The RE-Return of the Megantik

UPDATE April 2019: In the first week of April 2019 the Megantik were called back again by the distributor which means that within a limited period of time the Megantik will disappear again from the Italian Edicola shops. This could be the final ending of the line as expected 2 times before but that´s the question that´ll remain… For now the Megantik are gone again.

¨INCREDIBILE¨ (Incredible)

As Beast fans we´ve slowly become used with the given fact that so far ALL of the ever officially released Beast lines (Battle Beasts, Laser Beasts, Beast Saga) never were a true success and that because of theat they all ended way to early. This curse seemed to have expanded throughout other BB inspired lines like Megantik and the Rise of the Beasts line. But the Italian Exclusive Megantik line (2017) had a re-release at the a couple of months after they disappeared and even though this had more to do with the release restrictions and the fact that they´re repacking the left overs it was good to see them back again. But since than it´s already been over a year ago (beginning of 2018) that they were available. It was a final drop, at least that´s what we assumed…

Last week the Beastformers Team received the following picture from our connection in Italy accompanied with the text; ¨I´ve some good news!!!¨Completely unexpected there´s a ¨new¨ RE-Release of the Megantik again. Which means they still had figures in stock.

Of course there´s the hope that these might have been a Series 2 release of them, although it was made clear from the beginning and the not very successful sales in Italy that´s not going to happen, but that wasn´t the case. Turns out they (again) repacked the (left-over) figures although in this case they kept the wrappings sealed so they´re identical to the 2nd release of Dec. 2017 but with a slightly different box design.

With this new style of box we´ve seen 3rd different box designs since the beginning of the Megantik in Mar. 2017. The reason for this might be related to a couple of things;

– The 1st release Mar. 2017
(Megantik the new line from Italy) was supported by a NERF Promotion, each blind bag which contained a Megantik figure held a NERF Point that could be used in regards to that promotion to get discount or something. Obviously this was only the case with the first drop so the box had to be redesigned or at least the presence of the NERF promotion had to be removed.

– The 2nd release Dec. 2017
(News from Italy; Sono Tornati! (They returned!)) came in a box which held images that were redesigned and without the presence of any promotion. Most important change for this drop was the fact that the Megantik were no longer in Blind Bags but they´re packed in a clear wrapping so you could show straight away what figure was inside. Side note hereby was that fact that one box only contained 14 packs while a full Megantik set holds 15 different characters AND they´re distributed completely at random meaning you could easily have one box holding doubles or even triples of one figure.

– The 3rd release Jan. 2019
Shows a Blue Box that holds a similar feel like the one from the 2nd release and it also holds the same design of the Megantik figures represented in the artwork. Apart from this slightly aesthetic change, the color change, there are no further changes and it´s all identical to the 2nd release in regards to content as well which means it´ll again not be very easy to grab a fully complete set. The reason why they came up with a different box design is most likely caused by the fact that the boxes that were returned after the 2nd release were damaged/dirty and not suitable for another release round. Hence the, possible, reason why they directly gave it a slightly different touch/appearance for this 2019 re-release.

If you´re interested to read more about this line and it´s characters in specific visit the Megantik page on this Blog;

MEGANTIK PAGE

And for a review of this line by the Beastformers Team have a look at the Megantik Review page;

MEGANTIK REVIEW BY BEASTFORMERS

Also Testudo is out for yet another Megantik release again

With all that we know about this line so far there are a lot of questions that remain… IF the line isn´t very successful in Italy than why releasing it 3 times knowing the costs involved (distribution/repacking) and why doing it with a period of 1 year in between. Is there another regulation in regards to this that we don´t know of? Knowing the 2nd release came almost 6 months after the first drop and this 3rd release almost 1 year after the 2nd can we expect another 4th release in 2021? They did well with the 1st release creating some promotion surrounding it even with a TV Commercial but that´s a momentum they´ve clearly lost since (it´s unknown at the moment if the commercial relaunched in Italy ass well) and it didn´t bring the success they´d hoped for. It is not very likely that every other release with exactly the same figures and without further promotion would become a success.

Let´s see how long they´ll last this time, the 2nd release only lasted two months before they´re recalled again. But until then there´s another chance to grab some of these nice figures because although they might not be the success they´d hoped for within Italy there´s a whole world of minifigure collectors outside of Italy that do appreciate them!

The Beastformers Team