[Microman / ミクロマン] Amazon Acroyear

While this definitely deserves a thorough photo shoot, I am too jazzed about finding one of these to finagle with things like f-stops and QUALITY at the moment. Micro-nuts will immediately recognize this jungle-dwelling duo as the blue Amazon Acroyear set from the 1979 lineup of Rescue Microman. (For those wondering, the popular Kamen Rider Amazon series was long gone by then, having aired nearly 4-5 years prior.) While I am not much of a Microman guy (only a few boxes of those), the Amazon Acroyear has pretty much everything you could want in a toy. Mechanical parts and chrome. Yep. Clear bits? Yes, and AMAZING head sculpt that makes me want to roll it on the table for a saving throw. There's even a little vinyl monster henchman in the set to satisfy the sofvi heads.

In the box... and all the parts on the table. When you find one, be certain that the little plug bit is in the box. It is very easy to miss and without it, the back fan will not attach to the Acroyear figure. Unfortunately, whether or not the plug is in the box is not visible from the outside (but if the seller shows the figure with the back fan attached, you're good).

Great manga-style box art.

One side of the box has the name and catalogue no. of each Amazon Acroyear and its henchman monster: A371 Blue Amazon President [ブルーアマゾン総統] - Mushikeller [ムシケラー] A372 Red Amazon President [レッドアマゾン総統] - Tokageras [トカゲラス] A373 Green Amazon President [グリーンアマゾン総統] - Urokoman [ウロコマン] Of interest is the President ('Soutou') designation- Amazon shares body parts with its forerunner, the President Acroyear. I don't know what the official relation is between the two.

Another side of the box has a neat cutaway drawing of Amazon with some specs: Head --> Crystal Head [クリスタルヘッド] Spear --> Mad Spear [マッドスピア] Left chest --> Amazon Kaiser [アマゾンカイザー] (I will never understand the Japanese fascination with this word.) Chest --> Some sort of condenser device (Shukoushi souchi)? [集光子装置] (Someone help me with the proper terminology.) Back fan --> Cutter Wing [カッターウイング] Crotch --> Deathmad Transmitter [デスマッド発信器] Hand --> Punch Booster [パンチ倍力装置] I didn't get any of the paperwork with this one.

Oh yeah, onoya!

Searching the Japanese auctions isn't all about crafting the perfect search string and learning translations for your favorite toy brands and characters. Sometimes it's about typing in "kaiju" and rifling through the piles of B-Club reissues, bootleggy candy cards and eraser figures. Sometimes it's about having a few hours to blow on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I almost passed over this vinyl when it blew by me on the auction lists (5,284 auctions don't exactly read themselves to you). The bag was so dirty, and at first glance I figured it was some cheap plastic/rubber knick-knack that you strapped to the top of an underwater motor for some o-furo fun. I was wrong about the plastic and rubber part. You know that feeling you get when you open up a trunk that you bought from the flea market and find the liner stuffed with $100s? Yeah, me neither. But I'm pretty sure it would be similar. So blah blah blah, I won the auction (surprising number of bids), paid the ludicrous EMS fees and had my musty knick-knack shipped to me in the Rolls Royce of international shipping options. I had to crop this photo to edit out all of the boxes and toy crap in the background. My house is like one of those scenes from Hoarders... 'cept my stuff is awesome. To find something this obscure and preserved in-bag, well, I felt a twinge of guilt opening it up (imagine the folks who open up Egyptian tombs must have similar sentiments). But the world must know. This is the logo for the production company: onoya. Not a name familiar to most vinyl toy collectors. I suspect that onoya was either a very small company that disappeared years ago, or a spin-off from another (possibly, better-known) company. I don't think a Japanese toy of the Loch Ness Monster (which, by the way, is what this toy represents) would be complete without a map explaining the location of the lake. The former U.S.S.R. is simply marked "Soviet." America (both North and South) is absent entirely. I love the quasi-scientific nature of the backer card in the bag; as with so many Japanese toys of yesteryear, there was just so much effort and detail put into every aspect of the product. The text on the header reads "Ness-ko Kaiju" [ネス湖怪獣], or Loch Ness Kaiju. There is even furigana above the katakana... maybe so the kiddies could read it? A little blurb below says, "Is it really there? It's said that there are people who have seen it... Realistic and cool floating action!" The little red and white doodad in the bag is a Mabuchi underwater motor that could be plugged into the vinyl toy, giving it a means of locomotion in the water. Mabuchi Motor is still around, incidentally, and I've seen this type of motor on a number of modern hobby products. Ok, enough with the foreplay... on to the main event! Out of the bag for the first time in 30 years!!!

