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

“I feel like Thor entering Valhalla.”
-Erik Sjoen

Not since a visit to the legendary Warren Schwartz‘s house in 2000 (a visit so breathtaking that the mere secondhand mention of it on this site provoked emotion intense enough to shatter the minds of several readers, necessitating a hastily contrived warning label be applied to the report lest its savage contents cause further casualties) have I been so overwhelmed by a collection and its owners hospitality.

Kazunori Saito, author of three seminal books about Japanese toys that blew our collective mind when they were first released in the late Nineties, lives in a suburb of Tokyo. His neighbors are undoubtedly totally unaware of the treasure trove that slumbers within its walls. In fact, few visitors to his home even realize it. His collection is shoehorned into a single tiny room off the main hallway, inside every wall floor to ceiling adorned with vinyls, boxes, showcases, and more boxes. It feels like just about every Bullmark kaiju vinyl in the world is here. Ditto for the Jumbo Machinders. And weirder, rarer stuff. Then there are those glass cases stuffed full of Popy and Takatoku diecasts…

I would call it a secret crypt or catacomb if not for the miniature table and four chairs in the middle of the room, inviting visitors to sit, stare, and partake. Surrounded by some of the world’s rarest soft vinyls, Jumbo Machinders, and diecast toys, the effect is akin to that of the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. Or perhaps a few hours spent in the kitchen of hashish brownie pioneer Alice B. Toklas.

But you don’t need mind-altering drugs to achieve enlightenment in Saito’s lair. Fueled by nothing more than diet coke, cookies, and the oh-so-sweet musk of slowly decaying cardboard and three decade old vinyl, we spent hours talking about where he’d found this treasure or that (inevitably, he’d picked it up years and years ago, when prices were only mind-boggling instead of outright insane). He opened his heart and home, offering to take any piece, no matter how rare, out of the display for us to fondle and drool over. The coup de grace: an audience with that King of Machinders, the Jumbo Daikumaryu.

After an extended session assembling it on his kitchen table, the only place in the house with space enough to accomodate the space dragon, Erik Sjoen, Jim Maitland, and I bid our farewells and stumbled out into the afternoon sun, stunned once again by the potent brew of hospitality and polyethylene. Who needs the Photonic Energy Research Institute when you’ve got a toy institute like this?

Click here for the full gallery of photos!

Pachi robo!!

Spotted on Yahoo Auctions ages ago, this is an all-original vintage mini vinyl. It’s not internationally known, but it’s known to rock the microphone.

yeah , it was in the one store you didnt get to go to thor .

Gordo Prust had probably no idea it would come to this.

I don’t collect vinyl. I am an infant in that niche, and leave it to the heavy hitters. Its just too overwhelming. But these talkers bitch slap me into submission every time I see one. As with MFVs they seem to be the drug of choice at the moment. Maybe it is the ethenyl, or maybe it is the funk. I for one ( As Uncle Al once said) need “just one fix”. But what a fix it is.

OK, OK.. I know I’ve thrown the hype on these guys before. AND, I know they get a bad wrap, but I fucking love this store. Every time without fail I score big here. Keep in mind, the internet has killed it. It’s killed the experience of going to a store and laying your hands on the god given funk made in the land of the rising sun destined to rest its smoked filled vinyl body in your gaijin hands.. The run on sentence lives. And so does Koenji’s finest, Gojira Ya mother fuckers!

If you ever find yourself in Koenji then you need to make the pilgrimage.

Godzilla Ya (Gojira-Ya)
3-67-1 Koenji, Suginami-ku
(phone) 03-3336-3178

www.plala.or.jp/godzillaya

Hours: 2pm – 9pm, closed Wed.

Jim casing the bar. Did I mention they have a bar?!:

The stairs:

All the way up:

Entry:

Inside:

Kozaki-san in the house:

ENJOY..

Check out:

Jim Maitland, Mike Johnson and that infamous Brian Flynn guy bolting after a night of maddening scores..

Repaints? Maybe… If you collect diecast than who the fuck cares right?? Ha! Check this place next time you’re in Tokyo.

A little added bonus;

Minister Alt and I from a candid vid from 2008 (notice the stock looks almost the same a year earlier). You can almost catch Hillsy and Mark G hiding in the background if you pay attention:

Man, I love Getta III. But I love him even more with a huge-assed head.

This is a vintage Bandai kit, roughly six inches tall, found assembled and painted at SuperFest earlier today, and given to me by Jim Maitland. (Thanks again!) It is an amazing, one-of-a-kind piece of art. Sure, the kit’s mass produced — but the paint job isn’t!

The thing I like best about stuff like this? The decisiveness of it. Modern portrayals of old characters follow the designs of the characters on-screen down to the pencil-scratch. Old ones? Not so much. Designers had to make brutal design choices to get around manufacturing limitations of the day. The shortsighted might describe the inevitable compromises needed to bring off an insane a transformation asGetta Robo’s in three dimensions as a “sacrifice.” I call it “style.” These guys weren’t the sorts of people to let a little realism get in the way of making a kick-ass toy. Forget the stuff on the TV screen for a second and LOOK AT THIS THING. Tell me it isn’t insanely great in its own hydrocephalic way. Okay, so the “transformation” consists of “removing the head.” Sue them.

There’s something about the crazily top-heavy design that captures the weight and power of the robot even better than the already great The Chogokin version does. And don’t get me started on the hard-boiled, old-school box art! Who needs a photograph of the product when you can have an oil painting of Getta III about to drive his righteous fist into the side of a supertanker instead?

Dick head..

The fucking streets of Kichijōji rocked hard tonight. Heavy weights rockin’ the Iseya izakaya and faux piss alley were in full effect. If you didn’t know any better, Koji was taking Maz out for a drunken spin around the neighborhood. That’s how hard well roll. The best part about it is we don’t even have to try. LOUD drunk white assholes are known to do this, and in our case do it incredibly well. Anyway….

After an unsuccessful trip to “Cosmo Knight Alpha” in Ekoda, and 4 train transfers later, the call was made and the plan was put into play. Alt sent out an underwater sonic transmission that brought he, Maitland and myself into contact with the James Bond 007 of Japanese robot collecting (otherwise known as “cohiba” or “slimemolds”) in my favorite low brow, punk rock neighborhood in Tokyo.. Kichijoji! A place where you can smoke hooka on the street with Devilman and drink from deaths flask with wealthy old men perversely pretending to be homeless.. It just so happens Alt actually lives here, so that explains alot.

So, here we find our hero getting blasted… This is what the famous author ofSuper #1 Robot, Hello Please! and Yokai Attack! (found here: Alt’s scribe) does all day while he takes your hard earned otaku cash..

Look at me manhandle this little bitch..

His majesties trademark.. The expensive and infectious Cohiba Cuban cigar. This speaks volumes.

So, as we come to the end of this post you might be thinking to yourself, where the hell is the “toy” content? Well, sonny, the shit that crossed the lips tonight of your aforementioned otaku heroes will be talked about for years to come, believe me. Unfortunately we’re just in the process of carving the stone tablets, so hold your horses.

Stay tuned for more info on this pivotal meeting of the minds, I mean “rinds” soon..

To make it legit, I share with you the RAREST sofubi super robot find of all time. Compliments of Masa Yoda, I give you 7 inch Poseidon, patchi super robot sofubi, unknown year…

Sjoen

Thanks to Sjoen, I now need to find “α” and “γ” to go with my “β”! It’s all Greek to me.

Seriously, anyone got the others in the series? Please? Anyone? *sob* ANYONE? I’ll take ’em loose. I’m not proud.

(This dude sure seems to have the Albegas goods…)