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

Tree Ninjas!

Oh…..wait…..Damnit Fraser……..

This was a rather epic purchase in the making.
Uncle Warren is the saintly keeper of all things Red Baron. There is something magical about the character for the man, that induces youthful abandon and causes all logic to go out the window. We have all been there.. that special design that just makes us silly.

So his self imposed focus on vinyl and avoidance of jumbos in general has allowed him to not have to consider this Red baron as an option.

Until now.

A couple weeks ago, Warren and I spy what is basically a dead stock toy… And when I say “dead stock”, I mean this toy looks like it was in a time capsule. The box, struck me as being the stuff of legend… almost mint itself.

I am in awe.

Warren makes his choice, that the love of character trumps the food group focus and asks me to help him bring the Baron home.

So, the long slippery slope of securing this beautiful toy ensues. After a week of nail biting and emails and shifting bank accounts, the final piece in his Baron pursuit is packed up and arrives.

Dave and I open the box, and I get his expert opinion. The smile tells me what I need to know. This toy is … perfect.

I will let the photos do the talking:

Dave approves:

Even the ladies can’t resist the power of the Baron.

And finally the proud papa:

Also our greatest thanks to the efforts of Kohei from Tokyobuyers to communicate, secure and ship this in a textbook manner. You went above and beyond my friend.

In the competitive world of Japanese toy collecting, it is nice sometimes to simply help your friends achieve their grails, and bask in the glow of their love for the toy. In the end, I find this to be the biggest benefit of this community

Today I have a before/after Brog for you.
A few weeks ago a found a Takatoku Gariba C, or is it Garibr C (?),
on Yahoo.  Usually these non Bullmark bikes, even loose specimen have
lots of fans out there…so they go for more Yen I want to pay for one.
Apropos “non Bullmark”. Akumaizer 3 toys are licensed by Takatoku,
but Bullmark produced many (most) of the Akumaizer sofubis, MFV’s,
plastic toys and even the Zabitan Zenmai. Many of the toys are “double branded”
with Takatoku & Bullmark logos. What a great toy manufacturer cooperation.
But I was pretty sure that THIS one,  even with box, won’t go for a fortune.
and I was right…

When Evil on his bike arrived in germany, he looked like on the auction fotos.
It seems that he had a bad accident at some point in the last 35 years…
yepp, riding a motobike is dangerous.

I wasn’t sure what really was wrong with Evil when I “analyzed” the auction fotos,
because the quality of the pics wasn’t good (as usual) and the item description wasn’t very
informative too. What I know was that his head was pretty deformed (melted?),
he had many discolorations on his body, the box was “repaired” with some kind of tape, etc.
Could be a nice restoration object, or a few thousand Yen burned for junk…but no risk, no fun ;-)

The first thing I noticed when hold the toy in my hands was that the “discolorations ”
on Evil’s body is only dirt…nice mixture of 30 years old dust and nicotine.
But his bend back head looks really evil…haha, funny wordplay.
Ok, sorry…shitty joke ;-)
When the vinyl is dryed up, it could break, when I try bending the head back into position.
I decided to use the “hot water” method. I think this is the best method to bring vinyl
back into “form”. Better than using a hairdryer.
I restored quiet a few vintage vinyls that way…works pretty well.

I pour only a bit hot (nearly boiling) water on Evil and…

…“PLOEEP” (this was the sound),

Evil’s head was back into position.
Wow, a 5 second restoration. I was amazed!
Getting rid of the tape and cleaning the box, without destroying the artwork, took hours.
Here is the result. A pretty nice looking toy & box. i thing the only thing that is missing
is Evil’s scarf. But I’m not 100% sure if he came with one.

Nice colorful box. The plastic window is a bit battle damaged over the years.
But I won’t replace it, I want to keep it original.

Now Evil is ready to race again with his friction drive bike!

So, this was my little Akumaizer motorcycle story for today.
I have a few more to tell ;-)

More fotos etc in the BBS.

Sorry for the double post…

Happy Easter from the european TBDX-chapter!
The chairman was faster this year…but only because
my easter greetings had a longer way across the atlantic, …

…and I had too much drinks last night ;-)

cheers

When I saw this bootleg vintage Mach Baron mini sofubi on YJA, I simply could not resist. The sculpt is heinous, and this thing oozes sleaze and funk. It stands around 5″ tall, with just a couple of paint apps. The colors are a bit more faded in person. The figure is pretty lightweight, but still made from thicker vinyl than some real vintage figures I have (I’m looking at you, toys by Onda!).

The whole thing is asymmetrical and off-kilter and looks like it was mastered in Play-dough, and I love it. I’ll take some comparison pics with my legit Bullmark mini MB when I go home, but this guy has way more funk, and a little bit more soul.

This egg has hatched. Thank you Rog.