Toy OTD: '90s Doraemon Vinyl Squeeze Toy

Thanks to my buddy Bill Presing, I was finally able to read some of the Doraemon manga in English! He found some collections in San Francisco's Japantown - they're bilingual so that young Japanese-speaking children can learn English.

The drawings are really fun, and the stories are short and simple - Nobita will have a problem (doing his homework too slowly, wanting more toys, etc.), and Doraemon will produce something from his his fourth-dimensional pocket (like Felix the Cat's bag of tricks) to help out. The helper gadget usually comes with a rule that Nobita winds up breaking, and hilarity ensues. Gadgets might include pills to make you quicker or slower (!), a black belt that hurls anyone you touch away from you, animal picture books that produce real animals, and so on. Super cute stuff!

Anyway, I've been a big fan of Doraemon's design long before I knew anything about him. This isn't the most elaborate or well-executed toy, but it's pretty faithful to its source, and that goes a long way. Even though the pose is very symmetrical, the design is still charming because its intrinsic variety of shapes is strong.

It's a simple toy, but its one feature is also true to its source. Doraemon has a propeller that will pop out of his head so he can fly around (like Inspector Gadget). Thus toy has a hollow propeller with vents on the sides of the rotors (you can see one on the left rotor). If you squeeze the toy, air is forced out of the vents, and the prop spins. Very clever!

I bought this over ten years ago, so getting this exact toy might be very difficult. I can't find it on eBay or Google, but if you're stubborn and put a very open term like "doraemon" in one of those search engines and dig like crazy, it might turn up. If you can find it, at least it shouldn't be all that expensive - I think mine cost under twelve dollars. Good luck!