Dragon Stars - (Dragon Ball Super figures released in US)

Again... It's not trying to be figuarts, it's trying to be Marvel Legends, which are also $25 a figure. 6 figures sharing a BAF, 6 inch scale, decent articulation but not super high end... Heck the packaging even looks like a current Marvel Legends figure. It's why the line is a smidge big for figuarts: ML are slightly bigger.

That having been said, it'll ride the wave of super hype in the US, and die as that dies down, and you're right that it'll be lucky to run two years. And I'm ok with that... It gives people a Super focused line which will in turn allow Figuarts to focus on other eras and not feel obligated to use every other slot on Super for brand cohesion. And I can get characters like Hit and Zamasu that I want, but not enough to spend $70 on figuarts.

Honestly the worst thing I can say is... WTF why are the heads not ball jointed. It's absurd.

Except you need a heavy hitter in every wave (Goku, Gohan, Vegeta) for the kids. And to your argument about price for moms... again, EVERY TOY LINE right now is $25. Marvel Legends, DC Multiverse, Power Rangers Legacy, Star Wars Black... and all selling well enough to sell wave after wave of toys to collectors and children. Moms don't have much of a choice in that regard... it's either spend $25 on Goku, or spend it on another Spider-Man. It's a problem with the industry as a whole, not this line specifically.

(And for the record, 3.75" figures sell for ~$15. That's the toy market right now, it's all absurd.)

I will agree that they should have diversified a bit more in waves 1 and 2 (which, frankly, all 6 should just be called "wave 1". When you have a BAF across 6 figures, it's a six figure wave). You want to have heavy hitters Goku and Vegeta in the wave, sure, but save variants of those characters for later waves to promote those down the line.

Again, I am not AT ALL saying this line is not without it's problems... I wish it well, so hopefully it can exist to fill some gaps... but I've started to see what the line is trying to do, and it's doing well enough.

Given Marvel-Mania... Yeah, they do. Maybe not AS prolifically, but guys like spider-man have been in multiple lines in multiple scales(4 in, 6 in, 7 in, 9 in, 12 in), including multiple 5 inch lines. And yet, people still buy him... I know several people who want to see the current Marvel Legends buck see as many costumes as possible (heck, I am one).

As for this line... on the one hand, you're right, we're ALL sick of Goku figures everywhere. But let's be honest, a Dragonball line without him is not worth the title, regardless if there's another line in the same scale.

They absolutely got the mix wrong though. For the full wave 1 (I decided this morning that I refuse to dignify the 3 figure wave nonsense. They're on the packaging as a single 6 figure wave) I'd have done just ssj Goku and Vegeta. Those are the iconic and most marketable forms, as is Freeza's white form. Were it me, I'd use the normal forms to fill out later waves with cheaper buck figures. Fill out wave 1 with Ultimate Gohan (who just needs a head to reuse Goku's buck and would be just as cheap to make) and another series mainstay, or someone appropriate to the first few arcs of Super.

That said, wave 2 works fine. It'll hit about when we're knee deep into the Goku Black arc, and covers that arc well enough. Kinda sucks that Hit is really the only U6 tournament character to show up(technically Vegeta and Goku too, but... No.) But the rest of the iconic U6 characters could easily come with the Tournament of power waves, whereas the reverse would not be true.

Concessions do have to be made to cheapness though, like it or not. Using the same body buck for multiple figures is standard practice for keeping costs down, so having so many whole new molds in wave 1 would have been a mistake financially, especially for a line that by your own admission wasn't guaranteed to sell. Doing wildly differing characters like Botamo right out of the gate would have been a mistake, as cool as it would have been.

As it stands, wave 1 was trying to be "safe" to the point that it risked joining the awful Kai line from awhile back. Even a SSJ God Goku on the incorrect regular buck would have been more interesting and appropriate to match with Beerus. But if wave 2 is a sign of things to come (each wave having 4 good characters to go along with a Goku and Vegeta pair) I don't mind cherry picking from this line from now on.

*shrug* Not saying that I agree with it, but I am saying it's all basically standard practice for mass market action figures in 2018. I collect Marvel Legends and cherry pick the DC Multiverse line, both of which have been doing all this stuff for a decade or so (though the ~$25 price tag is a fairly recent and unwelcome price creep... they were $20 like a year ago)

On a completely unrelated note... I'm working on a Cooler custom using the slightly oversized Freeza... and I'm looking at the comparison shots, and noticing that Dragon Stars Vegeta is the same height as Figuarts Goku. Hmmm... raises some custom possibilities.

I was more thinking a certain father figure, since one of my biggest issues with a lot of customs based on figuarts Trunks is that he's still kinda short and or takes a ton of work to grow out (works for my Gohan custom, not for Goku/Bardock). As for the neck... again, advantage of owning one and currently tearing it apart... the way they designed the necks of these things is kinda ridiculous. it may LOOK short because of how low the head sits, but if Freeza's neck is anything to go by, that neck joint likely goes all the way up to Vegeta's eyeballs.

Ps credit to them though for trying to keep up with details. the details are not half bad. this frieza for example has better details than the figurise one.