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

The Grip Jumbo G5.

The sentence itself makes me smile.

Alen is right. This toy is perfection. From the classically painted artwork to the understated details and lack of any superfluous decoration… It has been written about far better and more thoroughly than I am able, so I will simply say, there are few times Popy got it wrong. This is one of those times for me.

If you are going to buy a Gatcha Phoenix, this is the only one you need consider. When given the choice buy the Bently, not the Chystler 300 .

My first, and still my favorite Popy Zenmai. If you have been thinking of getting your feet wet in the hellish world that is tin walkers, here is a good place to start. You won’t be disappointed.

I purchased my first Popy tin from Mike Z. He always knew before I did what drug I would pick next. But like any good dealer, they don’t let you know you are hooked until you arrive at the conclusion first.

Getta G was what I grew up with, but something about Getta 1 seduced my Western centric mind. Maybe the realization that my favorite Go Nagai creation, was not in fact the original incarnation. Like a child realizing later in life, they were not the first person to have awareness, I was stunned and excited by the simplicity and comparatively frugal horned ancestor to my childhood hero…the idea he was the first born and still relatively alien to me. Maybe even the idea that G1 and I were the same age… both constructed and introduced in 1974, appealed to my budding narcissistic tendencies. Mazinga was too old, Getta G too young. This porridge was just right

So began my subsequent pursuit of the perfect totem representation of this icon.

It started and ended with this toy. In my opinion, A sublime construct of color , balance and composition. A walking bit of Pop(y) art distilled and hidden for decades until Mike takes him out of the glass case and stuck a new thorn in my heart.

Wait for it.
Here it comes…

Obsessive desire to collect them all.

(Cue a decade long case of financial ruin and late night post auction stress disorder)

*twitch twitch*

Made by Bullmark, this Ultraman Leo trike has a disarming and disturbing power of cute that would easily bitchslap Hello Kitty off her pedestal.

I’ve always loved the various large carrier vehicles, airplanes, and space ships in many TV series, both animated and live-action. As a kid I always thought there were too few toys made of such carriers. Who wouldn’t have loved to have an Autobot space shuttle play set, a Battlestar Galactica, or one of those cool motherships from various animated series? Sadly, those that we did get in the Netherlands tended to be horribly underdetailed and inaccurate, often having weird proportions and being only vaguely recognisable as the original. The good ones were very expensive and from somewhat before my time.

Fast forward a few years, bring on the internet, and bring on me starting collecting toy robots. I discover a lot of those motherships and carriers actually had pretty nice toys in Japan. (more…)

The last of the truly vintage 1/55 Hi-Metal Macross Valkyrie toys, the VF-1S Super Valkyrie (Roy color scheme) released by Bandai in 1990 has a bit of a reputation with Macross fans as being inferior to previous releases. The main reason for this are some relatively major mold changes. Due to this, this toy remains somewhat unloved and is probably one of the cheapest vintage Valkyries available, usually selling for not much more than the more recent Super Valkyrie re-releases on Yahoo Auctions Japan (around 10k yen).

But is this reputation justified? This I want to explore in this review. Now I must say it straightaway: I like the more controversial changes. However, there are some other minor problems that may cause your mileage to vary, and that actually tarnish the toy more than the mold changes that are often so despised.

Let’s start with the box:

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In the spirit of Matt’s amazing and wonderful work of art, I was inspired to add my little creation from about 2 years ago.

The concept I drew was for a shoe company mascot. While working as a freelance design director in Hong Kong, we had a client who wanted to create a memorable icon for their new children’s footwear line. WIRA means “Hero” in Malaysian. In my deranged biased mind, what better represented this than a chubby waddling robot?

So after creating the concept and most of the shoes ( picture Asics Tigers meets Accupuncture cupsole skate shoes.) , we had the fun task of creating some of the Point of Purchase displays. The iconic image of Mazinga Z’s and Tetsuwan atom’s cross section placed itself firmly in mind, and soon we found a manufacturer/modeling company who could make it out of the materials we wanted, complete with light up eye.

Meet WIRA!

Love him.
Like Gamera, he is the friend of children everywhere.

We eventually also made a non transparent free standing version PVC “machinder”.

A 3d animated commercial was also made in house. I had a whole family of Wira’s ready to go.

This was one of the most gratifying projects I had the pleasure of executing. It was one of the first times that I got to be a kid again and incorporate it into my day job. Making one’s own toys, as many of us can attest is indeed the best drug on earth.

I have recently been picking up a few Gaiking cells here and there. This one in particular makes me smile every time I look at it. I am a sucker for Bazolar’s dumb angry face.

Flashman Flash Titan

So yeah, Flashman Flash Titan. An interesting toy with loads of nice features. Rubber tires, some diecast in the cab, freaking huge trailer, chromed bits:

Mighty Truck

Furthermore, hook up the trailer to the front hole of the cab, fold in the wheels on both cab and trailer, flip out the tail wings and main wings, and we have flight mode (also pictured at the top of this article):

Fly!

