Jazwares Speaks on Future of Mega Man Figure Line

Since the last wave of Jazwares’ Mega Man action figure line, which featured characters such as Cut Man, Proto Man, Command Mission Mega Man X, and Rush, as well as their “Retro Roto” figures modeled after the oldschool art style, the company had seemingly gone silent until the 2009 U.S. Toy Fair a few months ago, where they revealed they would be bringing Mega Man back to the masses through their new line of urban vinyl-styled toys they call “JUVIs.”
Due to this silence, one concerned fan, Chris Zanni of Wall, NJ, wrote in to ToyFare Magazine in order to learn the fate of the Blue Bomber’s plastic incarnation:

If Jazwares isn’t producing the figures anymore, will somebody else pick up the license? Mega Man is a great franchise and deserves some good toys. I loved the Bandai figures from the ’90s cartoon show, but that went under when the show was cancelled. Jazwares seemed to have something great going, but all of a sudden they stopped releasing anything new. What gives?

ToyFare got ahold of Jazwares’ Joe Amaro for the answer, who reported that the Mega Man license is “fine,” but “won’t continue in quite the way you’d expect.”

“The plan is to have Mega Man continue in our new JUVIs line,” he says. “These are stylized versions of our favorite characters. The blank body we designed is very heroic. Not your standard short chubby body.”

According to ToyFare, who received an image of the prototype (the same figure as seen above, only from a different angle), “ol’ Mega has a pretty blank stare going. A few rocks short of a quarry, if you get my meaning. A couple of fries short of a Happy Meal, if you will.” And they sort of continue on along that line of thought.

So, unfortunately, it sounds like it’s JUVI or bust for toys of the Titanium Titan, at least on this side of the saltwater. It’s really too bad, too, as there were some really neat designs they had shown off, but never released, including more Retro Rotos, a super-articulated Mega Man Zero figure, and some characters who have never really gotten the fair, equitable plastic treatment before, such as Sigma. Ah, what might have been.

Come to think of it, it’s really too bad on the Retro Rotos; they could have really done something with tie-in marketing for the release of Mega Man 9 last year, with the right approach. Oh well. It’s probably best to simply not think about it.

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