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Sofubi Toys!
Before S.H. MonsterArts and Ultra-Act, years before Bandai, your only hope for giant monsters in toy form was vinyl. Five points of articulation if you were lucky, and only swivel joints, and incredibly light for the size, but fun and bright colors and certainly durable. The variety was nearly endless between all the classic film and television monsters out there!
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/8279/67712341l.jpg Over time, the vinyl got smaller, but more detailed and show-accurate. This was the new era of giant monster love, an explosion in the 80s led by Popy and Bandai; Ultraman begat the return of Godzilla, and so the others followed. http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6...e8c03be4cd.jpg Just after this new era began, the children of the 70s grew up still loving their monsters of old and you had big figures again... and with price tags to match. These are the cream of the crop, the ridiculously expensive, but masterpieces in their own right. http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/2589/xmeg2.jpg Whether it's an original Hawaiian Bullmark Hedorah costing more than your student loans or the latest 6" Bandai Ultra Monster Series toy for 840 yen, all discussion of sofubi (soft vinyl) toys goes here! |
I for one still love vinyl toys. I have a decent collection of Goji series monsters in that form and have been looking into picking up a few Ultra monsters as well.
I also a nice little set of SDs both for Goji and Gamera daikaiju, which I am crazy about. I totally dig those cute little guys! Currently I am looking to buy an Ultra Series Bemular. Possibly as a treat to myself since I am working at a project site and working 7 days a week this month! :) A question: do you leave the tags on your Bandai vinyls or remove them? All of the ones I have still have their tags if they had them when I bought them. But lately I have been consideirng cutting them off because from what I can tell there's not much of a secondary market for most of these figs and the tags interfere with display. Thoughts? |
Personally, I used to have some awesome vinyl figures, but many of them were sold off over time. Still have a couple of the old X-Plus Gameras, several Godzilla figures in 6" and 8", and a metric buttload of Ultraman figures.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...aijuBattle.jpg I remove every single tag from my figures because I'm not planning on running a museum with them as my centerpieces. The people with the truly fat wallets and rooms they can fill to the brim with toys can do all that if they like. The key I've found is to heat up the figure where the tag is injected (a blow dryer works best) and when the vinyl is hot and most malleable, pull it out by the hook. You remove the tag this way, but the plastic hook isn't broken, you don't have bits of plastic rattling around inside your toy, and you can repeat the process to retag the figure later if you prefer. Win-win! |
I will try that with the hair dryer. Good call!
I am trying to remember exactly which vinyls I have. I know I have Burning G, MOGUERA, G2000, G94, Destoroyah, Bandai Creation Gigan, and the large Bandai Creation Millenium Gigan. I think I am forgetting one. As for the SDs I have bunches of them, heh. G63, Rodan 56, G94, Gigan, Barugon, Viras, MOGUERA, Space Godzilla, and some others as well. |
Ultra Kaiju Bemular is all sorts of awesome. I've got my eye on Melba and Tyrant, and I've love a Jamila, but he is very pricey...
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That Megalon is freaking sexy.
Vinyl toys aren't my thing, and I've never been interested, but they do look damn good. |
Japan does love it's capsule monsters.
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It seems SO DANG OBVIOUS but I never put two and two together until I saw a picture online of a Japanese Toys R Us. (Reminds me of a funny story. A few years back, the project I was working on had a Japanese client. A big Japanese client. As in their name starts with "to" and ends with "shiba." Anyway, we had meetings at the office, and we were taking the clients back to their hotel to get ready for dinner. Across the street from my office is a Toys R Us. The two clients asked to go in so they could pick something up for their kids, so we obliged. It was amazing watching these guys pore over the "import toys" that were for sale, and talk about how their kids would love this or that because "you can't get that back home." It's always funny to remember that "import" and "domestic" are a matter of perspective! :lol) |
I'm torn right now.
I was playing around on eBay and found some decent prices for the Ultra-Acts of both Seven and Ace. And Leo can be found relativey easily as well. So I am champing at the bit, ready to buy them. But then I think about it -- for the price of any one of those Ultra-Acts, I can get three vinyls, be they daikaiju or Ultra Heroes. Yeah, the Heroes won't be poseable, but the daikaiju are perfectly compatable (for the most part) with their Ultra-Act brethren. So what's a fan to do? These are the vinyls I am leaning towards. Gomora: http://hobby-japan.net/tmp/bandai/ul...3112488091.jpg Red King: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...YgQ~~60_57.JPG Baltan: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...bIg~~60_57.JPG Windam: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...+dw~~-1_12.JPG Black King: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...m9!~~60_57.JPG Tyrant: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...bp!~~-1_12.JPG Eleking: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Ultraman-Mons...GoQ~~60_57.JPG With Baltan, given his humanoid structure, I'm considering just getting him as Ultra-Act. So, yeah. Hrrn. Maybe I'll buy a bunch of monsters and then get Ultras to fight them. Eleking or Windam for Ultraseven, Black King for Ace, Tyrant for Taro... heh. |
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