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

I admit it. I’m koo-koo for soft vinyl robots. Not just any robots: they’ve got to be “real” robot characters from the Eighties. Why? Because nobody else cares, and I’ve taken it upon myself, like Mother Theresa, to give these leprous bastard children the cardboard box under my stairs they so richly deserve. And this is your lucky day, because you get to meet the undisputed king of my collection: the Clover “Treker (sic) Beagle Treker Cruser (sic) The Main Machine of ‘The Gorilla’ (sic)” Srungle. Sick. Intended for mental ages of five or lesser, it is an impressionist, shroomy portrayal of a robot that looks like an ambulatory coffee maker at the best of times. Let the Srung times roll with a trip back to the old Srungle datafile.

I love blow up character toys made by Popy.

I got lucky and picked up these inflateable bad boys at Gojira Ya, Koenji, today, Kaibutsu-kun and Kamen Rider Super 1. Both are ring toss inflatable retardation,manufactured by Popy Japan in 1980. Pictured here you can see them shot from a 15th floor studio in Shinjuku..

Gojira Ya is a great Tokyo shot. Hit them up as follows:

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

www.plala.or.jp/godzillaya

Hours: 2pm – 9pm, closed Wed.

Check the bar downstairs if you are balls enough.

Yes.. She’s actually holding a Takemi Machine Blaster Sandaio mini machinder at 0:30 seconds (first video). Believe it. Throw some boxed vintage DX chogokin on top of that and you’re looking at an afternoon well spent. If you get your sorry ass over to Osaka you will need the following info:

HERO GANGU

Hours: 12pm – 7pm

Telephone: 06-6641-7776

The “hero” brings a Shogun Great Mazinger Jumbo Machinder to the counter.. Fucking sick!!!

It does not take a genius to figure out I have an obsession with windup walkers. And it seems even the medium of tin is not an exclusive prerequisite in this case.

Ishinomori Shotaro’s inept but lovable creation has made its way into many subgenres of toy collecting, but this plastic Popy zenmai was one I had not seen in a long time.

The first time was (again) in an old Ray Rohr catalog from the mid 90s. It was not readily apparent what the walker was made out of. For all I knew it was either tin or vinyl. The former always seemed like a perfect fit material choice for the character, though after realizing it was a plastic based toy, my former daydreams of a possible Battery Op tin of this character existing were dashed by reality. (Though if OTTI is listening, it would be a perfect tribute)

The toy is brilliant in its simplicity. It walks forward at the turn of the key, but also has the added function of the back propeller spinning in time with the walking. At about 8 plus inches, the entire toy is made from a quality plastic, with gold-chromed hands and mimics the Chogokin version in proportion and detail. Like its smaller brother, it has both the heart sticker and the tin control panel, under his Volkswagon Beetle-like hood. The eyes however are white plastic with painted pupils. Perfectly caffeinated and strung out looking cuteness abounds.

The box is the standard Popy fare, but falls somewhere between the traditional Popy walker boxes and the Chogokin counterparts. The weight of the cardboard is seemingly closer to the previous, but also reminiscent of the talker packaging as well.

Overall, this badass little walker served to disrupt my tin snobbery and remind me, its is not the medium, but the message that matters most. Respect the plastic.

-Josh

OK.. I’ve got the inflatable Japanese punching bag blues. This month alone I’ve already got over $100 worth.. That my friends will buy you some serious punching bag love. This specimen in particular is one of my best. A 20 inch 1981 New Tetsujin 28 GO! Not only is this my favorite character of all time, but it’s the second biggest one I have. Second only to a 3 ft Daiojya that will kick your ass..

I’ll be posting a more comprehensive review of my new found obsession soon, but just wanted to give you all a taste of my pathetic downward spiral into the world of inflatable goodness. Unfortunately, the only holes these have are blow holes..

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Well, what better than a punching bag?

See you all in the ring..

Ultraman Leo mocks me

It is like any good relationship. You have to appreciate it when you are in it, not when it is over and you pine away for its return. Toy karma has a way of making you submit to patience. Whether you want to or not. I give you one such example.

We all have stories we have shared of the “one that got away”. Our peers nod their heads and recall their own instance and feel a sudden kinship to the collective sighs you both emit unconsciously at the same moment of memory.

There are always regrets in our history of collecting. It goes with the territory.

I have three. Three that haunt me to this day.

This is the second one. The only one I have decided to remedy. Maybe if I do it will make the other two more or less bearable. ;-)

The ironic part, is this is one that did not technically get away per se. It was one I let go from my collection. One I did not fully appreciate until it was long gone.

In 1988 I went with my parents to flea markets all the time. My father had started a antique business on the side, and I helped him with what I could. I had a good memory for makers and details and I would spend nights reading many of the books that pertained to what we were selling and buying.

