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

Akumaizer Gabura, Takatoku. A favorite of mine…the dude is just sooo weird!

Toy Karma seems to be on the move… after a cryptic message from The Chairman read simply ‘give me your address’, I did not know what to expect. Never would I have guessed that after he helped me secure my first TT Macross vinyl, the GBP, he would surprise me with my favorite of the TT Macross vinyls, the Glaug, with its awesome vinyl charm! I couldn’t believe it when I opened the package. I LOVE this sculpt, with those big poofy arms in place of the lean and sleek lines of the Glaug. All the right ideas are there in the sculpt, but with that utilitarian-minded uncompromising vintage vinyl aesthetic. Truly a fantastic toy, for which I am truly grateful to our generous Chairman!

After a long day at work and a dreary rainy drive home, I was pulled out of my slump by a small package on my bed. Seemingly zooming across the country from California in record time, this little guy was just what I needed. Thanks to a fantastic tip from Chairman Sjoen I snagged this little guy on ebay without any fuss at all. As a Macross fan from right around my initial discovery of mecha anime, I have spent plenty of money on various Yamato and Bandai items all vaunting their Perfect Transformation and incredible details, and listened to plenty of fans complain about line-art accuracy or how company X is giving us a sub-par product on purpose. Look more than ten years ago, however, and these complex toys are just a glimmer in some toy maker’s eye.
This is my first TT Macross vinyl, and it’s bigger than I expected, but still small enough to fit in a pocket and provide endless entertainment anywhere. Without being concerned with lots of articulation or line-art accuracy or complete painted detail or any transformation at all, this little guy hits just the spot, allowing for a great playable TOY to pick up a dreary day.
Thanks Erik!

These are my first Orguss toys… there’s something in the curvaceous Orguss designs that really lend themselves to vinyl that other harder-edged robots don’t necessarily have. The box is pure love as well, with some awesome art.

Super duper rare carded Takatoku diecast ST Daikyozin. Funny, the toy pictured on the background card is actually the DX Daikyozin.

What was Takatoku up to in 1980? Well, have a look.

Goshogun is one of the coolest 80’s super robots out there. The peacock wings and the big ass sword are a force to be reckoned with. I acquired most of the Takatoku Z Gokin Goshogun stuff years ago, I should have known it was only a matter of time until I completed the circle with the vinyls.

Out of all the Takatoku super robot standard sized vinyls the Goshogun is very hard to come by. The Sankan Oh and the Daikyozin are close runners up, but I’ve only seen the Goshogun for sale three times so far. I lucked out walking into Tokyo’s Gojira Ya and seeing one on a bookshelf literally the moment I walked in. It wasn’t for sale, but before I knew it a cool 10,000Y bill took it home. No backing card (which can be the best part due to the outrageously cool artwork), but hey it was the last standard sized Takatoku vinyl I needed to finish the line.

Not much to say about the piece itself. Unfortunately Takatoku decided the trademark peacock wings were not important, which was a HUGE mistake in my opinion. I included a couple shots of the bagged mini that does have the wings, so you can imagine how awesome the standard size would have looked.

Now the last on my list is the elusive large carded set that contains the Goodsunder, TriThree, mini Goshogun sofubi and another vehicle. I’ve seen it for sale in Tokyo for $500?! Yeah, I don’t think so.. Check it out here.

Alas, the standard measures in at 7″ while the mini is at 5.25″. Maybe not the most thrilling sofubi ever, but if it just had wings… Nevermind. GooooOOO SHOGUN!! Yeah, whatever..

I’ve always loved the mechanical designs of Leiji Matsumoto. The ships he came up with were just fantastic, futuristic but still holding onto design elements of a bygone era.

My Favorite ship he designed was the Arcadia, specifically the Blue Arcadia seen in the Harlock TV series and Manga. Now you need to think back to a time before Aoshima and Taito were on the scene releasing high quality fantastic representations of this great ship.

I spent months going through different contacts trying to track down one of the pla models that were made back in the 70’s by Takara and/or Bandai. One day after I’d all but given up I got an e-mail from a well known vintage model kit dealer located in NJ saying that he’d just acquired a “rare” Takara kit of the Arcadia for the “low low” price of $120…. Like I said it was an obsession… I sent the money order out and waited a week.

What Came was a tiny, poorly made model, devoid of any realistic details or proportions in a box with kick ass graphics and an original price tag that listed the original selling price at a WHOPPING 78 yen.

I never assembled the kit cause I considered it more of a collectible than something to mess with, though I did take resin casts and built up a couple ones for my own amusement and sold some crude repros to some buddies of mine. And of course right after this whole ordeal I managed to find one of the Blue Arcadias that Jesnet made which was bigger better detailed and pre-painted for about $60…..*sigh* the lengths we go through for our obsessions. To this day I still hunt down new and interesting representations of the arcadia, the latest being this gem of a sofubi made by Takatoku.

And the journey continues.

Ladies (ha!) and gentlemen (double ha!), may I have a moment of silence to commemorate a momentous occasion? I have finally completed my collection of “standard sized” Takatoku vinyls of Bryger, Baxinger, and Sasuraiger. Let us bust out the parachute pants in appreciation for that most Eighties of anime series, the J9 shows. All zipped up? “Fat laces” laced? “Members Only” jackets on? Hair gelled and Rubik’s Cubes greased? Great. Here we go.

Bryger (1981, front ‘n center) was the first J9 show, a super low-budget SF ripoff of — I mean, homage to — the wildly popular Lupin III. Apparently forgetting that he lived in early Eighties Japan, the director originally proposed making the show without any robots in it at all. I imagine that wildly creative idea persisted for roughly fifteen seconds into the first conversation with sponsor Takatoku. Anyway, “J9” is the name of a team that features prominently throughout all three shows in the series. The screenwriter, Yu Yamamoto, supposedly named it after a 1980 Sony SL-J9 Betamax deck he wanted but couldn’t afford. It was a trememdous hit that spawned two sequels. The show, I mean. Not the Betamax. That didn’t spawn any sequels at all.

And lo, Bryger begat Baxinger (1982, back left), which was a sci-fi anime re-telling of the famous story of the Shinsen-gumi, a 19th century group of lawmen that you’ve never heard of but is legendary in Japan. How they managed to squeeze the twenty-strong Shinsen-gumi crew into five tiny vehicles, we’ll probably never know. It’s set six hundred years after the first series, in a terrifyingly far-flung future where really ugly motorcycles can fly. And magically grow in size. And combine into giant robots.

And yea, Baxinger begat Sasuraiger (1983, back right), which is in turn set two centuries beyond its predecessor, and is loosely based on Jules Verne’s “Around the World in Eighty Days.” It stars a handsome ne’er-do-well who lives aboard a gasoline-powered (!) steam train / spaceship / giant robot that races across the galaxy. Why build a robot that transforms into a train in space? Hmm. In any event, know this: “Sasuraiger” is about as punny of a name ever to be coined in Japanese, coming from the word “sasurai” (“to wander.”) It’s like…”The Wanderizer.” “Wan-dorr!” “Wan-derrr?” Whatever. You bought the ticket, you ride the damn train.

Oh yeah: here’s a little parting shot.