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

DX Houraiou in the house.

Ninja Senshi Tobikage (忍者戦士飛影 lit. Ninja Warrior Tobikage) looked like it was a pretty cool show. Ninja robots, combining animal robots that gattai into larger robots. Honestly, this was on the tail end of my collecting as a kid. The world of skateboarding was taking over and by the summer of 1986 the last thing I wanted to be doing was sitting in the house playing with robots, I wanted to be out building launch ramps.

So, fast forward 23 years and I’m all about the Tobikage stuff. Picked this DX Houraiou up in Japan recently and it’s actually a pretty decent piece. It combines well with the Tobikage Chogokin GC-32 and in “falcon mode” it totally delivers. There are two other pieces in the same vain as the Houraiou that combine with the Chogokin Tobikage. Bakuryuu, a blue dragon and Kurojishi, a yellow lion that are all just about the same size (10″ height).

Ohata Koichi is one hell of a designer. Known probably best for his work on Albegas, Laserion and Gundam ZZ, his Tobikage design is above average for that time period in my opinion.

Diecast content is minimal, but what do you expect for 1986. Well, back to my Sho Kosugi flicks. Later!

DX Bakuryuu nestled away safely in the case..

The awesome adjective “Ninjy” is copyrighted by Hiroko Yoda 2008.

“You’re inferior.”

Godmarz had dealt with this his entire roboty life… “Godsigma doesn’t have to deal with this, and he’s only got 3 members!” Godmarz had always felt outcast from the other robots due to his Custom-type sensibilities, and yet, whenever more than five kaiju showed up at a time, the other robots still called Godmarz in to save the day. Godmarz was forced to act as sentinel, guarding over the other robots in case of a vinyl invasion.
Godmarz stands alone.

The GB-88 Godmarz Custom marks a turning point in my new foray into the wild world of vintage robot toys, especially those made by Popy. Godmarz is my first ‘big’ Popy toy… everything else up to now has been the early super robots like Great Mazinger and the Getters, or ST-sized figures like Dairugger. Godmarz is my first DX vintage ‘gettai’ figure, and stands alone from the crowd right now as something ‘more’ than the other vintage guys. He’s got a friend or two on the way, but he’s also on the border between the Chogokin toys and the vinyls, forever forced to stand guard against their growing, squishy ranks.

Pla DX God Mars sucks. See…

From TBDX

I’ve been all wicky in the wacky woo for sofubi minis lately. These came in the mail today:

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.

Should I even be sharing this??? Probably not so much…

I wouldn’t typically joke about something so serious, but these Jumbo Machinder buy-prices seem much less daunting considering Matt and I were just holding 3 of the 4 rarities pictured on this first page just hours ago.. As the reality sets in, I’m starting to finally realize that I will NEVER actually own them…