Well this is unexpected.





I stumbled upon this and only missed the news by a couple of months. A new carded Darth Vader from Rogue One and not a straight reissue on a card. This Vader has printed red lenses and new Anakin face printing. It looks to be based on the EpIII series 10 Vader therefore the cloak not over the chest armour is inaccurate.







When I first saw the picture I immediately though it's Vader from the Disney+ Kenobi TV series based on Anakin's head and Medicom recently did a 100% &400% Vader be@rbrick from that series with a similar style face, but nope it's apparently Rogue One from 2016. Possibly because Medicom also recently did a Mafex Rogue One Vader.

Details. It was first available 26th April 2024 from Parco stores around Japan, apparently they were selling new SW merch and if you spent 15,000 Yen you got a free carded Rogue One Vader as a gift with your purchase. I'm not sure how limited in number this edition is. But there's nothing on the card back.



I'm not sure what else there is to say but on a personal note this feels like a super weird trip down memory lane but I'm a little thrilled there's a new promotional Kubrick in 2024 after an 8 year absence. I honestly thought Medicom has stopped producing Kubricks all together, not just Star Wars but for all properties they licensed and while that's mostly true there has been a few new ones listed on their website. I know there's been a several be@rbrick releases over the years, that's how I found the above, by looking at the newer be@rbricks.

As per Medicom's update:





These don't appear to be limited like the previous box sets. That's the fourth 100% Wicket and third Paploo. I'm going to dub these the derp face variants.

I only bought the Celebration Japan 2-pack because it was cheap and I wanted Wicket to go with the other five. I can pass on these.

Here's the previous be@rs for reference:



Credit: Toysdorado

The Summer Wonder Fest begins 28 July in Japan and once again Medicom will be there. No word yet if they'll be a carded exclusive like in previous years, maybe tomorrows update will shed some light on this.

Last Summer's Wonder Fest brought us the very underwhelming Royal Guard on a card and this past Winter there wasn't an exclusive but I enjoyed the previous chromed droids so I'll keep my fingers crossed for something.