[Amapro] King Grandpas

Who is this?:

Kingranpas is a character from one of the lesser-known companies of the Japanese vinyl world, Amapro. Amapro, for reference, is the company responsible for the Christmas Narutons and sexual-harassment Wanigon. Their products are quite varied and range from the very stylized kaiju (like Denguu) to the 'realistic' kaiju.

Kingranpas, the website notes, is not King Ranpas, but Kin (gold) Glampas. He comes in both walky and sea-and-air versions. This is the legless sea-and-air version.

Forgive my ignorance of any origin- I'm certain this guy is from some obscure kaiju novel or other. I just bought it because it was cool.

Design/Sculpt:

Kingranpas really pops as a sculpt, simply because it's so different from the other kaiju out there. While a lot of the more popular figures- Cronic, SB, RxH, to name a few- rely on smooth lines, this guy is so angular, it almost looks as if he were hewn from stone or made of folded paper. The rough texture of the vinyl is also unique here, again giving it that feel of papercraft.

For anyone familiar with pre-dinosaurian creatures, Kingranpas really reminds me of the giant shrimp, Anomalocaris, no?

Materials/Color/Paint:

Kingranpas is made of a harder, light-weight vinyl. Again, it's fairly textured, which gives it an interesting look and feel.

The paintwork is not the cleanest that I've seen. There's some slop, and a blob of yellow (??) paint made its way on to his back-plates.

Price Point:

Kingranpas is on the low end of expensive designer vinyl- it should only run you about $25 as of this post. He's not very difficult to find- both KT and Mandarake have specimens available.

There is, however, a glowie version of Kingranpas that I have yet to see for sale.

Why I Like It:

The semi-sloppy paintwork aside, I think Kingranpas makes a neat addition to my collection because of his differences from some of the more popularized sculpts. The imprecise painting is actually fitting, because the character as a whole reminds me of something from a children's book. Maybe something from a Roald Dahl story or a Maurice Sendak storybook.