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

4 weeks countdown.
We have a nice tradition here in germany.
4 weeks before x-mas we make a wishlist for the Weihnachtsmann (Santa Claus).
If you had been nice and helped a few old ladies over the street the last year,
all the wishes come true. Thats easy!
Here’s my wishlist. Nothing special, only a few plastic robots from the 70ties.
No problem for the Weihnachtsmann I hope ;-)

Any cash left after Morphy’s and you still have wishes for x-mas?
With wishes I don’t mean world freedom, health, saving the rainforest and such a shit.
I mean japanese robots!
Make a wishlist in the BBS section.

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.

Here we have a Taiwan knockoff of Dol the space dragon from Space Sheriff Gavan.

Fashion Toys. Anyone know any more about this company? Any other pieces of note from them?

It’s not the fit and finish of Popy, but this is still a nice one for the shelf that stands out a bit.

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?

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.

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

This last week I was home on break from school and graced with some wonderful news… it was the classic tale of an older friend having some toys in his basement he wanted to unload for cheap, but this time just what toys he wanted to unload was just so perfect. As most of the TBDX community seems to know by now, I am not as old as the majority, so when I have fond toy memories, they are not of Mazinger Z, or even Tranzor Z, or any of the Force Five/Shogun Warriors characters, but something from a later era… the show that really cemented my love of all things robots, and even secretly implanted a love for giant monsters, which has only recently surfaced! Transformers G2 aired around 1993, and sparked my fascination with all things mechanical, but I have so many more fond memories of the wonder that was Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, which aired in 1995. From the theme song to the wonderfully outlandish characters, and even those darned commercials (Too hot to handle!), MMPR took the love of robots that Transformers had sparked, and combined it with crazy special effects, an amazing cast of characters, and most important of all, guys in suits. I have yet to actually see an episode of Ultraman, or any of the other shows from the heyday of men in rubber suits stepping on miniature model cities, but MMPR did it with as much pizazz as the next live action series, and that has always been something that left me hungry for more. But, we were talking about toys, right? I’ve dragged you through this introspective history lesson because I have been brought back together with an old friend… he’s not complete right now, but I’ll get the extra parts eventually, and they’re not important. He’s big and bulky, and has minimal articulation, but he has a huge chrome sword that scared my mom. The Megazord will always be the number one monster-slayer in my mind, and now in my collection as well. I realize I’m gushing, but this toy will always be one of my favorites, and I’m glad to have him back.

Something to note, in true Christmas ’95 fashion, I don’t have a Dragonzord yet… suffice to say I’ll be on the look out for one when I have the cash, and there will be more gushing.

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…)