toyboxdx toy blog brog: is graceful art of daily expressing japanese toy  

Today my little Mr. Kamikaze story.
Not really an exciting story, but a good example how to turn crap into gold.

As usual, the story starts with a Yahoo Japan auction.
Object of desire was a Nakajima sandard size Mr. Kamikaze sofubi from
the Tiger Mask series. The figure looked bad on the auction fotos.
Dirty, lots of paint rubs and the color of his head and body also looked suspicious.

Here are the original auction fotos.

But even Mr. Kamikaze was looking pretty fucked-up, I thought he has
some “potential”. His face, specially his nose looked pretty good on
the fotos. Often the noses of these sofubis are in bad condition.

Perfect for a restoration project!
Didn’t have a “bid battle” on this guy and won him for a good price.

One week ago he arrived with lots of other stuff rom Japan and I was
a bit shocked when I hold him in my hands for the first time.

I only have this foto of my “first contact” with Mr. Kamikaze.
Something was wrong with him…his entire upper part of the body and both arms
had been repainted with a “flesh-colored” paint. Also his mask been repainted
with white color. Holy crap, this is not the original paint!
At first sight it looked impossible to restore him. Thats the reason why I didn’t took
some detail “before fotos”.

Let’s get rid of the shitty paint, no matter what happens!  No risk, no fun.
This was my job for the next few days.

With tons of Q-Tips soaked with brush cleaner, sandpaper, car paint polish/cleaner,
a super sharp scalpel and lots of patience I really got rid of the paint, without destroying
the figure.

Under the lacquer layer the figure was in perfect condition. It seems that the repaint
protected this figure the last few decades.
Tricky was cleaning the head from the white paint (see fotos). I needed a few hours to do that.
Almost like a surgeon I had to rub down the paint without ruining the orginal paintwork.
Disassemble and reassemble the head, body and arms I did with the “hot water method”.
I think this is the best way to get the vinyl flexible. Using a hair dryer is too dangerous.

“Operation” Mr. Kamikaze was a full success. At the end he really looks great.

Now Mr. Kamikaze is ready to rumble again!

Is Mr. Kamikaze ready to kick some asses?

More in the BBS.

Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明, Toriyama Akira, born April 5, 1955).

A custom job from the pages of an obscure 1984 artbook…

“The cat is a dog”. Yes. I’m pretty confused. I was one of the guys who thought for
decades t hat Norakuro is a cat. Japan’s answer to Felix the Cat. Holy shit.
He looks like a cat! But I was wrong.

Norakuro (のらくろ), or Norakuro-kun was created by Suihō Tagawa.

“The name Norakuro is an abbreviation of norainu (野良犬, stray dog) and Kurokichi
(黒吉, the name of the dog, literally meaning “black lucky”).”  wikipedia

Norakuro started his manga career in 1931 as a private, serving in an army of dogs
called the “fierce dogs brigade” (猛犬連隊 mōkenrentai).

I always wanted the Popy Chogokin version of Norakuro, but I needed a few
years to get one. He’s not very scare and not very expensive, always another
toy was on top of my “list”. Norakuro had to wait. Finally I got one from Yahoo
Japan last year. When he arrived I was really amazed. All I can say. Super nice toy!

The 1976 Norakuro GA-72 is from Popy’s Meisaku Series. Let’s start with the box art.

The toy comes with a plastic stand, a bag with accessories, a Popy chogokin catalog and
a little brochure.

Hope you all appreciate what I do now ;-)
I destroyed the C-10 condition and open the plastic bag with the accessories.
Hmmmmm…I smell more than 30 year old preserved japanese odor.

In the bag are Norakuro’s rifle, sword, bayone, backpack and 7 attachable badges of rank.
With the badges he could be gradually promoted from private to 2nd lieutenant.

Here are some detail shots of his military equipment.

Norakuro itself is heavy diecast. Only his head is plastic and
he could move his arms and legs.

…again. Super nice toy!
I love this little dog and I hope that Norakuro didn’t make any bad things in
China during the 30ties when he was part of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Ok, not really Imperial Japanese Army…”fierce dogs brigade”.

THANKS Mr.Chairman Sjoen destroying my illusion that Norakuro is a cat.

All the old fotos are from the secret archive of the Imperial “fierce dogs brigade”.
They never had been published before.

More fotos in the BBS.

Six God Combination God Mars (六神合体ゴッドマーズ).

Santa Claus and his elves repair some
Takatoku Akumaizer Gullibirds ;-)

I have been on this plane for what seems like years. I had a sinus infection for the better part of my work trip, but this did nothing to throw my insane plan to stop in Tokyo during my extended 12 layover. I had a mission, and that was to find the girl a present from Mandarake.

With my call to Alt the night before and a few quickly scribbled notes on the location of the Mandarake Complex, I got on the 7:44 am NEX from Narita and got my camera ready to document the quick trip to the motherland.

I relied on my memories of the train system and managed to get to Akihabara a couple hours before the noon opening of this black monolith of Otaku. I spoke briefly and polished up my crippled Japanese skills with a couple flyer girls asking where the store was and found I was pretty close by. A good friend of mine came along from work and we got some food nearby. I ate my mackeral with abandon dreaming of what the store would have waiting.

Needless to say, I was slightly dissapointed as most of the floors catered to the new skool and I silently regretted not going to Nakano to get my vintage fix. That said, I did manage to pick up a cheap Billiken tin that I needed and afterwards turned to my companion and said I wanted to get to Shibuya…it was near his hotel anyway, and I still have maybe an hour before I needed to be on the next NEX train to the airport. I was counting minutes literally.

Back on the Yamanote we go, and 30 minutes later, I am in my familiar zone, the place I used to hang and eat, watch overage women dressed as local school girls to keep their wealthy aging benefactors , and steer around the sketchy Eastern blockers who always made Hong Kong Rolex dealers seem tame and legit. I LOVED being back here even if it was for 20 minutes… literally.

Run down “seizure” strobe stairs into the depths of Mandarake, and make my way past the teenager cosplayers who greeted me.

Walking with purpose I notice the quality of vintage has been severely depleted by the raging internet and my hopes of finding anything seem dim at best for my nerd woman.

With 2 minutes left in my clock, I spy a worthy option, a Mint in bag Curricular machine st vinyl. His teddy bear stare prompts the yen in my pocket to loosen and I motion the tween store clerk out of his slumber to bring this gem to the even younger check out girl. Bagged, paid..score.

One minute to go, I say my goodbyes to my friend, promise we will hang out longer next time and get back to the train with moment to spare. I sit on the train and sigh with relief. Regan will be pleased and I make a mental notch on my hardcore belt.

Sometimes it is fun to be insane.

Added Bonus: Mandarake Dec 15th at 1:30 pm