Aside from this, the toy is characterised by some neat little features that add some realism to this decidedly futuristic truck. The trailer has opening doors at the rear end that may also serve as ramps:

Rear doors open

…and small flip-out wheels at the front of the trailer so it can stand on its own:

Parked trailer

The cab is based around the same design as the Machine Robo Tough Trailer cab, with a few tweaks. Of course, it shares the opening doors (required for the transformation), clear windows and minimalistic interior with its Machine Robo twin:

Cool cab

The cab changes into Titan Boy, a fairly bricky but nicely detailed robot. The arms are articulated at the shoulders and elbows, while the legs are at the hips and ankles (required for the transformation). The upper legs are made from diecast metal:

Titan Boy

Titan Boy has a dual missile launcher hidden in his belly:

Sadly I’m missing Titan Boy’s Radial Cutters, so you’ll have to imagine those. It looks like a cross between a shuriken and a truck wheel chromed silver.

The Flash Titan trailer also changes into a robot, which then combines with Titan Boy to form the Great Titan. Here Titan Boy is shown next to the Flash Titan in robot mode:

Titan Boy and Flash Titan ready to combine!

Gattai on the toy works by opening the back of the Flash Titan and inserting Titan Boy into it:

Flash Turn! Great Titan! step 1

Flash Turn! Great Titan! step 2

Titan Boy’s head telescopes out to fit into the Flash Titan’s helmet, and then looks out through the holes in said helmet:

Helmeted Head

Great Titan:

This guy is Titanic!!!

Without Titan Boy inserted in it, the Flash Titan’s robot mode is somewhat loose, and the legs tend to collapse on their own. Combined, this problem is entirely gone. The combined mode is impressively solid, large (over 30 cm tall!) and very, very bulky. However, this all has a drawback, as Great Titan only has shoulder and elbow articulation, like Titan Boy. No waist joint ‘ere, folks. Also, Great Titan’s only gimmick is its size. No flip-out missile launchers or other fun stuff. This makes the Great Titan a bit of a let down compared to the other modes.

Conclusion: While not having an equally sophisticated transformation as the Flash King, the Flash Titan certainly is a fun, worthwhile toy.

Sometimes…sometimes you just come across stuff that is so mindblowingly insane, deranged, and fanwanky that you just have to have it. A toy so marvelous, a figure so crack-tastic, something that makes you wonder just how much, and possibly more importantly, exactly which drugs its designer has been smoking, injecting, or actually breathing ever since his or her conception by mommy and daddy.

Ladies (if there any here) and gentlemen, I bring you Fei-Yen the Tiger.

Fei-Yen the Tiger

Now first a little intro on the Fei-Yen mecha series:

Fei-Yen is a female mech from Virtual-On. Originally based on the Magical Girl genre, dual pigtail Tsundere type to be precise, she quickly evolves into a Maid in the later games. More crazily, her later designs include fanservice such as panty shots and various bust sizes. Makes you wonder what Hajime Katoki, the Virtual On character designer, (of Gundam fame) was smoking, eh?

Fei-Yen the Tiger is how he could, and did, make this mindfuckery worse (or better, depending on your point of view)…let’s have a look.

The packaging is deliciously striped in the proper colors, and it suggests her to people 14 years or older:

This. The figure has all the proper attributes:

Color scheme: check.

Tail: check.

Ears: Will do.

A near-perfect catgirl. The MOE fans will appreciate.

She comes with three optional hands and includes a heart-shaped base, upon which she can be stood:

Or kneeled:

Rowr!

Or put in whatever pose you fancy:

All hail Sofubi monsters and their mecha catgirl girlfriends!

Be aware that these toys are notoriously fragile. I bought mine unbroken, but it broke in transit, despite being packed well:

Ouch!

Nothing some super glue can’t fix. The PVC parts are also somewhat sticky, as if the chemical used to make them flexible is oozing out.

Sadly no diecast, and the waist joint is asymetric.

I must simply praise Hajime Katoki for designing a character (and Kaiyodo/XEBEC Toys for releasing it) that seems to be 120% fanwank…

The arrival of a Danguard zenmai a week ago made me reflective.

I know your dad didn’t love you. I am sorry for that. Even your stoic emotionless face betrays your sadness Danny boy.

Maybe he was ashamed and never wanted to admit you were his creation. You were jealous of his other children who were more popular at school than you.

Sometimes the other super robots maybe made fun of your manchild lips.
Even Raideen smirked at them behind your back.

And it took me a while to understand why we saw you so late in the anime…How many training sessions did we have to go through? Why did we have to suffer through Patti’s terrible accent?
I was admitingly disapointed when your Force five day rolled around on Monday. Even Spackateers was more exciting in a car crash kind of way. I mean we all knew Captain Mask ( Captain Dan) was Windstar’s (Takuma Ichimonji) dad pretty early on, and what was up with his trumpet solos on the bridge at susnet at ends of episodes?

But eventually as I got older and more sentimental, like an abused spouse, I decided to remember your good points years after our relationship ended. I wear rose colored glasses now. I warmed up to you. And as time went on, I began to see your appeal.

Even your lips did not seem so disagreeable.

(*Dan Kobayashi actually designed Danguard, but Matsumoto was the creator of the series.)