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

I was working on another BROG when a parcel from japan arrived.
With a few other toys, finally a Marushin Kemler found his way
to germany. Amazing toy, love him! The other BROG has to wait now.
I read Matt’s Kemler BROG before I got Kemler and was aware that
the little green monster might make some trouble.

When I bought him on Y!JP it was a bit risky, because I had no clue if
he has stripes on his wings (no way to see it on the auction fotos).
The seller also wrote in his auction description, that Kemler has a
“few problems” with his rocket launcher.
Cool…sounded like the perfect auction to spent a few hundred bucks ;-)

…I always asked myself why Kemler is so expensive. Now I know why!

Because he has real diamond eyes. Hope the stones a real.

Happy end! Kemler was in perfect condition, the box is nice, BUT I couldn’t
see any red lever for the disk launcher and the red mouth rocket launcher was
fragmented in Kemlers mouth. Ok, no happy end.

The mouth rocket launcher was no problem, set the parts together, screw
him back into the mouth…function test…works…perfect.

But where’s the goddamn red lever?
Found him and the black plastic part with spring inside Kemler’s body,
when I opened the black back plate.

Kemlers plate wasn’t fixed with screws. Also the “spring mechanism” wasn’t fixed
with a screw to the plate and was loose inside the body.

The “repair” was easy. I just mounted the “spring mechaism” on the plate
with a screw and put everything together. The only problem was finding
a srew that has the right size and looks of the orginal Marshin screws.
I used a vintage one from a beat-up Bullmark Diapolon ST Gokin. Fits perfect!

Now you could “load” the disk and fire it. Usually when the mechanism isn’t fixed
to the plate, it won’t work when you push the disk inside. Because it simply fall apart.

Even cooler happy end! Kemler has his full fire-power back.

Here’s my litle disk firing movie.

More in Matt’s hijacked BBS.

P.S.: Why I used Ludwig van Beethoven as soundtrack for my film…WTF, ask YouTube…

;-)

I have been on this plane for what seems like years. I had a sinus infection for the better part of my work trip, but this did nothing to throw my insane plan to stop in Tokyo during my extended 12 layover. I had a mission, and that was to find the girl a present from Mandarake.

With my call to Alt the night before and a few quickly scribbled notes on the location of the Mandarake Complex, I got on the 7:44 am NEX from Narita and got my camera ready to document the quick trip to the motherland.

I relied on my memories of the train system and managed to get to Akihabara a couple hours before the noon opening of this black monolith of Otaku. I spoke briefly and polished up my crippled Japanese skills with a couple flyer girls asking where the store was and found I was pretty close by. A good friend of mine came along from work and we got some food nearby. I ate my mackeral with abandon dreaming of what the store would have waiting.

Needless to say, I was slightly dissapointed as most of the floors catered to the new skool and I silently regretted not going to Nakano to get my vintage fix. That said, I did manage to pick up a cheap Billiken tin that I needed and afterwards turned to my companion and said I wanted to get to Shibuya…it was near his hotel anyway, and I still have maybe an hour before I needed to be on the next NEX train to the airport. I was counting minutes literally.

Back on the Yamanote we go, and 30 minutes later, I am in my familiar zone, the place I used to hang and eat, watch overage women dressed as local school girls to keep their wealthy aging benefactors , and steer around the sketchy Eastern blockers who always made Hong Kong Rolex dealers seem tame and legit. I LOVED being back here even if it was for 20 minutes… literally.

Run down “seizure” strobe stairs into the depths of Mandarake, and make my way past the teenager cosplayers who greeted me.

Walking with purpose I notice the quality of vintage has been severely depleted by the raging internet and my hopes of finding anything seem dim at best for my nerd woman.

With 2 minutes left in my clock, I spy a worthy option, a Mint in bag Curricular machine st vinyl. His teddy bear stare prompts the yen in my pocket to loosen and I motion the tween store clerk out of his slumber to bring this gem to the even younger check out girl. Bagged, paid..score.

