Shock Impact!
Repaints & variants… Ha! They’re just a means to suck away your
dwindling toy fund. Now it’s NORMAL. Now it’s BLACK. Now it’s METALLIC
(and limited). Now it’s ANIME ACCURATE… Hate it! HATE IT! But
once in a while, when the subject matter is right, variants can bring
a real funky kind of joy! And that’s how it was when 6 colorful bugs bit
me and gave a real bad case of chogo-lust.
You know how some toys just sneak up on you? Last December, My brother
came home one day and showed me what he got at a sale: Yet another chogo-costume
Kamen Rider 2 (or so I thought at first).
“Hey, why did you get another one of these? Haven’t we gotten
No. 1 and 2 already?”
‘”Look closer – the boots and gloves are YELLOW!”
“Oh cool. And the scarf is green…”
“GREEN? I thought the box showed it was yellow. Here, see…”
“Hmm… What’s this little label on the back? Shocker Rider
GREEN. That means there are more colors involved I guess…”
“@#$%!“
A quick check in the Kamen Rider mooks soon revealed the dastardly plot.
There were SIX Shocker Riders, the enemy clones created to wipe
out the good guys. And the ONLY thing that differentiated them was the
color of their scarves (or mufflers if you prefer). Yellow, White,
Green, Blue, Purple and Pink. Even sissy PINK, dammit! Head – same.
Gloves – same. Belt and boots – all the same. Not even a special weapon
for each Shocker. Positively shocking…
But still, we were intrigued and decided to try finding the rest. Disaster!
The store only had Green and Yellow were in stock. You can imagine the
look on the bored store assistant’s face when we asked if more were coming
in… “The stocks all there… it’s all we’ve got.” Helpful
chap.
Never mind, we were heading to Hong Kong for a holiday – surely we’d
find some there, right? No such luck. In one store, a frantic Japanese
collector was asking the proprietor if he had any more “Shokka Raidaa?”
“Sorry, all sold out” was the reply. When a seemingly trivial
toy suddenly becomes SOLD OUT, your priorities change pretty quickly!
We found a lot of goodies in Hong Kong, but never did manage to see another
Shocker Rider anywhere.
But this silly tale has a happy ending. Back in Singapore, we returned
to the mall and what do we see but a whole PILE of Shockers. Every
color was in stock. And silly buggers that we were, we gleefully bought
the ones we missed at full retail. I wore that silly smile all the way
home :-)
– drifand