My Japanese toy collecting had started up again. I had been on a long hiatus, from the days of Mr Big, but still from time to time would buy pieces that appealed to me if I had the money. When I think about what was available then, I get weak in the knees. The prices back then were just amazingly low for 70s robots. The Era of 50’s and 60’s space toys was king, and all the big bucks were being thrown at the Robby’s and Mr Atomics and Thunder Robots of the world. Only vintage Tetsujin 28 and Tetsuwan Atom tins had crossed over into the astronomical realm of the baby boom collectors.

We went to a usual weekend haunt of Taunton flea market and on the way home stopped at another smaller venue. There I would see less antiques and more “collectables”.
I walked by many a place that had Diaclones, Godaikens and Shogun Warriors. But what caught my eye for some reason was something I had never seen before.

Sitting in a small pile of junk in a box at the back of one of the tables were some older looking Japanese toys. One was a colorful minty box, with great graphics of a blue robot with wild multi-color kanji splashed all over. The box, beautiful and super heavy ,enclosed, what I would later find out was the revered, monster-like Takemi Pegas .

It was a steep three dollars. I think it weighed more than me at the time. It was a weapon, not a toy.

Takemi Pegas DX

The other toy I bought was in a slightly beat box…looking older than old. But inside was a red tin windup with silver details and a pale blue vinyl head with yellow eyes and stern, almost pissed look on his face. I had recognized him from somewhere…the only thing on the box I could read was the “Bullmark” logo at the bottom.

It was my first Bullmark tin.

I found out later he was the Ultraman Leo zenmai. He was 2 dollars.

I had Leo for almost 10 years. He was the transitional toy in my collection, the one that fell squarely between the earlier tins I had been collecting, and the toys I grew up with. The missing link between the diecast of my early youth and the tin of my official “collecting” years.

But sadly I eventually, along with the Pegas, sold him for pennies on the dollar due to lack of knowledge and lack of faith in my gut to hold onto them, and ultimately lack of patience.

Its now 1997. I have just graduated from school and now work my first job as a designer. I finally had a real income, and a renewed interest in the diecast toys I grew up with. I have a collection of early robots, that although I love, I have no real emotional connection to. I was too young to have actually played with them in their heyday, but somehow was seduced by their place as art objects in my mind.
Like many of those reading this, the late 90’s proved to be the breeding ground for many of the 30 something collectors that inhabit the site today. Many of my old friends were new ones at this time, and a wave of sentimentality and nostalgia permeates the air. Young emerging professionals who were looking to recapture something. Like a generation or so before in the 80s, (Insert American Psycho image here) this dot com era was in full effect.

I wanted to regain the toys Mr Big had supplied me almost two decades earlier. And day Old Antiques was my mecha for that purpose.

In comes the Gaikings and the Popy toys, out goes the previous collection . Rebirth and renewal.

Among that lengthy list was Leo. My interest in minty boxes has originated in the pages of Toy Shop magazine a few years earlier. Ray Rohr had seen to that. My thoughts of a certain Kaman rider tin still then haunted me.

With the beat box it had, The Leo seemed less than steller. A sore spot in my growing box obsessed mind. I decided it would be a safe bet to sell it now and find another later. Certainly that would be an easy enough task right? I could after all , always upgrade.

No such luck.

I find one in 2006 at the Morphey auction an hour before it sells. I am at work, and cannot place online bids from there. The firewall wont allow for it. I panic. I tell the friend how much to bid.
I win it!.. only to find out later they bid on the wrong Leo windup and have purchased a plastic walker instead. The tin sells for way less than my bid. My old Leo laughs at me.

Its now 2007. Exactly 10 years since I sell the Leo. And not a single minty example has come into my radar since the 06’ fiasco. I am sure there were a few along the way, maybe, but when the focus was there to obtain it, and the means to buy it, there was never one to be had.

I eventually find one on Ebay while living in Hong Kong. I follow the auction. I know who the seller is in the states. I lust after the toy. I wait till the last hour.. I HAVE to win this and bring the my epic stupidity to an end. I wait…and I fall asleep as it ends because I have been working 38 hours straight.

SMACK!

Toy karma, turns its pinky ring around again. Smiles.

Regret number two also extends itself to become regret number 2B and 2C. A decade of irony multiplies upon itself.

Lesson learned: Don’t fall asleep at the last hour when grails shows up.

So now a couple years later, I am desperate and a sad shell of a man. On the lookout for an old childhood friend, who seems to taunt me with his elusiveness. I think Leo might hate me. I hope this is not the case. I love Leo and his stern angry face.

But it seems money can’t buy me love in this case.

-Josh F