention that these things rarely have shading and when they do, it's sub-par compared to "cheap" PVC. The inelastic material also doesn't help when the damn statues don't fit into their damn pegs and you end up with a collectible that won't stand up for the life of it. But hey, it's a "good" collectible, not one of those "cheap" kiddie toys they make in plastic...
For 50$ you can get a decent PVC anime figure that has so much shading and so many different color variations that they look like real people with real skin and real hair. Not the waxy, funeral-house look of the things done by Western companies. Not the smudgy paint-quality that makes eyes look like they've been painted with sticks and not paintbrushes or decals. And not the limited dynamics that come with a material that is frail and inelastic.
My standards regarding paint quality have lowered SIGNIFICANTLY ever since I started adding non-PVC to my collection.
Unless, of course, I start buying 500$ statues just to fill in the quality gap between what I was used to and what is on offer.
I am not saying that people are not allowed to prefer their cold casts and porcelain and whatever. I'm just saying that the snobbery is ridiculous, especially when it reminds me of one of those small kids with his fingers shoved into his ears, singing la-la-la-la-laaaaa. When DC Direct manage to make something of the same quality, detailing, coloring, casting and amazing overall look as Max Factory, Good Smile Company or even Kotobukiya, FOR THE SAME PRICE as same-sized items from DC Direct / Collectibles... THEN I will stop rolling my eyes at the anti-PVC snobbery. But at the moment I find it absurd.
Rant over. I'm sorry, I initially didn't want to comment about that OP message (especially since
I've been around here for little enough as to not be sure if OP is actually just trolling/joking - in which case I sincerely apologize for my melodramatic overreaction!) but then I saw it quoted again and had "something to say" yet again...