Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Figure Collection.

A while back, I did a brief post about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Figure Collection series. They are, in short, little figures of Duel Monsters with Duel Terminal-compatible trading cards in little boxes. The figures apparently also have something on their bases that allows them to be scanned by a Duel Terminal. It's an ingenious idea that Konami really should have tried a long time ago.

As of late, these MFC's have been bugging me. That is putting it nicely.

First off, can anybody point to a good site for updates on this series? The last few have come almost completely out of the blue. The only reason I know about the most recent two sets is random eBay searches. Even the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia only talks about the first series, which featured the 5 Dragons from 5D's.

My second gripe - and I know you all are going to get very sick of hearing this - is that all of the monsters in the first three sets have had "dragon" in their names. You could argue about XYZ- Dragon Cannon and Cyber End Dragon being not dragons, but it is obvious that Konami is just milking their dragons for all that they are worth. Seriously, the series is called "Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Figure Collection," not "Yu-Gi-Oh! Dragon Figure Collection."

They could do so much more with this. Yu-Gi-Oh! is loaded with cool monsters besides dragons. I am sure that they could get away with adding Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl (a million nerds just fapped at the thought), Magician of Black Chaos, Black Luster Soldier -Envoy of the Beginning (come on, you KNOW they will do CED), Elemental Hero Neos in at least one of his forms and Elemental Hero Flame Wingman; they may as well finish what they started with Horus by adding in Phoenix of Nephthys and The Creator; the Earthbound Immortals would be awesome to assemble, even if they were evil; hell, why not have Levia-Dragon and Behemoth the King of Animals in one set? Brain Crusher, an awesome-looking mantis-dragon that apparently eats brains, would be cool to see again period. The possibilities are endless and awesome. Konami is letting them slip by.

Today, I showed a friend of mine the Horus figure. He wanted to buy that item regardless of the card being in Japanese. Much like decks containing Mirror Force and Crush Card Virus, these figure boxes are hot items that Konami could easily make money off of around the world. Instead, not only are they limiting themselves to dragons, but they have chosen to keep their product in Japan.

Oh, wait. I can totally predict their reason for NOT bringing these awesome little things over here: 

"Butbutbutbut DUEL TERMINALS AREN'T WIDESPREAD ENOUGH YET!"

Whose fault is THAT? Bandai has had card terminals for years in Japan. To make up for the relative suck of GX (were they writing as they went along?), they could have introduced Duel Terminals earlier as opposed to when they were suffering. Stick one in every Target to give the kiddies something to do while their parents are buying stuff. Virtual card games are not a hard sell.

Great idea + poor execution = More Konami fail. Why am I not surprised? Randomness is amazing marketing, and these are neat no matter which one you get. There is no way to lose, yet Konami is hesitating.

(On a tangentially-related note, I AM secretly eager to get my mitts on some of the Ragnarok-themed cards coming out. I am all for the battle of mythologies that I have been looking forward to since DAY ONE of YGO.)