10 - Transformers Battle Gaia MIB, FINALLY MINE!

I realized I haven't posted in a while. Unfortunately, it's mostly because I've hit a slight dry spell when it came to finding any deals. Believe me, it's not for a lack of trying. However this all came to an end about 3 weeks back. Normally people would provide just the short story, but given this has been on my list for years, I'll bore you with the long version.

A friend of mine who lives in Tokyo messaged me and said that he saw a, "weird combiner Transformer that I figured you'd like." As you can tell, he's not really into Transformers. Given his not so specific description, I didn't think much of it, but figured I'd ask. So I sent him an image on google of different G1 combiners and asked if it was any of them. After what seemed to be forever looking at my What'sapp screen showing "Insert name Typing......" he finally replied and said it looked like the one with the grey chest, but the colours were different.

Now, my interest peaked a little given that he was referring to Bruticus, so I sent him an image of a G2 Bruticus, figuring most likely it was him. A day later......damn timezone difference.... he replied and told me the one he saw had blue thighs.

After nearly dropping my phone from jumping up, I asked him where did he find it, knowing that he doesn't ever go toy hunting. Turns out, he was over at his co-workers condo a few evenings before and saw it in a box with other toys. Apparently, he was going to go to Akihabara to see if he could sell his toys since he didn't want them anymore. While he wasn't into Transformers specifically, he did know a little bit and knew it was pretty rare.

Sorry for the poor picture, this was taken literally a minute after I took him out of the shipping box

So after getting the contact number, a little help from Google Translate, we worked out a deal, 100,000 Yen and I buy drinks for the 2 when I'm in Tokyo later this year. All in all, I couldn't possibly pass this up at that price. I did ask if he had any other Transformers for sale, but unfortunately they were all mostly played with and your usual suspects.

Slight flap crease

His Battle Gaia though, it was pretty much unplayed with. He got it when he was a child, but was moving out of Transformers, so he really just put the stickers on him and that was it, back in the box. All the joints are nice and tight, no discolouration and all accessories intact. It even came with the instructions.

For anyone asking what makes this so special, well, nothing tangible to be honest, despite the box art being different from Bruticus. What does make this special is two folded in my opinion. He's the last Transformer released under G1 in Japan and the only Decepticon released in Operation Combination. For a lot of fans, especially those who aren't as interested in Japanese releases, this doesn't seem like much, but given it's rarity (when he was released Transformers were dying in Japan, so even back then, they weren't everywhere) and his wonderful box art, it's a fantastic piece to add to one's collection.