One minute to go, I say my goodbyes to my friend, promise we will hang out longer next time and get back to the train with moment to spare. I sit on the train and sigh with relief. Regan will be pleased and I make a mental notch on my hardcore belt.

Sometimes it is fun to be insane.

Added Bonus: Mandarake Dec 15th at 1:30 pm

This is what happens when you have about 8,000 photos on your desktop and you forget there was a whole Morphey “roll” left hidden in a folder.

Looking through these makes me want it to happen all over again. One of the finest couple days with my toy brothers ever.

Photos shown in the order they were taken.

( All photos are property of TBDX)

A prized possession. Thank you sifu. Thank you brothers.

Hulk. Skin turns green. Remembers nothing. Hulk smash. Much like Oni. Behold.

I’ll let Minister Alt take it from here:

“”Oni” means “demon” or “goblin” in Japanese, and they’re a staple in Japanese myths and legends. The Sakura Oni is actually a character toy, licensed from the long-running animated show “Manga Nihon Mukashi-banashi,” or “Animated Japanese Fairy Tales.” The piece is oversized and bulkier than the average “standard” diecast, and features a battery-powered flashing eye gimmick. There are two colors, red and green. The red version seems to be slightly less common. The box of the Oni is striking; the chunky, hand-drawn kanji characters on the box are an instant standout.”

Hedorah’s and Marusan originals beating down on a Nekosaur vinyl. USB Neko’s abound… More to come soon.

-Sjoen

In our last episode, our young hero idiots were buried under a pile of toys they stupidly thought they could catalog and identify at the rate of approximately 1 every 46.2 seconds. Thankfully these dumb fools had friends: equally stupid friends, who would blindingly sacrifice their lives for the same lumps of zinc and vinyl that the original idiots worshiped. And so it was that we found ourselves with a shitload of people all throwing down in a race against time, culminating in the vintage japanese toy wank of the decade:

ACTIVATING: SJOEN UP!

Friday am. An unknown location outside Philly.

My toy loving brethren have entered the Valhalla of Japanese toydom. Thrust into the unknown, a team of degenerate collectors hone in on Morphy’s with a serious vengeance and an aching to make it right with the world. Weeks of planning and back and forth have led to this pivotal moment and BAM!!

It’s GO:

Skivvies and a fresh beer greet the morn.. The Skype is a chirping LOUD.

“WHAT?!” I halfway croak.

“Sjoen, seriously.. We got problems! Check out this yellow missile. Daltanias or Godsigma? HEY!! Douchebag!?”

The dog that I so fondly thought a woman moments ago slowly wakes up, licks it’s ass and climbs out of bed before me. Two seconds ago I was conquering the world, Jessica Alba by my side. Reality bites. A pissed off pit bull, a warm beer and the toy geeks ringing off the hook. Welcome to my life..

“Daltanias…” I mumble.

Throw on the newly pressed Bullmark Tshirt and bring the macbook to the back yard. 65 in SF, 100 outside Philly… Poor bastards must be hot as hell… Well, poor probably isn’t the right word.

“What else you got?” I spout, head in hand. “Bring it!” I say, ego abounding as I lift my eyes up to view the 13 inch screen before me embedded with the pillar of diecast pornography.

“HOLY SHIT!!” I shout looking out at the sea of boxes 1/2 a stadium deep.

Mark shuffles up, cheeks clinched looking like he just drank a pint of bacon grease. Either that or a pint of JD.

“A Real Color God Mars, BITCH!!!” He says winking..

“Seriously? You really want to do me like that right now?” I plead.

He’s taunting me. That little jerk. “I NEED THAT..” I think, imagining my God Mars collection in all of its completeness. “I NEED…”

Eyes blurred from seeing what I think might just be a lucid interpretation of last night’s dream seeping into the real world, I figure I need to make a decision on the quick. A valuable decision. A non toy related decision.

