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

The toyz in the hood are always hard.

Takatoku “Hobic” series Mekabuton and Tentoki. Here’s a group shot for size comparison: they’re double the size of the translucent plastic versions and absolutely dwarf the Z-Gokin diecast (which I won at Morphy’s!)

The boxes are totally stunning as well. The aesthetic is more “Hanna-Barbera” than “anime.”

Another closet find: an oldie but goodie but floppy. Compare to a standard Popy Chogokin here.

In our last episode, our young hero idiots were buried under a pile of toys they stupidly thought they could catalog and identify at the rate of approximately 1 every 46.2 seconds. Thankfully these dumb fools had friends: equally stupid friends, who would blindingly sacrifice their lives for the same lumps of zinc and vinyl that the original idiots worshiped. And so it was that we found ourselves with a shitload of people all throwing down in a race against time, culminating in the vintage japanese toy wank of the decade:

ACTIVATING: SJOEN UP!

Friday am. An unknown location outside Philly.

My toy loving brethren have entered the Valhalla of Japanese toydom. Thrust into the unknown, a team of degenerate collectors hone in on Morphy’s with a serious vengeance and an aching to make it right with the world. Weeks of planning and back and forth have led to this pivotal moment and BAM!!

It’s GO:

Skivvies and a fresh beer greet the morn.. The Skype is a chirping LOUD.

“WHAT?!” I halfway croak.

“Sjoen, seriously.. We got problems! Check out this yellow missile. Daltanias or Godsigma? HEY!! Douchebag!?”

The dog that I so fondly thought a woman moments ago slowly wakes up, licks it’s ass and climbs out of bed before me. Two seconds ago I was conquering the world, Jessica Alba by my side. Reality bites. A pissed off pit bull, a warm beer and the toy geeks ringing off the hook. Welcome to my life..

“Daltanias…” I mumble.

Throw on the newly pressed Bullmark Tshirt and bring the macbook to the back yard. 65 in SF, 100 outside Philly… Poor bastards must be hot as hell… Well, poor probably isn’t the right word.

“What else you got?” I spout, head in hand. “Bring it!” I say, ego abounding as I lift my eyes up to view the 13 inch screen before me embedded with the pillar of diecast pornography.

“HOLY SHIT!!” I shout looking out at the sea of boxes 1/2 a stadium deep.

Mark shuffles up, cheeks clinched looking like he just drank a pint of bacon grease. Either that or a pint of JD.

“A Real Color God Mars, BITCH!!!” He says winking..

“Seriously? You really want to do me like that right now?” I plead.

He’s taunting me. That little jerk. “I NEED THAT..” I think, imagining my God Mars collection in all of its completeness. “I NEED…”

Eyes blurred from seeing what I think might just be a lucid interpretation of last night’s dream seeping into the real world, I figure I need to make a decision on the quick. A valuable decision. A non toy related decision.

I figured “I NEED” more sleep.

THE END. — Erik

ACTIVATING: ALT UP!

The chogo-phone rings with savage urgency as I wipe the sleep from my eyes. Here in Tokyo, the first rays of a bright morning are filtering through my blinds. But meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Team TBDX is knee-deep in Popy cardboard — and they’re in trouble.

“Operator 3G! Come in! We need an ID, stat! For God’s sake, COME IN!” I can hear the barely-masked terror in Alen’s voice, digitized and reconstituted here, thousands of miles from the danger zone. He’s got a problem and he’s called in the Internet equivalent of a UAV drone for an immediate informatiostrike on his position. I’m happy to oblige.

“Transmission acknowledged, Alen-One. Target acquisition uplink ready, over.”

The photos begin arriving at once. First one, then five, then nearly a dozen. Each of them filled with uncountable, unknowable bits of plastic, metal, even twine. I’d seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but nothing prepared me for the glittering darkness filling my monitor screen.

“My god. It’s full of toys….” I find myself involuntarily muttering into the commlink.

“All… after… incinerators? I didn’t get that last bit, 3G. You’re breaking up!”

“Forget it, Alen-One. Target acquired. Maintain current position.” Long hours of practice masked the extreme unease I was feeling at the photos. I recognized the propeller from the Takatoku Omochama, and a few of the other missiles, but what about the dozens of others?”

