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

An update on the last thirty days since our redesign began is posted in the Ramble: Overhaul! Year IX and the 30 Day Plan

Our massive Secret Control Room for World Dominance is finally complete. Finally, I can view the site — and the toys — at the resolution they’re truly intended for: 1:1!

If you’re a “Ghost in the Shell”-crazed toy-collector, chances are you’ve been lusting for a toy of the adorable yet heavily armed “Tachikoma” robots that appear in the show. For years, there was next to nothing on the marketplace. But as luck would have it, there’s a tangled web of companies releasing different versions for 2007. Here’s a quick checklist to help ya “get ’em all!”

The kinda creepily-named Good Smile Company’s long-delayed “Goodsmi’ Gokin” Tachikoma is looking like the one to beat — though for 17,800 yen it’d better be. Due out in June 2007, it’s got a strangely insect-like “squashed” look in comparison to the early 2005 prototype shots (and to the line art). It’s also got a detailed cockpit and comes with a 9.5cm high, articulated Motoko action figure. From the specs, it’s hands-down the most pimped-out Tachikoma toy. It isn’t described as being in a scale, but it’s 15cm (6 inches) long compared to the 9.5 cm of the 1:24 Wave kit. (Break out the slide-rules.) In spite of the impending release date, there’s next to no photos or information about the toy on Good Smile’s website yet. Chances are the release has been delayed again.

The Artstorm EX Gokin Tachikoma (shown at top, 14,800 yen, due June 2007) has more traditional proportions and a light-up gimmick, but no cockpit. At 15.5 cm it’s ever so slightly larger than the “Goodsmi’ Gokin” version. (Artstorm’s large-scale soft vinyl of the character is already out and retailing for 6,800 yen; a yellow version is due out in May.) The really ironic thing is that all of these Artstorm products, which you’d think would be competitors, are being distributed by the Good Smile Company in Japan.

The Megahouse/VICE “Perfect Piece” Tachikoma (10,290 yen, on sale now) has an opening cockpit, but the figure is molded in a sitting position and the toy is all plastic. At 13.5cm long it’s a nice size, but given the material, they’re going to have a hard time competing against…

Hobby-shop legends Wave. Their W.H.A.M. “action figure” is also all-plastic and lacks a cockpit, but has the benefit of great proportions and the lowest retail price (at 3,780 yen, less than half of the Perfect Piece’s price.) Being a built-up version of the popular Wave 1:24 kit, it’s also the smallest of the lot, at 9.5cm long. Originally due in March, the release date’s been pushed back to the end of April 2007. Blue, Yellow, and Silver variants (as seen in the 25th episode of the 1st OVA series) are following thereafter.

[Talk about it in the BBS…]

— Tim

This shot needs to be slowly savored like a fine vintage Ark diecast… — Matt

— Tim

Rainbot getting mounted suggestively by the Bandai 1/350 Yamato. There is NO WAY this was not going to be a Money Shot.

[Read it in the BBS Now…]

OK, so one of the pathetic things I do at night is pop open, like, 50 auction windows and click through them mindlessly with the TV on until my mind blanks, my wrists hurt and I have to go to bed. (Sometimes the next morning, Mason’s even kind enough to tell me what I’ve bid on.) While I’m doing this, I frequently inflict the URLs on my so called “friends” (inmates, enablers, whatever.)

Some of these are so mind-wrenchingly sexy, and others so hideously rank, that I’ve been asked to start broadcasting them out in a more ahem formal way. So I bring you the very first ever ToyboxDX Auction Spotlight: Takara Magnemo Pinnochio.

Wince. Enjoy.

If you see one that legitimately freaks you out, send it in…

— Alen

[Talk about it in the BBS]

Kyun kyun…. After a hard night out on the town, Patrick Macias and I stumbled across a vintage 1992 Macross arcade game on the top floor of a massive arcade complex in Akihabara. The game itself is nothing to write home about (you can see screenshots here) but those pixellated attempts to render the characters onscreen with then-current technology will be forever burned into my heart and mind. Some more cut-scene fun:

A half-transformed Strike Valkyrie

Ganbare, Lick Hunter!

Max and Hikaru dive through the atmosphere

The SDF-1 herself

Comment in the BBS…