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

I have Marmit’s VOTOMS toys in my grubby little paws. Here’s the lowdown on the first batch, which consists of:

V-01 Standard Scopedog
V-02 Red Shoulder Scopedog
V-03 5th Unit Scopedog
V-04 Konin’s Scopedog

(I’ve given up trying to take good pictures, so accept this crude size comparison shot of a household item, the Takara 1/60 Scopedog, and Marmit’s toy. Roger Patterson, eat your heart out.)

Construction: Gotta whole lotta PVC. Hernia sufferers, ignore the “TOO HEAVY!” warning on the box. There is zinc, but it’s minimal: only the nine leg and waist armor skirts are metal. The head and shoulders are articulated, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort before they come off due to the gashapon-style straight pegs. The large scope rotates, too, but that may not have been intentional.

Accessories: Each one of these comes with a rifle. That’s it. The rifle plugs into the hand using a peg in the palm, letting the robot cradle it. The two mounting rungs on the back actually come out, leaving rectangular slots where (presumably) future Scopedog variants will have their backpacks inserted.

Detail: The sculptor absolutely nailed the robot depicted in the line art by Okawara. Every little rivet and outline is there. The paint job is flat, with no weathering or panel lines, which is a good thing in my book.

So are they worth 1600 yen each? Maybe. I think they’re some of the best looking VOTOMS toys ever, but they’re really just gashapon figures with some metal bits stuck on them. The first four are identical except for the paint job, and I’m probably not de-carding the remaining three because of this.

I prefer these over Kaiyodo’s figures, though. The card back shows the Berserga and Diving Beetle, and they both look excellent. I’ll definitely be getting the other entries in this series so as I get more, you’ll be hearing about them here.

(And for those keeping track, they were shipped from HLJ via SAL for 880 yen and arrived here in 17 days.)

Ok everybody, here goes my third rumble! As per request of Inwards, I decided to do a rumble on the amazing and fantastic Giant Gorg Jumbo Machinder !!!

Yeah….amazing and fantastic…that is if I was trippin on brown acid or something….. seriously though, this guy has his good points and his bad points, I’ll go over those in a bit but for now lets just look at the jumbo itself.

Giant Gorg was made by Takara In 1980. It is based upon the Nippon Sunrise giant robot Giant Gorg. It stands approximately 63 cm tall. Articulation is limited to the head and arms (to sum it up, the posebility of a rock). Unlike most other jumbos, the feet aren’t weighted, making this a guy you want to have propped up against something. In addition to that, it doesn’t possess the familiar “rollerskate wheels” (a good thing for mecha purists, a bad one for old-school lovers).

The stance is quiet yet dynamic, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it makes Gorg look cool and different from other jumbos, a curse in that it makes it hard to display this guy along with them (kind of like the problems you find when displaying the jumbo megazords or the animal jumbos like “Dol,” “Ryu Sei Oh,” or the “Daiku Maryu”)

It shoots…..nothing. You’d think a company that could pull off the Jumbo Jeeg would do better. The color is quite different from the other Jumbo Machinders and makes it really stand out in a line-up, whether it’s in back or up front. The paint job on the head is quiet breathtaking I– that gold against the deep, almost midnight blue is quite a good look.

After that, though, the details pretty much stop. There are some gold stickers around the neck and on the shoulders, and a pair of orange stickers on the chest, but other than that this thing is fairly devoid of any other color than blue (let me clarify that — there ARE other stickers on the legs and such, but they’re practically the same hue as the jumbo itself, making them hard to see from a distance).

In terms of molded detail this thing is pretty well loaded down, giving it a nice “real type” look.

Ok, so your thinking “Hey Jerilock, what your saying is that this thing has no articulation, it’s all one color, and doesn’t shoot anything, so why the heck should we try to pick one up??” I’m getting to that, just hold up a second!!

The one saving grace of Giant Gorg is also its only “feature.” Its eyes light up!! That’s right, pop the cap off it’s head, drop in a AA battery and with a simple twist, the s eyes turn into two burning orbs piercing the darkness with their brightness… And since the plastic of the head is fairly “thin”the rest of the head also glows a bit (think glow worm).

A note: I’ve discovered that if you twist the knob on the head just right you can also get the eyes to blink…something that made it quite annoying when trying to get a shot of the eyes for this rumble!

Moving onto the box, this thing is HUGE. It’s significantly wider and taller than the regular Popy jumbo boxes, making it hard to display with other boxes.

