Back in March, Japan was ravaged by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. After the event, many toy companies based in Japan or with close ties to Japan began running relief funds and donation drives. ThreeA toys, run by Ashley Wood, was one such company to do this, with the sale of the Japan Defense Force: Emergency Armstrong.
However, ThreeA did something unique – for the cost of a regular WWRp Armstrong figure, you would recieve the figure, as well as having 100% of your purchase go to a relief charity in Japan, with ThreeA footing the bill of the figure. This week, the JDF EMGY 1G Armstrong has started to arrive in the states.
Unlike most ThreeA releases, the JDF Armstrong comes packaged in a simple white mailer box, with a white bag and header card. This cost saving measure is very forgivable considering the nature of the original sale intent. It wouldn’t make sense for them to waste charity money making pretty packaging.
The detail on the JDF is what youve come to expect from ThreeA WWRp. Some have said the paintjob on this particular release doesn’t appear as detailed as others, but I don’t really agree. Compared to other Armstrongs, there might be a little less drip work, but the sponge work is comparable.
This Armstrong is a mixture of the 1G and 0G versions, using the backpack and gun from the 1G, but the hard front canisters of the 0G.
It’s generally estimated that around 400 to 500 of this particular colorway were made for the release. When it went on sale, they sold out within 5 to 10 minutes, making it quite rare among threeA releases. The colorway is similar to the Medic released in the 7-pack earlier in the year, but has a more ivory color, as well as less drip-paint detailing.
It’s not often that you can buy yourself a toy and help out a real-world cause at the same time, so I thank the amazing threeA Toys for making this all possible, and showing where their heart lies when people are in need.
i love these models and the plain packaging makes them so unique, its nice to hear that good has come out of a disaster, these have become very hi priced collectables (original prices seem very cheap) but profit on brought and re-sales have made big profits i hope they would go to a good cause