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

The Astekaiser tin from Yonezawa has always been one of my favorites. It is completely unapologetic in its garish colors and design. The 1970’s Japanese hero perfectly encapsulated. Total personification of “da funk”. Astekaiser is the big boss with the oversized pinky ring, among a worthy gang of characters . I think it is his “Big Wheel on crack” bike however that sets him at another level, in which even the likes of the beloved Kamen Rider, seems tame in comparison.

How can you not want to ride that thing out of a Karaoke bar at 3am smashed on Calpis Sours ?

3D Battle Chocolate!!! (Compliments of Tokyu Hands)

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

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

5,475 days later…

“You should take a look at some of the tins I put up Josh”. “The Kamen Rider might be of interest to you”.

The term “shock and awe” did not ring truer when I did exactly that.

Collecting can be stressful, as we all know…when we get the bug, and need the fix, many times the “hunt” takes us away from our daily grind. Our partners can roll their eyes at our constant searches on YJ and Ebay on our lap-tops before we go to bed. I found that if you think of the process in reverse, and, think that the right toys will find you, then the sense of urgency falls away, and you can quietly save away your pennies and live your life more normally. Your significant other will thank you ;-)

Now as presumptuous and over the top that sounds, It is a lesson I take from another passion of mine, whose intensity keeps me only on the threshold of peon knowledge even after 6 plus years of study: Antique Nihonto, or Japanese swords.
My first collector friend/ teacher in the hobby told me the sword comes to you. You study and pay the dues for the next piece to eventually arrive when your ready. It seemed like an overly intense/overly mythological way to look at it , and I took it with a grain of salt, but found in time that the events of my evolving acquisitions took an almost serendipitous stance, and ultimately I feel that way of thinking was a good one for me to adhere to.

I had for the better part of 5 years been focusing my collecting on a few things. But Popy and Bullmark zenmai was on the very top of that short list. They were the only part of my collection, that the almost fascist-like neurosis of c10 boxes did not wield it’s full power. The toys were just too beautiful and encompassing of all the funk and soul that this absurd hobby had to offer me. I knew it was something of a full circle process. My collection had gone through tabula rasa many times, for me to get laser-like focus on what it was that I wanted out of my acquisitions. This item was the personification of that goal. “Grail” was not a word I used often, as it had been thrown around too often as a placeholder for something that was rare and cool, but attainable if you watched the auction sites for the better part of 6 months to a year. This toy took 15 years to get to me, and for that I am grateful. It felt like it waited until I was actually ready to appreciate it.

The Kamen rider tins hold a special place for me. They are toys I had not known about for many years of my tin collecting years. I had originally started off with non character 50’s and 60’s robots in the early 90’s, when the Robot boom of the 80’s was slowly tapering down. Like the late 90s for us Chogokin collectors, it was a time when astronomical prices were being shelled out by cash safe and nostalgic buisnesmen.

I first encountered my first KR tin in photos of the Teruhisa Kitahara collection. It was the Battery Op made by Bullmark, which I would not see again until years later in a friend’s collection MIB for the infamous 2006 Morphey Auction. I had purchased a couple Zenmai from the collector in person and he showed it to me. It was deadstock, and I had never seen the box before. I tried to figure a way to sell my car in the next 24 hours after seeing it. Needless to say it was well beyond my means, and went for a healthy price.

The windup however was a different story. I had first seen most of the character tins in the pre internet/ebay days of Toy Shop magazine. For those of you who remember, It was a toy collector monthly periodical that sent many a collector into a phone call frenzy to get the latest dealer finds from the land of the rising sun.

On a page of the Fall 94’ catalog, next to a MIB Popy Voltus 5 zenmai, was something I had never seen before or would again for some time. A Kamen Rider tin in a wider than usual minty box, with what appears to be the most beautiful box art I have ever seen. The box art alone inspires my already growing interest in packaging design and eventual “fall” into c10 boxes.

I contact the dealer, a well known dealer by the name of Ray Rohr, whose photocopy catalogs, stapled, and sent to his mailing list buyers, is the closest thing to heaven a young enthusiast like myself could hope for. I used to pour over his pictures and daydream about having the means to play with the big boys. But this was too much, and I contact him from work to see what the damage will be.

Obviously it is long gone. Like those who are teased by the blurry and tiny Magic Box adds of yesteryear, the high end stuff is always long gone.

So I dream, and wait.

The Morphey auction 12 years later had in addition to the god-like batt op, another Kamen walker. This one however did not have a removable mask, and the lithography was completely different. Even so I was again filled with lust for its badass simplicity. Oddly enough it was also my first introduction to the company Angel. Angel had as I later learned been the manufacturer of both the first and second version Kamen windups after Bullmark closed, and proved to be an interesting transitional time between Bullmark and Ark. As far as I know ( and I do hope to be proved wrong) these were the only two character zenmai Angel tins manufactured. The first version being the non removable mask, the second being the removable mask. The first showed up from time to time, and although rare was not impossible to find. The second version, perhaps due to its later manufacture date, seemed to be made in much less numbers. So far this is the only one I know of. But as with all of these toys, there have to be others out there.

At the time though, the first version went well above what I had /would spend on a windup, and I had put my money on a much “cheaper” Zaboga and Moonlight mask. Fast forward a few years and I finally find another Non removable mask version windup, and do my best to secure it. But as luck would have it, I get played by a certain Hong Kong seller and the original agreed price got bumped up to twice of what it was worth.

There is a well known collector out there who’s advice when finding the grails at auction…bid what your maximum is, and then double it.

I should have taken the advice that day, and soon after regret my choice to pass, but still pissed off due to the shady dealings of the dealer.

About a week later , thinking, like the Ultraman Leo, It was just a walker I was not meant to have, I contact a fellow collector/dealer regarding a couple run of the mill, but nice zenmais he has listed on ebay. I ask if he has any others and await a reply. Any tin zenmai showing up gives me a moment of excitement, and I lose myself in thoughts of finding the few coma inducing characters I have spent years looking for.

Now we come full circle.

After a few emails and a couple drinks to calm my nerves, I manage to secure a buy it now price from the seller. We talk on the phone, and he tells me about how he found it on the Toyshop advertisement, and as he speaks over the phone ( I am at work again) I am transferred back 15 years to the beginning of my career, and collecting. I don’t tell him I was after the same toy all those years ago, and somehow it does not seem needed. Somehow it would ruin the synchronicity.

We come to an agreement, and I sit quietly at work for a few moments after getting off the phone, being both in a state of excitement and financial stress.

Now came the hard part. Shipping.

Needless to say, and for those that know me from this site, I am the shipping nazi. I will forgo all acceptable level of reasonable requests to ensure the box stays the way it should. This box was not perfect, but pretty damn close, and certainly worth half of my final offer. The seller seemed to sense my nature and did a great job. It was a stressful 24 hours waiting, but once I got it, I took my time and even documented the whole process. It seemed fitting after waiting all this time

Eventually it sits on my shelf, and I sit back and look at it. If I smoked anymore, this would have been a perfect time as any to do so.

Toy karma can be a hard won ally. But when the pieces all fit and the universe decides to throw you a bone, it feels really, really good.

Now does anybody have a mint Ultraman Leo walker they want to part with? ;-)

-Josh F