— Matt

* * *

Well, we know how the story ends. Erik and Matt threw down huge on getting 300 or so entries tidied up. Thanks to the ass-kicking skills of Jim Maitland, the vinyl id’s were completed on time. Brian Flynn from Super7 had a hand in the vintage vintage. Robert Duban went savante on the final catalog descriptions. Geoge Samson rewrote our Valkryie gibberish.

Without Warren and Steve Saperstein, we wouldn’t have been in this hell/paradise.

Finally, we want to thank THE.C. who helped us with the brute force assembling of all the stuff there…

WITH (4) DAYS TO GO BEFORE THE EVENT, IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO BUY YOURSELF A CHEAP-ASS TICKET TO GET TO PHILLY. CATALOGS ARE SHIPPED, AND IF YOU GOT YOUR NAME IN WITHIN A WEEK OF THE ORIGINAL INVITE, AND RECEIVED THE FLYER, YOU SHOULD BE ALL SET.

TOYBOXDX TEAMS ARE PACKING AND GETTING READY TO CONVERGE ON THE K.O.P. KEEP YOUR EYELIDS PEELED THIS WEEK FOR SOME MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS WHICH WILL CULMINATE IN LIVE SHOW AND TELL THIS WEEK!

THIS IS GOING TO ROCK!

TALK IT / BBS

U-Combine Shogun Combatra Deluxe Set. One of my holy grails becomes reality.
It all begun with the Shogun Warriors. They infected my brain with the japanese robot virus
more then 30 years ago. If I knew as a kid that there is a Shogun Combatra Deluxe Set
existing…but I didn’t, no Combatra in germany. So I had been a happy kid without Combatra.
Why Combatra with only one “t”? Bad translation by Mattel?

Ok, back to Combatra. A few years ago I realized that there is a Shogun Combatra Deluxe Set
and the U-Combine set with 5 individual boxes. But I needed some years to get my Combatra.
A few weeks ago “my” set pops up on ebay. Looked not to bad on the pictures. Nearly complete &
nice condition and comes with the box. I think the most important thing of this great robot is
the box…the wonderful, some say crappy, shogun box. Here are some impressions…

The Box is made of simply cardboard only the front is printed full color, back is only 1 color blue.
But its huge. You see it compared with the rodan box etc. Well, nearly forget this,  the box is the
most expensive part of combatra deluxe set ;-)
Most of you guys own such a Combattra PA-78-82, or had one in your hands sometime.
For me its my “first time”. I’m impressed how big Combattra is in reality.
Here are some detail shots of the 5 vehicles that could be combined to Combattra.

After you combined Battle Jet, Battle Clasher, Battle Tank, Battle Marine and Battle Craft
you get the biggest metal Shogun Warrior ever. Mr.Combattra. As the box says:
“Combine ’em  to make a robot 1 foot tall!”

Great robot design from any angle.

To tell my “how-I-come-to-my-Combatra-story” to the end. As I mentioned he pops up on ebay.
I was high-bidder 2 times, but didn’t met the reserve. I wasn’t sure how much Combatra is worth for me,
I looks that I didn’t love ($) him enough. But I had a third chance. Because reserve wasn’t met 2 times,
the seller (a nice guy from California) wanted to sell Combatra as “direct buy”  or  “make a offer”.
It looks that my offer was better than the offer of another guy…

That was, again, a little foto lovestory. Sorry I waste so much webspace for
a “simple” Combatra….Combattra.
I always get very emotional when I got a new bot ;-)

More stuff in the BBS section.

…a key chain??

I’m not sure what this “thing” really is. Maybe somebody could
translate the text on the header card. Its made by Bullmark.

I’m not sure, but this piece is a must-have for every serious Rockbat collector
and Bullmark completist  ;-)

Any ideas?

Here is Diapolon with the rest of the Bullmark Big Size gang.

German version of the Bandai Blue Fighter Mekarobo.
Andy Galaxo – The space tramp

Since this guy was mentioned in the Cafe, I figured I would post a short review. Please ignore the worn condition of my Flash King – I’ll mention it when chrome is supposed to be present somewhere ;)
(more…)

There are many robots. But there is only one Blazer.
Ok, not one Blazer…

Hope I get the Bullmark Big Blazer one time.
Uups, forgot one Blazer on the foto…sorry Blazer————————————–vv

Do I have a problem?

;-)

Have a nice weekend guys