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: Trendmasters Lost In Space Robot B9 (1997)

Remember when the Lost In Space movie came out? Trendmasters made a lot of spin-off toys, but they wisely added a parallel line inspired by the original TV series. The B9 robot was the best of it all, and it's still a kick-ass toy!

It's motorized, but doesn't have a corded remote control to mess up the design, or an unnecessary radio control. The arms can be locked in the retracted position, or can be popped out at the push of a button. The sound chip features the original voice actor speaking a few nifty phrases, and the toy can be switched from standard talking mode to room guard mode if desired. It even pivots about the waist and lights up when activated! Cool. Plus, it's dead-on-model, which hasn't happened in an affordable version of the character until this point.

There's three versions of the Trendmasters B9 that I'm aware of - a two-foot-tall RC version, a smaller talking version (pictured), and a smaller-still version (I'm not sure what features - if any - that it had). I think the version I bought is a great size-to-features compromise. I can't remember how much it cost, exactly - I think it was around twenty-five dollars.

These toys are long gone from stores, but there's one for sale on eBay for $55.00 + $23.45 (!) shipping - yikes. There's cheaper auctions online, but just make sure you're getting the version that you want - I'm sure that sometimes the smaller robots are getting foisted off on unsuspecting bidders as the larger model.

Toy OTD: Burger King "Toy Story" Premium: The Robot

Don't worry if you don't remember this character from Toy Story - he's a pretty obscure background toy, and only has one spoken line: "Mr. Lightyear needs more tape!" He helps Buzz fix his spaceship, pals around with the toy snake in Andy's room, and that's about it. The only reason I remember him is because I did his voice.

Needless to say, I was really happy when Burger King made a toy of him as part of the Toy Story kid's meal line (or was it for Toy Story 2? I'm not positive). He's never been merchandised in any other way, and while I guess that makes sense, I've always liked Bob Pauley's design a lot, and hey, you can never have too many good robot toys. It's really nicely made for a item this inexpensive, and pretty on-model, too!

I can't imagine this toy being all that valuable, even though though this line sold out twelve years ago. You can get two of them, plus a lot of the other fast food toys, on eBay starting at $2.00 + $7.65 shipping.