I hesitated to pick up this guy for a while, but finally decided to get one off Yahoo Japan Auctions. I’d heard good and bad things about it, but I found you can’t judge a book by what others say about it. Personally I like him. He has a charm that just grows on you the more you look at him (and I should probably note he was the first boxed Jumbo I ever got).

If you’re looking for cheap polyethylene thrills or an oversized, dim flashlight I’d say this guy is perfect for you. And if you enjoy Giant Gorg, he’s a piece you can’t miss out on. And being the kind of jumbo it is, if you collect them, he really is kind of like a basic necessity for any line up. Hope you enjoyed this review!

-Jerilock

If you’re a shut-in, permanently strapped to a chair in front of your computer, or just don’t have much of a life, chances are you may have read the chronicle of my decades-long quest for the not-so-greatest Gundam toys ever created. (Remember? Rumble last year? Remember? Hello?)

For the rest of you, my name is Matt, and I have a problem. The problem is that I can’t stop spending my hard-earned money on cheap-ass plastic Gundam toys sold by Clover in the late 1970s. I can’t explain why I find myself driven to spend hard-earned money on such appallingly cheap, inch-high renditions of otherwise popular characters, but I think it has to do with the jolly, candy-like translucent shell covering their nougat-y, robotic insides. That and all the drugs. And that I was spanked too much as a toddler.

Or something. Let us not dwell on the sordid psychodrama playing out on the twisted landscape of this collector’s psyche, but instead revel in the fact that I have reached that mountaintop, have found that plasticy grail, have made the power of ten into one: BEHOLD THE (slighly chewed) CLOVER MECHANIC BEST TEN MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM SET! The power of plastic complels you!

As sets of Gundam goodies go, it’s pretty comprehensive. You’ve got a Gundam, natch. And Zakus both new and old. But that’s not all — you also get a pleasingly flesh-colored GM! And the underwater brothas, Gogg and Z’gok. Not to mention Gyan, Gouf, Char’s Dom, and a portly smurf-blue rendition of Gelgoog. Who said they never make toys of the minor guys?

There isn’t much to say here that I haven’t already said poorly before, but let me say this: only the Japanese would go to such lengths on the packaging for such an unrelentlingly low-class series of toys. I spent hours going over photoshop settings before realizing that no, it wasn’t the pictures, but the very toys themselves that were blurry. Go figure.

I don’t mean to sound down on the poor little guys. In fact, I was absolutely ecstatic to stumble across the set — although not particularly so about the bidding war that erupted across the shoulder of Yahoo Auctions, my yen lost like tears in rain. Yes, I’ve bought toys you people wouldn’t believe. But you know what? It was all worth it.

Anyway, that’s done. Now to collect all of Clover’s translucent Ideon toys…!

Black Ham Gear is the first enemy robot release in the Megahouses ROBONIMAL vinyl series. The first release was the legendary Panda Z.

Black Ham Gear is piloted by the evil Dr. Jangarly, a robotic mouse, with a see-through mechanical head. (the toy does not have this feature, although it would have been VERY cool.)

Black Ham Gear is a mouse, suprisingly. He is considerably shorter than Panda Z, who will totally kick his ass. Dr. Jangarly can be removed from the cockpit, and features articulated arms. Black Ham Gear is articulated at the shoulders, wrists and legs. He has full paint detail in the cockpit, and even the thrusters under the feet are detailed.

He has a funky, steam-punk feel, but he lacks the innocent charm of Panda Z. Still, if you have a fetish for robotic animal kikaiju, Black Ham Gear is for you.

Your nominations have been accepted and the voting has begun; this time with an unprecedented 25 names on the ballot, five of which are SOCs!  Will the gokin vote be split, leaving Panda Z with the opening he needs?  Will anyone actually be able to pass this year’s Alpha Robotaku quiz?

Head on over to the voting booth and find out…

It’s that time of year again, kids.  Head on over to the Nomination Machine to get this year’s TOTY rolling…

There are Real Robots and there are REAL robots. Welcome to the world of true bipedal research robots! While the closest one can get to owning one of these is still a couple of years and many thousands of dollars away, a robot-toy fan can get by pretty well with a nifty scale model figure of the Honda ASIMO…

As a longtime fan of Real Robot designs, I guess it’s only natural that I’ve taken an interest into real world research on bipedal robotics. Among the most well-known today are SONY’s SDR-4X (a.k.a QRIO), Honda’s ASIMO and the PINO by ERATO. In true Japanese fashion, they not only push the limits of technology, they also sport fairly attractive industrial designs as well. Of course they are nowhere near Patlabor-ish levels of anime appeal, but they are literally taking steps towards the slick humanoid-industrialism seen in Chris Cunningham‘s robo-Björk music video. And of course, owning toys of such groundbreaking mechanoids is a dream come true of sorts for me!

ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) comes in a rather drab package. Other than the figure itself, the only other accessories are a pair of closed fists which you can swap with the standard open-hands. Where the toy really shines is the attention to detail and faithful reproduction of the actual ASIMO’s astonishing agility. The figure comes with over 20 points of articulation, some in 2 axis of movements. The matte-white body stands at 6″ tall with crisp molding and clearly printed markings. The oversized backpack (in real life it houses the power supply) is in a nice shade of metallic silver with shadowed vents and a prominent HONDA emblem emblazoned across the back. Although the lighting makes it hard to see, ASIMO’s
face has 2 large circular eyes and a smile under the transparent faceplate.

Once out of the box, I got down to exploring how well little ASIMO moves. Dancing on one leg is entirely possible, as are full squats and other whimsical poses. The expressiveness of the toy is quite amazing. Although not in the same scale, I had to put ASIMO next to my 1/6 scale PINO for a little comparison. PINO doesn’t have as crisp a sculpt, but its no slouch either when it comes to poseability, with about 17 points of articulation… including a waist-joint.
:-)

All in all, I’m really pleased with these niche toys. They may not have Rocket Punches or even do anything useful yet, but they point the way to a day when bipedal robots join our common reality. I await that day with eager enthusiasm. :-)

P.S. A big thank you goes out to my friend Wosing for helping to track down this elusive little toy in Tokyo. Arigato Gozaimashita!

“Modern Vinyl Machines”. Right.

Of course, this is a Rumble about Machine Robo Rescue. But not about the usual Bandai Machine Robo Rescue toys, not about the transforming toys.

A couple of months ago, Bandai brought out three sets of little vinyl Machine Robo Rescue figures, each packaged in a nice tube-shaped box: the Jet Team Set, the Police Team Set, and (duh) the Drill Team Set. These represent the first (and most important) 3 MRR Teams. Each set includes the concerned team’s leader robo in both machine and robo mode, and the 4 helper robo in robo mode. Each set also includes a bad guy, basicly an egg with arms and legs (called a Garagoro).

For cheapo vinyls (1200 yen a set of 7 figures), these are quite well detailed, as this shot of the bottom of the machine mode Jet, Police, and Drill Robo shows. See the detail that they have. They even have detail that the transforming toys lack. The vinyls are well-painted and well assembled, even though the Dozer Robo seem to suffer from legs that don’t stay attached. However, this is actually an advantage, as the Dozer Robo have trouble standing; the loose legs allow you to make them bend forwards a bit, making them stand better.

Talking about the transforming toys, here’s a pic showing a comparison of the transforming toys and the vinyl figures. These guys are SMALL! Only the Garagoro are bigger than 2-3 cm.

Of course, the nicest thing about these vinyls are the great scenes one can make with them. One is the unescapable ‘Mini-Me’. The other…well…Machine Robo also have rows from time to time…

At this year’s Halloween Chiller show, M-1 Go‘s upcoming Sanda and Gaira figures were previewed to many drooling fans (with the notable exception of Russ Tamblyn). Expect these by the beginning of next year. I’d tell how how cool these are in person, but the words get stuck in my throat.

Otherwise, not much else news to report from the show, so enjoy these pictures of a Battle Royale contestant, Leela, and Lara Croft.

First of all, don’t ask me why I did it.

I started with an extra The Chogokin Robocon, and disassembled it. Then I soaked it in some .3 brake fluid overnight. The next morning, I scrubbed off the excess paint with a toothbrush, and wiped down the parts.

Once the parts were naked, I checked out what matching the finish on the hands would cost at Union Hard Chromium. I was quoted $65. I was unwilling to spend 7 times the amount of the original toy, so instead I handed them off to my friend Jeff, who polished and clear-coated them. My friend Matt repainted the eyes, and I applied one of Robocon’s red heart stickers.

I don’t know why I did it, but I’m glad that I did because now I have a Chogokin that looks like a kitchen faucet.

I love it.