I wake up this morning and everything is white.
No, didn’t take drugs…only the first snow had fallen here.
Time for a sofubi-winter-foto.
Mr.Condorman freeze his balls off.
Post your japanese-toys-in-snow-fotos in the BBS.
(…okay, okay, I suck at titles).
After my recent minor debacle with the armored VF-25S, I figured it would be good for my psyche to review its vintage predecessor:
…because it is everything that the new armored packs aren’t.
I’m afraid I can’t show the box, because I got the thing loose (besides, I don’t like empty boxes while displaying things on my shelves). Because I don’t own a Takatoku VF-1S I will be using a 1J instead. Consider this a pictorial instruction guide for a toy that is well-known but somehow lacks exposure with regards to how well it is designed.
(more…)
Or Sausageraide…er, Sasuraiger, in this case.
(…I guess anyone who has never played the game A-Train will not get the title…)
Z like Zorro, Z like Z-Gokin and Z like Zubat.
Who the hell is Zubat? Well, didn’t know him till I had seen
the Takatoku gokin the first time. What I learned from the
all-knowing-www: Zubat is a 1977 live-action series produced by
Ishimori Shotaro. The plot: Hayakawa Ken, the hero, transforms
into Zubat and kicks ass in his red leather suit. Sounds sexy…the leather suit ;-)
Ok, lets go…here’s the Takatoku Zubat.
Bought mine on ebay a few weeks ago. He was in absolute mint condition till I tried to
fit him into his stand/base with his feet…crack…knack…the feet holders of the
stand broke. C’est la vie…I could glue them, now they look like new again.
Here comes the box. Typicall late 70ties Takatoku stripes & foto design. I like it.
Zubat is stored away in solid styrofoam and comes with his stand, 2 yellow rocket launchers,
a few white rockets and normally with a small Takatoku catalog. The rocket launchers could
be attached on Zubats Base or he could hold them in his hands. Massive firepower!
The quality of Zubat is perfect. Solid diecast body, nice details.
Typical Takatoku. He could easy keep up with Popy chogokins.
Zubat has 2 daggers attached to his belt. Here are some dagger-action-pics.
Another action feature. Rotating Z‘s on his head!
Finally a size comparison with a Takatoku Zabitan and Popy Skyzel.
Thats it guys. If you don’t have one, get one!
Hope you like it. More fotos etc as usual in the BBS section.
…and foot markings for Matt.
Bankid. An obscure series and not exactly high on any want list, if its on the list at all. Even among popinica-esque toy lovers, these things are pretty well ignored. But I think their pretty sleek and cool in their own little way, so I figure what the hell, there’s only four in the series, so I’ll tell you a bit about them.
First up is the Baby.
In the show, there are three of these ships that sit on the Mother’s wings and seperate from it when the need arises. It has interchangeable nose pieces, launching missiles in the wings, and a small pod that sits in the cockpit. It’s a pretty nice piece.
Next up is the Ace.
This forms the nose of the Mother and can seperate for attack if needed. It comes with missiles and has two levers on the back – one for raising/lowering the landing gear and the other for the wing. Another decent piece.
Here we have the Standard Mother.
This is the big dissapointment of the group. It really is tiny. The Baby’s seperate from its’ wings and it has small plastic discs that can be lauched with a lever midship. The launching mechanism is a rubber band – that is inside the ship. So you have to crack it open to replace or adjust the band, and there are many pieces (mainly the landing gear) that will fall apart and have to be carefully put back when your done – not fun. Mine still doesn’t work properly and I have no inclination of trying again anytime soon. It’s only about a $50 piece deadstock, but unless your a completest or diehard fan (don’t think there is such an animal), I’d pass it by.
Finally, we have the DX Mother.
This is the piece I’ve searched for quite a while before finally getting. I’ve yet to see it show up on auction (Morphy’s will change that), and had to obtain mine in a private deal. Takatoku should have just released this one and not bothered with the standard version IMO. The Baby’s and Ace can sepearte from the Mother, it has a hidden missile launcher that, thankfully, is spring loaded, and it comes with a platform that the ship sits on or can be used to launch the Baby’s if you want. The platform is rubber band based, but is not that big a deal to replace – I used a small hairband from one of my daughters, as I find it works great and should last much longer than a rubber.
Well, that’s about it. Nothing earth shattering or must have here, but I figure any vintage gokin deserves it’s 15 minutes.
After oggling dozens of 1/3000 Takatoku SDF-1 auctions in the last few months, and seeing them all end up higher than what I was willing to pay (really, 12k yen for a beaten up incomplete 1/3000 SDF-1 that makes my Strike Valk look pristine in comparison? Er, no.), I gave up, and bought an obviously unloved 1/6300 SDF-1 instead (for, oh irony, 3,000 yen). It might be one of this year’s better decisions.
One of those tins that you always tell yourself you will get around to getting once the bigger names are out of the way. Like Jeeg’s tin incarnation, it does not always bring the amount of respect it should. I finally got around to locating one in the condition I was comfortable with. Even though not a terribly difficult piece to find, the majority of boxes are in worn condition at best.
The self described “Warrior of Justice†and noble leader of Akumaizer Three, Zabitan has a demonic look that makes me think Kaman Rider and DevilMan might have a hidden drunken night of passion together back in 75′.
Although one of the few Takatoku tins, the Zabitan zenmai pound for pound is as beautiful as any Bullmark counterpart. This is in part due to the remarkable hand spray painting on the head, in addition to a overall sophisticated and classic color palette.
A true hidden gem among the easier to find vintage tin walkers.
When you see this pile of boxes, what do you think?
Well, boxes with big white stickers.
But THIS was the vain attempt to invade germany with chogokins
in the early 70ties.
Popy, Takatoku etc boxes where “localized” with simple stickers.
There are Ark, early Bandai boxes that are much better “localized” for the
german market. After the big success of Captain Future in the early 80ties
in germany Popy released german boxed versions of their CF toys.
Sorry Matt, no spectacular german box design ;-)
