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

There are few toys in my collection that represent what Alen coined the “Karmic Boomerang” for me as this one. The only other that comes close is the result of the extreme generosity of a certain Uncle Warren, but thats for another blog.

Pan back a decade. The frenzy of competition for the right piece was fierce to put it mildly. The early days of ebay bidding wars was in full effect and even though we complain about prices now, we sometime selectively forget that even common toys by todays standards were perceived as much more “R@RE” than they are today, and bore prices that reflected it.

Tiring of the stress of what should be a fun hobby, I found a website, that mirrored my growing feelings about what the toys and the memories should be about.
How was it through my rush to collect , I sort of forgot a little bit about the funk, and why it was I was searching for these totems.
Perhaps this is the ever present sentiment that goes through its cyclical life span every few years and has become the mantra of the oldskoolers who watch wistfully as a new wave of people rediscover and reacquaint themselves with their childhood friends.

Why do we do it?

I found a kindred spirit when I first contact Alen about selling him my GB24. It was a toy he had expressed an interest in locating, and I felt perhaps it would find a better home with him. I was after all in the beginning stages of my c10 illness, and the toy although mint as one could be, the box had begun to beckon an upgrade. The voices since then have gotten louder, and my threshold for ignoring it, has lessened.
I contacted him and offered the toy at a third less than what I paid, simply because it felt like the right thing to do. The importance of the green, had to take a back seat to the importance of the T28 blue so to speak.

We met for the first time in Porter square mall in Cambridge, which was not far from where he lived at the time. My memory of the specifics fails me, but we met at the benches near the atm, and exchanged our greetings. Sushi followed. I felt comfortable almost immediately, and realized this beautiful toy was going to the best home possible.

From there, the friendship began, and endured. The combined faith in the goodness of our fellow collectors being the cornerstone to what is so utterly fantastic about this niche of nerdiness.
It took me much longer to find the right replacement. Like a number of other pieces in the collection that I sold off in hopes of finding a upgrade, it took years. The better part of nine plus in fact.

I thought it would never happen.

But when I did find it, as luck would have it, it was when money was tight and any hope of scoring it was not likely. Lamenting the loss, I casually mentioned it to my old friend, who without hesitating , graciously spotted me for the purchase.
I was floored and grateful and amazed. Well maybe not amazed as I knew Alen’s character enough to know, he understood it was never about the money. It was about the pursuit and love of the toy , and what they represented. It was about the friendship above all else. About the kids who never met, but the adults who did, and cultivated a place that would serve as a home to others like us. A land of misfit toy collectors.

So it came full circle. A generosity of a decade past came back. The boomerang is alive and well, and for that I am glad. Probably more than I could rightly express.

So what to learn from this? I figure I have rambelled on enough as it is, but here it is in its most distilled form.

Life is short, so love thy chogokin neighbor bitches.

Karmic toy boomerang is go.

Out.

This was my gateway. The handshake, the door that led to an ever winding path to madness.

Walking into Day Old Antiques has its price. The ferryman is unassuming and has a badass collection of punk 7 inch records and a lazy but intense depth of knowledge that would bitchslap any hipster out of his comfort zone and well crafted nonchalance.
He is as crafty boatman. The sarcastic enabler .

You hand him a coin.

Smack dab in the glass floor case sits little Mr “He’s a Samurai” , ready and willing to suck you dry of your college art supply money.

Just one fix. A taste.

You can always stop right?

Black Flag’s Six Pack thumps in the background, but loses the fight and gives in to the Der Ring des Nibelungen you now have created as a soundtrack in your own melting brain … because at this moment, that toy in the case is the one you never got as a kid and always, always wanted.

Always.

(Melodrama is key here.)

Its the first MIB Chogokin you have bought in almost 10 years, and it is the one that opened the crack in the dam. Don’t bother resisting.

Mike hands it to you, and all the years of Friday afternoons on Channel 25 flood back. The soundtrack shifts again. Jim Terry is your daddy.

Everyone in the room knows it son.

You are screwed. Lock, stock and barrel.

And you are OK with that.

No matter how many Popy boxed Ga 51s you see over the years since then, this little Shogun box will always and forever be your favorite friend… the designated driver that took you on your path to oblivion, which only a Robot skull can accomplish.

Booya.

There are the toys you see on the online sites for years. The more common items that don’t pull in a lot of respect, because they are easily had and show up often enough on the radar to not be a priority purchase. Billiken and Osaka tins fall into this realm all too often, and sometimes like that hot librarian girl in high school, you don’t make the move until its too late. To hell with context, screw popular, follow your love, and those little zenmai will take off the glasses, undo the bun and show you the way.

Greetings from Taiwan gang.

This was a parting shot on our way out of Kyoto from the Three Sisters Inn. Some random shop that I would have missed had my companion not pointed it out. It somehow encompassed the trip as a whole. It brings about feelings that represent the best of the hobby, where old and new come together.

That trip though recent, feels a long time ago already. I am glad though for the snapshot to remember it.

You know it is love, when your heart skips a beat, as you stare at the glow of the auction screen. Going out to dinner this month seems like less of a priority , and eating instant ramen becomes a standby pastime. When the objective part of your brain fights back, and tells you it is a fucked up toy, while your geek gets all hot a bothered by its camp factor. Yeah the arms are short and gimpy. Yeah the thing is small, and yeah the wheels in the chest seem like a good idea, but don’t translate to the most fun toy in the world.

With a wink and a sigh, the love of the funk will wash away the power of the practical demons that try to whisper in your ear. Screw reality, screw practicality, I want super deformed soulfulness, gimp arms and all.
Riding the high from my last Kamen Rider tin discovery, prompts a scanning the net for more of the same.

In the special Tin edition of Figure Oh, I see three Kamen tins. The famed( and coveted) Bullmark battery op, the elusive Angel version 1 walker, and this guy. This particular toy interested me simply because unlike the others it had an almost kid-like proportion. I picture elves making this toy.

The only other tin that I know of with this function is a piece that might have predated it by a few years..most likey the late 60’s. I am not sure of the size of this HORIKAWA FLYING ROBOT, but they appear to share the same concept.

This Kamen is made by Bullmark and appears to be made around the same time as the battery op, predating both Angel tins.
This is by far the smallest tin walker I have ever seen. Shocking is a word that comes to mind, when it arrived in the mail. Expecting it to be in the standard 9-10 inches, it seemed dwarfed at the 6-6.5 or so inches it clocks in at. It feels akin to the Super Robot mini Marmit tins of a few years back. This however almost adds to its charm, as its size gives it a fragility and presence that is gemlike.

It mainly functions by reving the wheels on the chest off the floor and placing it on its legs. The motion of the wheels activates the walking mechanism, which moves the toy forward. As another option, the toys arms can be repositioned, and placed flat on his belly, pushing along the floor while making the classic “badadadadadadadada” whine. This of course is his “flying” position… though I don’t recall Kamen ever flying.

It is pure and unadulterated toy. It has no slickness, nor modernity. The function is awkward at best and the construction though solid, feels minature and vulnerable.

That is what makes it work. It pretends to be nothing more than what it is… a childs plaything.

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.

The packaging lies. No one should collect these. But because of my sickness I felt compelled to obey the packaging and make them “collectable”. Do they do anything for me from a design perspective? No. Do they have any redeeming qualities that I can say make them worth having? No. They are simply representations of Gaiking, and no matter how much they suck, I find myself drawn to waste what room I have in my display case to house them. I admit it. Not only that, But somehow I felt a need to find any variant I could. Why? Well because they came in different boxes silly.

Shoot me.