I figured “I NEED” more sleep.

THE END. — Erik

ACTIVATING: ALT UP!

The chogo-phone rings with savage urgency as I wipe the sleep from my eyes. Here in Tokyo, the first rays of a bright morning are filtering through my blinds. But meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Team TBDX is knee-deep in Popy cardboard — and they’re in trouble.

“Operator 3G! Come in! We need an ID, stat! For God’s sake, COME IN!” I can hear the barely-masked terror in Alen’s voice, digitized and reconstituted here, thousands of miles from the danger zone. He’s got a problem and he’s called in the Internet equivalent of a UAV drone for an immediate informatiostrike on his position. I’m happy to oblige.

“Transmission acknowledged, Alen-One. Target acquisition uplink ready, over.”

The photos begin arriving at once. First one, then five, then nearly a dozen. Each of them filled with uncountable, unknowable bits of plastic, metal, even twine. I’d seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but nothing prepared me for the glittering darkness filling my monitor screen.

“My god. It’s full of toys….” I find myself involuntarily muttering into the commlink.

“All… after… incinerators? I didn’t get that last bit, 3G. You’re breaking up!”

“Forget it, Alen-One. Target acquired. Maintain current position.” Long hours of practice masked the extreme unease I was feeling at the photos. I recognized the propeller from the Takatoku Omochama, and a few of the other missiles, but what about the dozens of others?”

— Matt

* * *

Well, we know how the story ends. Erik and Matt threw down huge on getting 300 or so entries tidied up. Thanks to the ass-kicking skills of Jim Maitland, the vinyl id’s were completed on time. Brian Flynn from Super7 had a hand in the vintage vintage. Robert Duban went savante on the final catalog descriptions. Geoge Samson rewrote our Valkryie gibberish.

Without Warren and Steve Saperstein, we wouldn’t have been in this hell/paradise.

Finally, we want to thank THE.C. who helped us with the brute force assembling of all the stuff there…

WITH (4) DAYS TO GO BEFORE THE EVENT, IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO BUY YOURSELF A CHEAP-ASS TICKET TO GET TO PHILLY. CATALOGS ARE SHIPPED, AND IF YOU GOT YOUR NAME IN WITHIN A WEEK OF THE ORIGINAL INVITE, AND RECEIVED THE FLYER, YOU SHOULD BE ALL SET.

TOYBOXDX TEAMS ARE PACKING AND GETTING READY TO CONVERGE ON THE K.O.P. KEEP YOUR EYELIDS PEELED THIS WEEK FOR SOME MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS WHICH WILL CULMINATE IN LIVE SHOW AND TELL THIS WEEK!

THIS IS GOING TO ROCK!

TALK IT / BBS

This toy requires a certain amount of white glove love. Shit pisses me off. Hence the pistol. Matt Alt is in every way responsible for the content and the outcome of this post.

Green Text Book – Know your humans
1. Humans bleed when hurt
2. Humans never drink gasoline
3. Humans are animals that get sleppy at night

Black Text Book – Robot Cell Diagram
-complicated formula

Red Text Book – Most Distinguished Robot in the world
1. Gantsu Sensei
2. Robocon

Yellow Text Book – 3 Laws of Robotics
1. Robots must always work for humans
2. Robots must never cause trouble for humans
3. Robots must alway try their best to become class a Robots.

Blue Text Book – Robot School Final Numbers (report card)
Robocon – zz802
Robochoi – qa77
Roboriki – ss33
Robomero – kv933
Robopin – ru799
Robodeki – aa457
Robopeke – xy007
Roboinu – zu633
Robopa – uu?07

I’ve never made a secret of my thing for lion kings. I like ’em round and big. And while Toynami’s brand new 9″ vinyl portrayal of Voltron is a lot svelter than Popy’s sumo wrestler-esque classic 10″ chunky combining Golion sofubi, it’s also an eighth of the price. At $25, this is a tempting treat indeed.