Toy OTD: Nostalgic Heroes Tetsujin-28 Vinyl Figure: Satan (Late '90s)

This toy is part of a great late-'90s line of old-school Tetsujin-28 characters, not surprisingly made by a company called Nostalgic Heroes. They really seem to understand what's appealing about Japanese vinyl from the '60s and '70s!

For starters, it's packed in a plastic bag with a hang card, just like the originals. Not much in terms of shelf presence, but NH stayed true to the roots of these toys. The color work is within a limited (but striking) palette - while there might have been only one or two passes back in the day, good use is made of the additional colors. The application is also nicely done, reflecting contemporary manufacturing techniques.

The sculpt is simple, but reflects the style of the original manga very well, and in an appealing way. There's a boldness to the shapes that makes it stand out, in spite of its muted color scheme.

There's only six points of articulation, but even that number is a little more than it might've been thirty or forty years ago. Most of the assemblage is fine, though the hip joints make it difficult for the figure to stand properly, the biggest detraction.

There's another colorway available in green, so you don't have to buy this color scheme if it doesn't appeal to you. It's always good to have choices!

I bought the robot pictured above at Super 7 some time ago for about $60. If you can read Japanese, and if they ship internationally, it looks like you should still be able to buy it directly from the NH website for $62.00 + shipping. The figure is also listed at coolstuffvideos.com, so you may want to try emailing the store owner to see if he can help track one down for you. Other than that, there's always the time-honored eBay favorite search, or a Japanese auction bidding service. Good luck!

Toy OTD: Yutaka (?) Robodatchi PVC Figure: Robo-Z (1996-8?)

This is another Kimono My House purchase that I (think I've) just identified. Like many of my Japanese toy purchases, the design caught my eye so I bought it without having any idea of what it was!

This figure is also based on a manga - this one's named Robodatchi, which (not surprisingly) features an extensive cast of robots... oh, and some humans, too! This little PVC appears to be a super-deformed (or SD) version of the Robo-Z character. Most of the Robodatchi websites I've found don't translate very well into English, so I still don't know very much about the manga (or Robo-Z). But like a lot of other manga, it has a ton of cool merchandising!

I dug around a bit and found some blister-packed, super deformed PVC figure sets that look an awful lot like the toy that I have. I'm thinking that li'l Robo-Z probably came from one of these sets - maybe it was opened up and they were all sold separately. Let me know if you run across another one of these sets that includes my character!

Anyway, there's not a lot to say about the piece itself - the design is cool, and the sculpt and paint work are decent. This isn't a high end toy or anything, so it's a good example of a figure in this quality/price range. I think I got it for about five dollars - a little higher than your average PVC toy would cost.

Needless to say, I haven't ever seen anything that looks exactly like my toy online. If you use Google, eBay or thefind.com, I'm sure you'll be able to find a lot of stuff that's much better. Happy hunting!

Toy OTD: Billiken B19 Maboroshi Tantei (Phantom Detective) Vinyl Figure

Some time ago, Billiken released a retro-styled line of various manga characters, complete with old-school bags 'n' hang tags! I bought a few Astro Boy figures, and later on, this Maboroshi Tantei toy (aka Phantom Detective, or National Kid). 'He' looks to be the star of a late '50s/early '60s manga, as well as a live-action television series!

If you like this style of vinyl figure, it's a really sweet toy! The sculpt is very simple and streamlined, emphasizing the graphic qualities of the original manga art. The colors are great, too - a perfect match with the comic's palette. I think most of the toy is made from dyed vinyl, which really adds to the overall look!

The pose is asymmetrical, but not so pushed that it would cause stability problems. While a display stand is never completely unnecessary, it's not as critical here. If I remember correctly, the feet rotate at the ankles, which can be very useful to help adjust the figure and improve its balance.

Beyond the ankles, there's the usual amount of articulation for this type of toy - neck, wrists, shoulders, and waist. For the most part, though, none of these rotation points really improve on the original pose very much.

The bag-n-tag packaging is appropriate to the retro-toy concept, but aside from the nifty tag art, there's not much to it.

You can still get this figure online, although I think it's a little pricier these days. I think I paid about sixty dollars or so for it at Kimono My House, but it's selling on eBay right now for $112.99. A little more bargain hunting may be in order... good luck!

Toy OTD: Artstorm Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu Vinyl Figure: Kachan

I've owned more than a couple of these toys for some time, but it's taken me until now to figure out who they were (and what comic/animation they were from)!

This figure comes from the anime (and I presume, manga) series Hajime Ningen Gyatoruzu, aka Hajime Ningen Gon, aka Hajime Ningen Gyators, aka Gon, The Stone Age Boy. This character is Gon's mother, Kachan.

It may not be quite as stylized as some of the anime drawings, but it's still pretty faithful to the original design. The figure is appealing, with a nicely sculpted pose, and the paint work is also good, especially where it counts in the facial area.

There's hardly any articulation at all - just in the shoulders. Even for a vinyl toy, this is pretty minimal - it's just a step away from being a one-piece rubber-duckie-style figure. At least the toy balances well, especially considering the tippy-toe positioning of the feet!

I bought this quite some time ago, so it's sold out, unfortunately. I've had the toughest time digging up any infomation about this show/comic at all - you may want to set up several eBay searches for this one. Good luck!