Thursday 29 October 2009

Beat in the Box - JSRF Merch

When it comes to SmileBit's Jet Set Radio franchise, I guess I'd say I'm a fan...

Okay... I own five discs when there are essentially two games. I'm a BIG fan. While I have yet to snag the holy grail of JSR merch, the De La Jet Set Radio Dreamcast Direct box, I was able to find another JSR item that has been on my want list for a while:

It's the GamePro Beat figure! I found this bad boy (or is that Rudie?) on ebay for $20, quite a good price considering how infrequently the figure appears and how high the starting price usually is. For those interested, a "buy it now" auction with a quantity of three figures has appeard on ebay, the cost per figure is just under $40. For those with deep pockets, a limited edition run of 500 "prototype" figures are out there, but when you do find one look to spend between $250 to $400. WAY too much for essentially an unpainted version of the same figure.



Big Go!

The figure itself is not too bad. A true Beat can never be captured in figure form, as JSR never look quite looks right when not cel shaded. Just look at Beat and Gum in Sega Superstars Tennis. While I'll probably never open the box, it doesn't look like many more poses are possible than the one already seen. Beat also comes with a nifty character card, the requisite spray can and a section of street which, according to the box, can hang on the wall for gravity-defying poses. Ooh!

The package opens to reveal a glowing review from GamePro. It took me forever to realize that the background is a huge squashed picture of Professor K. Can you see him?

I know Gagaman has one of those Crazy Taxi cabs.

The back advertises some more figures that I'd like to own as well as a game that I already have two of. Besides the Beat figure, there is very little in terms of Jet Set Radio merchandise. Hot Wheels released an easy to aquire Cougar Tuner car with a JSRF paintjob (premonitions of Beat's cameo in All-Stars Racing?). Also available are two soundtracks of the respective games, although bootlegs of these are plentiful and ebay can't always be trusted. Another piece, which I hope to share here someday if I ever find it, is a big JSRF poster that I bought back in the day. I'm unsure if it was legit, but it featured huge high res in-game models of Beat, Gum and Corn and featured a swirly blue background.

Oh, and I need to add this to my collection as well:

Apologies to ~camilliette on deviantART

3 comments:

Animated AF said...

Great post, I've been looking for that JSRF figure for a while, I do have one of those Crazy Taxis and the Monkey Ball ones though (they did all 4 characters). Not sure why Axel is called Angel on that box!

Barry the Nomad said...

Thanks Gagaman!
Angel is the shirtless tattooed guy in CT3, however it looks like they used a photo of the Axel figure by mistake. Angel, Axel, Alex, Azel, Astal... Sega can be so confusing...

Anonymous said...

Barry the Nomad: check out

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/04/tag-your-own-wall-with-jet-set-radio-future-wall-graphics/

email me for a free blogger evaluation unit. ;-)

http://www.LTLprints.com/JSRF

john@startmobile.net