First things first: there are more used-toy shops now than ever in Japan. When I made my first trips to Japan in the late 1980s, Tokyo was home to a handful of vintage-toy stores; you could literally count them on one hand. Now a vast network of dealers operates across the entire Japanese archipelago; there must be twenty or thirty separate shops in Tokyo alone. And that ain't even counting Osaka, Nagoya, Saitama, and the many, many other cities playing host to the vintage toy boom.

And that's not all. Along with the massive interest in vintage toys and subsequent high prices has come an unsavory element: bootleggers (such as your favorite HK Lightan-making friends) and organized crime, who is rumored to have their fingers in several of the larger Tokyo toy stores. While you're in no danger of being sliced in two by a chogokin-crazed, samurai-sword-wielding Yakuza when you shop, the very whisper of their presence shows just how entrenched and high-profile toy-nostalgia has become in the fabric of Japanese society.

In spite of this, there's a definite feeling that the other shoe could drop at any time. 'Interest in vintage toys is a fad. It's like a wave,' said Kanzen Hentaro, president and owner of Hobby Project. 'It's going to crest. Or already has.' The recent 'threat' of Bandai and Uni-Five reissues hasn't helped dealers, either; in spite of the numerous differences between the '90s and '70s versions of the toys, prices on certain pieces seem to have plateaued. A specific case in point seems to be loose-mint original Mazinger Z jumbos.

While these were commanding upwards of $1000 at one point several years ago, they seem to be selling at the 50,000 ? 70,000 yen level now. It used to be the case that I would encounter escalating prices every time I went to Japan; that seems to have eased for the time being. And while primo pieces still command top dollar, the fact that theyfre even on the shelf shows that things have slowed down for the moment. Mr. Watanabe, owner of a toy-shop called Takarajima, was even able to show me a mint-in-box example of a Jumbo DaikuMaryuu at his shop, something that wouldn't have even lasted a week in his store at the height of the boom.

Don't get me wrong: collecting ain't done by a long shot. If you want that DX Chokinzoku T-28, you're still going to have to shell out the yen. In fact, the most fascinating aspect of this most recent trip was realizing just how much of an established PRESENCE giant-robot heroes have in Japan. Teruhisa Kitahara, owner of the Yokohama Tin Toy Museum, has a weekly toy-appraisal show on television, chogokin are back on the shelves even at the most pathetic of toy stores, and check out this advertisement I picked up at the local Seven-Eleven. Although 'gashapon' rubber figures aren't exactly my cup of tea, there's something immensely comforting about the fact that -- should the mood strike you -- you can walk down to the local convenience store at 3am for a six-pack of cheap sake and even cheaper robot toys.

Okay, time to hit the sack. If anyone needs me, I'll be unconscious for the next fifteen hours.

--M.A.