January 21, 2002 CURRENT RUMBLE Daitarn it! Corey 01.21.02 It's not supposed to work this way. I came into this hobby through the backdoor, utterly ignorant and convinced that the bulk of the diecast toys I was seeing were undesirably corny blocks of primary colored zinc and plastic. While many of their modern counterparts appealed to me, I felt I had little fear of ever being sucked into that bottomless pit called 'vintage diecast lust'. But I made a mistake. One of my first contemporary diecast purchases was a group of Super Robot SD's and I became determined to get larger, normally proportioned diecast figures, if they existed, to compliment each one. Thus my first vintage diecast purchase: Clover's Daitarn 3. When it arrived I groaned: It looked squarish and cheesy to me with its peeling stickers and flimsy, plastic accessories. Instead of grasping fingers, the blue hands, clenched eternally into fists, had clunky holes to correspond with the big, ugly pegs that protruded unceremoniously from the side of his weapons. It was also my first transforming toy and, as if to hammer home that I knew nothing about what I was getting into, I broke the legs off the thing the first time I tried to transform it -on the first day that I owned it! How depressing. From that day forward, Daitarn 3 has stood, propped on top of his legs, at the back of my diecast collection: a broken and seemingly lame toy, all but forgotten and standing in perpetual half-shadow on the out-of-favor shelf. Yet Daitarn 3 was a first step. With the passing of each year I've slowly slipped further into territory I never expected to venture into –First I'm buying vinyl kaiju, then Gundam. Next I'm eschewing virtually all plastic action figures. Then I'm hunting for vintage and making dangerous looking wish lists. Soon my bank account and credit cards are vanquished and I am left slavering for more -all the while, Daitarn 3 patiently waited. It is years after my initial, ill-fated attempt to enjoy the toy that I begin to scan eBay for a cheap yet decent, stripped down Daitarn 3 to part out. The search is casual, though. Many potential candidates go by, ignored because other, more dazzling pieces draw attention and money from the project. Eventually, however, I break down and place the winning bid on an intact torso. I find myself curiously excited when it arrives and plunge immediately into the task at hand: disassembling two to make one whole toy. I quickly determine that my initial Daitarn 3 is in superior condition, despite the break, and begin the struggle. Those leg pins are frightening, I can tell you. I make short work of it, though, and soon there is the proud robot before me. But wait! Where are those extra bits and instructions? Good Lord! I hope to betsy they're not squirreled away in one of the many packaging boxes stacked in the garage! My past self-proves its worth by having had the foresight to put said accessory necessities in a Ziploc with all the rest of my extra toy bits, here in the house. Finally I can transform my Daitarn 3. Daitank Booster Daitank Daifighter "The Horror" I am almost immediately reminded of the latter day Daikyojin and yet, Daitarn 3, with his more conventional looking vehicle transformations and variety of shiny, pointy missiles, is more satisfying. The play continually tests the fragility of the toy –my ogrish tendencies adding history to the piece by inadvertently cracking a collar here, peeling a decal there and chipping a missile tip waaaaaaaay over there. I am mildly dismayed by this but mostly overjoyed with the toy's seemingly limitless potential. What I wouldn't have done to have this toy as a kid when the plastic was fresh and my eyes sparkled more quickly. The moral of the story? Look back into those shadowy recesses, and those dusty corners. Open those faded boxes and relocate those accessories. Maybe that toy is cooler than you think. Given a chance, maybe there IS still a kid inside you who is ready to rediscover the fun.  RUMBLE INDEX  |  CURRENT RUMBLE