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

I love these Baratak Trotter ships. Ok they’re not as awesome as, say, a Power Charge Baratak (which I would take any day over these), but still think they’re damn cool!

Several different combinations can be created and the ships are magnemo, which is a nice feature. However, the magnets are very strong (I’ve had to really yank them to get them appart), and the combining slots and holes for the missile shooters are quite tight, so be prepared for scuffs and scrapes on the chrome and paint, even after the first time combining them.

I like the color schemes on these ships, and think they look great when fully combined. Hopefully, one day I’ll have the balls to break off the missiles for some eye poking fun.

The box art is nice for the individual ships, but pales in comparison to the Trotter gift set, which is pretty hard to find, and will carry quite a premium:

(Yeah, I’m working on my lighting and non-existent photography skills :p)

Messing around on a lazy Saturday morning before work… I’ve had a number of vinyl kaiju show up lately, along with more of my YHJ from last week and started messing around. The kaiju is Junker V from Wombat Toys.

Getter 3 and the Scopedog try to hold off Junker V while the civilians flee!

But it’s no use!

Can no one stand up to this terrible monster?!?

Look! The Goggle team has arrived to help with evacuation and stop the monster!

POW! Goggle Jet takes down Junker V after Goggle Dump gets trapped while saving civvies.

But no! The monster is back up!

We need Goggle V! Form up!

Goggle V online! Prepare for battle!

“Have at you!”

The day is saved!

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.

After Josh Fraser (he’s the ST version of Josh Bernard) had dinner, we played with some toys. During our unsuccessful attempt at making funny for the internet, Josh made the observation that Rodimus Prime has a gigantic crotch area. Here’s a good look at it just for you.

-Andrew