Friday, March 13, 2009

[Denjin & Inspire] Soft Vinyl Underground.

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Gundam vinyls not made by Bandai or Banpresto? Yup.

Although relatively unknown and exceedingly difficult to find, there are a few soft vinyl toys of Gundam design produced by small 'underground' companies, much in the way of neo-kaiju and fight figure vinyls. Both of these are licensed articles (as evidenced by the silver sticker on the header), probably produced and sold under a one-day license at a hobby show, such as C3xHobby or Wonderfestival.

The round, green item on the left is none other than that stumpy Hygogg-child, AMX-109 Kapool (Turn A version)... ready for some amphibious bathtub combat. Produced by Inspire a few years ago, the header orders you to, "Ofuro de Asobou! [Play with it in your bathtub!]" I've seen an unpainted aqua version of the Kapool, as well as a transformed Mermaid Gundam- perhaps there are others in this series... This must be one of the first produced, as the header is just plain paper with b/w text where the others were more elaborate and in color.

On the right, we have a rather large-ish sofubi of MS-05B Zaku I. This one was produced in 2002 by a mysterious company named Denjin and/or "D". There's almost no information about this company on the web. They have been steadily producing these each year at C3, and the lineup includes the Zaku II, Dom, Zugok, Gelgoog, Gelgoog Cannon, GM and Gundam (and all the distinctive color combinations that they entail). These are standard size vinyls, and stand about 9-10" tall.

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