@benhan:
Thanks TC! I'm with you in the disappointment with POP focus on the bikini and SOC lines. We're lucky that Banpresto keep pumping out quality figures with interesting poses and sometimes non-mainstream characters as well. I'm rooting for them to make a Grandline series of Akazaya Nine.
I'm still not interested in FZ however I did notice their higher quality recently. Nice if you can do custom paint so things like that can be fixed. I also noticed that you did a bit of painting for your POP Snakeman. I didn't have the skill to do so, otherwise would love to bought those black & white prize figures and try painting. What kind of paint you used for the touch up?
Seeing old users coming back to this forum (just like what Kanji wrote) reminded me of how exciting the old days. Who still remember when we were pressing F5 at Amiami site for POP pre-order? And still missed the Pre-order!
At that time, One Piece was super hot and POP's demand was sky-high. I think the popularity started to go down after the Sailing Again series where One Piece merch were a bit saturated and the figures are more of the same. Or it might be because we're just getting old with this hobby and moving on from life. However, the next generation didn't arrive to take over…
Two weeks ago, while cleaning up my collections, my first daughter stumbled upon the POP Chibi Zoro as in my avatar. It was the first figure I collected. The journey started from there. I said I bought this figure before you were born, so the figure is older than her! She's 8 years now... It's quite amazing if you reflect on the start of your journey in collecting figures.
I'm sure some people have moved on from this hobby by selling their collections, but I can't seem to be able to do that (selling). I just limited myself in buying new ones. Apart of One Piece and Dragonball, I also collected Crows x Worst figures and a few Tales Series, Fate/Stay, Bakemonogatari, Vanillaware games series (Odin Sphere, Oboro Muramasa, DC) and from other random series figures. In total 300+ figures in my collection which I can only display probably 15% of them. What a ride (and what a waste of money people might think of it)... 
This forum was the catalyst of this hobby. Where people shared their collections, their thoughts, and their feelings. I feel with age, people move on and you saw fewer and fewer fans (especially familiar names) in this forum. I hope the younger generation can find the same fun in collecting figures like what we used to have. I don't know if there are new users in this forum who are just starting to walk in this path. Even the mods are not even posting again in this forum. I'm curious what happened and why AP OP Collectibles Forum dying down much more quickly than other enthusiast forums. It's like we're dying in the same pace as the POP...
I feel you, I really do.
The POP line generally disappointed me after a while and once I started getting other pvc figures, it became clear that Megahouse wasn't really trying that hard. But I do remember those days when everyone was up early (or late) trying to catch one of the preorders at one of the sites, F5ing and cursing when site after site crashed and only gave errors. ^^ I remember that fondly. It was a hell of a ride and I'm still happy I was part of it. I don't regret any of my purchases, only some of the sales. But I have recently started re-buying some of the figures I had sold and started to miss, like Banpresto's Dramatic Showcase Zeff & Sanji or my Shichibukai Croc. I never really sold my Theater POPs of Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Usopp btw, so they're still with me, cheering me up when things get bad. :D I also own lots of Luffys now coz my two girls (1,5 years) took a huge liking to him and I even had to get them two plushies so they don't go apeshit on me for not being able to get the figures. ^^ That makes me happy haha. When they wake up at night and grab that Luffy plush and fall back asleep. :wub: One day, I can hopefully enjoy OP with them. :D So yeah, the figures need to stay.
I also still collect Hot Toys and those take up most of my display space so OP is limited to a few spots here and there. My Sanji and Zoro resins are up on my desk coz they're huge and awesome. :D
I remember from now and then checking back on this forum but most of the people I knew had left and it had gotten really quiet and there would be no new post in days. ^^ I remember when we had to fight for a sub-section coz we were burning through one thread after the other. ^^'''' 50+ posts a day or so … those were the times. I think, people are mostly moving away from forums and joining discussions at Reddit or FB, at least that's what it looks like to me.
Regarding the Snakeman POP, I didn't do anything to it. ^^ It's probably just the lightning or my smartphone camera doing some magic. :ninja: Sorry to disappoint.
