10/31/98: Kikaider's Long Wait

Wow.

That's all I can really say after receiving a set of the new Nostalgic Heroes Kikaider and Hakaider diecasts. It's obvious from the painstaking attention to detail, the vibrant colors, and the preservation of early-70s aesthetics that someone out there deeply understands just what the term "chogokin" means. And that someone is the one-and-only Nostalgic Heroes company.

Nostalgic Heroes is a Shizuoka, Japan- based used toy shop and vinyl-toy maker. Up until now, they've toiled in relative obscurity in the shadows of Romando and Marmit Toy, perhaps due to the fact that their only license seemed to be that of Tetsujin 28. In fact, Nostalgic Heroes' main claim to fame has been their oddly-conceived "Buddha Style" lotus-sitting T-28 vinyl and a set of beautiful, large-sized vinyl figures of Tetsujin 28 and Black Ox. As wonderful as these pieces are, their relatively high prices ($300 and up for the Buddha-T-28, for example) have led them to suffer a cool reception among fans. Talk about an underdog, though: Nostalgic's had an ace up it's sleeve all along, and it's finally payoff time.

Somewhere along the way, Nostalgic Heroes acquired the rights to manufacture toys for a long-ended-but-never-forgotten 1960s series called "Kikaider." Kikaider aired (and ended) just as the Golden Age of cho-go-kin dawned in 1973, but for some reason never gained much of a foothold in the Popy lineup. Although the "Side Machine," Kikaider's sidecar-equipped bike, is one of the rarest and most expensive Popy diecast pieces in existence, for some reason the company declined to make a diecast toy of the actual figure from the show. A real shame, as Kikaider's half-red, half-blue styling is one of the most striking in the Japanese live-action kingdom. For years, diecast collectors have lamented this omission of one of their favorite characters, putting Kikaider at the top of their "shoulda been made" list and forgetting about it. Until now.

For the last two years, Nostalgic Heroes has been hinting at the fact that they've been planning a set of original chogokin-style toys. Their ads in Hobby Japan tantalized with grainy photos of prototypes. Release dates were printed and passed again and again; months passed without any new word. Dealers jostled for position and priority to get the much-promised-but-never-seen figures; the few collectors who knew anything about them waited, waited, waited...

It was worth it.

As great as Nostalgic's first attempt at retro-diecast was (the production of a near-duplicate of the original Side Machine piece), their interpretation of Kikaider and his arch-enemy Hakaider is pure genius. If I hadn't known that they've been planning this for the last few years I would have thought these were an old warehouse-find. They look like originals, they feel like originals, they even SMELL like originals. These are the REAL "soul of chogokin": the dead-on box art, the bright colors, the economy of design. To hold one of these solid little mothers in your hand is to hold the embodiment of all that is 1970's style. Check out the pictures for yourself, but do yourself a favor: try to see them in person. You won't regret it -- it doesn't get any purer than this.

Translation Sidebar: Eagle-eyed collectors will undoubtedly note the fact that the three characters on the bottom of the Nostalgic Kikaider figure boxes are NOT "cho-go-kin." Instead, Nostalgic Heroes has replaced the "cho" of "cho-go-kin" with the character for "nostalgia" (natsukashii, for you Japanese students out there.) Thus, these are not actually "cho-go-kin," ("super-alloy") but "retro-go-kin" ("retro-alloy.") Another interesting feature of the Nostalgic Heroes packaging is the advertisement covering the back of the box. "We pay high for used toys! Please help us in collecting and preserving old toys." shouts Kikaider from the back of his box. (The Hakaider box has identical copy.) "Check your storerooms, your closets, your desks. Give us a call if you find even one piece!" It concludes, "If you've got a lot, we'll come buy from you directly!" Besides highlighting Nostalgic Heroes' impeccable business sense (hey, it's free advertising!), it's amazing to see that cho-go-kin collecting has become this slick of an operation over the course of a few short years. In the early '90s shopkeepers practically paid YOU to take this stuff off their hands; now there are highly specialized buying operations that scour individual Japanese homes for acquisitions. It's been over a quarter century since the first cho-go-kin were released, and I think it can be truly said that this is the dawning of the Silver Age of diecast.

--M.A.