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

Ok, no wine gum  ;-)
My monday morning macro picture.

Just for fun!

more gum: http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/read.php?4,198184

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.

I wrote about my little restoration project some time ago on robot-japan,
but I thought it could be interesting for you guys too.
Some Bullmark robots like Apolon Header & Trang DX and Robo Daibaron ST
often have tarnished metal parts.  I also had a few Bullmark robots and wanted
to give them their “bling” back. I needed a guinea pig for “operation bling”!

I found this loose Apolon Header DX on ebay-spain (original ebay auction foto)

He looked perfect for a cosmetic restoration project:
typical heavy tarnished arms, legs and horns. But otherwise complete.
Nobody bid on him (strange), so I got him for under $60.

I wasn’t disappointed what I got him. Header was in a good condition.
So I could start “operation bling”!
What you need is metal polish paste (I use aluminium polish paste),
some beers and a lot of time.

You could easy disassemble the arms (only 1 screw).
So you could polish them better without breaking something.

I also polish the horns of Header.
They are made of copper (I think) and got dark over the years.

The whole restoration took me a few hours and some beers ;-)
But I gave Header his “bling” back.
What Do you think guys, is this guy worth more than $55?

I did the same polish job with my other Header and the arms of my Apolon Trang.
Et voilà. Here’s my complete Diapolon gang.

Greetings from germany!

Apropos germany: Are here any vintage-super-robo-collectors from germany?

more bling: http://toyboxdx.com/phorum/read.php?4,198125

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.

I had to do it.

Recently I’ve become a father, and although it sounds horribly cliche’, I think I have the cutest kid in the world (like all fathers should). It’s everything they tell you it is: Bliss, terror, peak human emotion, peak human experience… it’s all there, and it is most definitely miraculous. I love it.

Modern fathers have a new role these days, one that I personally relish: Documentarian. I take more photos & videos of this kid…poor ‘lil guy, his whole childhood is going to be readily available for historical review. However, sometimes it just seems right to alter reality a bit, especially if it involves Japanese robots!

It was this randomly captured pose that sparked my robo-inclined creative impulse. Even without the PS work, he looked like he was shooting to win an Astro Boy look-alike contest. I could not resist. And a whole new way to embarrass my kid was born….

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.)

Last night I ended up hanging out at Josh Fraser’s and having a damn good time.  Let me walk you through it.

I arrived at his place after work and was hungry as all get out.  We stepped into his place for what was going to be a few minutes before going out to eat and ended up being…I don’t know, much longer.  I blame this in part to his extremely friendly and bouncy dog that I couldn’t stop paying attention to.

I got the quick tour of the collection which was really cool.  During this time the karmic toy boomerang came *whoop-whoop-whooping* about as he handed a box to me and said I should have it.  It was a Gaiking sort of Viewmaster (Or so I thought at the time.  This morning I found out it was a hand cranked movie in the Viewmaster fashion.)   After attempting to go eat a few times and getting hung up talking more we headed out for eats.

At the restaurant we ended up talking about performance cars for a while, as well as (duh) Gaiking, ToyboxDX , the collecting hobby, and just life in general.  The waiter tried hard to talk Josh out of the crispy duck he’d ordered because ‘It’s dry”, and I got the Dragon and Phoenix combo: 2 delicious mythical animals.

When we got back to his place we went through quite a few pieces in his collection I hadn’t seen before, or not since I was a kid.  BTW Holding a mint Shogun Vehicles Kargosaur box brought back a flood of very happy childhood memories.  I learned what Zenmai means finally, and saw a lot of cool tins.

For the rest of the night we put on a Gaiking DVD as background noise, and mimicked the awful voice acting that we so fondly remembered from our childhoods.  Bid on YJ and eBay stuff together (I got a small shoulder GA-51 finally), talked about collecting; what we collect, how we approach it, and displaying.  Examined the mysterious animal sounds coming from the back yard.  You know, people stuff.

What’s the point of all this?  Why did I mention the cars, or the dog, or food, or mystery growling animal out back and not just write about Gaiking?  Because this hobby isn’t shit without the people.  I could have every piece I desire and it wouldn’t mean half as much without at least one person to discuss, appreciate it, and share it with.  Many of us have met in person, and we’ve also happily shared our collections and personalities with each other online and in person.  Now I’m not talking about bragging or showing off.  I’ve seen some amazing collections in person and never felt like someone was lording anything over me.  I’m talking about 2 people with a genuine interest in what’s being discussed and the pleasure we get out of sharing that admiration with each other and exploring it together.

That is what this hobby is to me.

Lately I’ve been on a small Virtual-On run, mostly attempting to get some rare model kits, but also picking up various figures along the way. Here’s one of them:

Ph34r teh gold

This is a Limited Edition Cyber Metal Figure of fembot Fei-Yen, made by SEGA. To explain the title (and the figure’s color): When Fei-Yen gets badly hurt in the games, she turns gold and goes into Hyper Mode.

Fei-Yen chooses you, Pikabox!

Fei-Yen here is made of die-cast metal and PVC and has surprising heft for such a small figure (about 7 cm tall).

Look at my prominently displayed copyright stamp!

She has some articulation, too, and includes her signature pigtails (in-game she’s quite Tsundere), skirt, and sword. So MOE!

(but not as MOE as the other Virtual-On figure I recently got…)

Sanjeev recently dug up this pic from an old BBS post. Hobby Project’s Kanzen Hentaro’s masterpiece Gekiganger 3 diecasts from Nadesico circa 1998. Feel the love..