I'm going to come out and say that the sculptor took a lot of creative liberties with the Loch Ness Monster. The back fin, maybe. But I don't think I've ever seen a representation of the creature with a nose horn. Most depictions go for a giant sea serpent, a plesiosaur or some kind of sauropod. This is definitely more interesting than the traditional stuff, so I say that I like it.

As I mentioned, this was not a cheap blow-mold or rubber toy- full vinyl with airbrushed paint. The style of the sculpt reminds me a lot of my Marushin dino, particularly the texture and head and eye design. It's also a huge treat to see the vintage metallic paint in pristine condition- often the metallics will oxidize due to exposure to sunlight, air, etc. leading to a drastically changed matte appearance on many vintage vinyls. The arrangement of metallic red and blue over green vinyl is a bit like some of the Hawaii-export Bullmarks (Ikarus Seijin)... although perhaps a bit unfitting for a creature from the depths of the chilly Scottish Loch.

Finally, turning the toy over, the company logo is printed on the belly of the toy, along with a tab to hold the motor (placed appropriately where most dinosaurs are depicted to have their genital flaps). And why is the logo on the belly, and not the foot? Well, each foot has a little hole melted into it. Serving as a kind of rudimentary ballast mechanism, the holes would allow the water to enter the toy and partially submerge it. Otherwise, it would probably just turn on its side and float. And so, for the sole purpose of your few minutes of amusement, I have defrocked a rare vintage toy. Happy Thanksgiving.

[Cronic / クロニック] Black Parade Maverasu

Black Parade! Those words will play at the heartstrings of any Cronic collector. What is Black Parade? Black Parade was a series of four shows showcasing Cronic's work that began in October 2007 and ended at the close of 2008. The first show was held at Super7, and the remaining three at One-Up in Nakano Broadway. Each show featured a large number of one-off customs from Cronic　[クロニック], with original artwork also present in the first show. Black Parade was a display of Cronic's talent in peak form; sadly, it would also effectively be his last hurrah before disappearing into the woods with his airbrush, paint and a large assortment of 1/12 scale fantasy weapons.

This Maverasu is from the 2nd Black Parade show (the first Japan show)- you can see it front and center in the display case in many photos of the event. The little slip of paper beneath the toy is sort of a certificate of authenticity included with all items sold at the Japan shows (One-Up also marked each certificate with a special rubber stamp).

Besides being my absolute favorite Cronic character, this Maverasu combines two great themes of Cronic toys: stuff inside and clear color fades. When you get down to it, no one really can blend colors quite like Cronic. Particularly on clear vinyl. His sense of color arrangement is unmatched in the sense that he can bring together dissimilar colors to create a surprising and balanced arrangement. The metallic lavender over clear aqua on this Maverasu is a perfect example of this. The beads are also glow-in-the-dark. ...kind of. The red seems rich and decadent against the pastels elsewhere on the toy. After putting my Cronic collection on indefinite hiatus these past two years, I am thrilled to start it up again with this fantastic piece of soft vinyl history.

Check out more Black Parade coverage here: Black Parade @ Super7 (via Toybot Studios) Black Parade 1 @ One-Up (via Kaiju Korner) Black Parade 1 @ One-Up (via kadomiumtank) Black Parade 2 @ One-Up (via kadomiumtank) Black Parade 3 @ One-Up (via kadomiumtank)

[Glyapaedia] Purple Space Rain

There is something endearing about the first few waves of Glyos figures. Nothing against the polished presentation and character-driven lineup of current releases, but the first few figures really convey the feeling of something cooked up by a couple of friends in an attic full of toys. I don't know if it's the shameless re-use of the Pheyden and Exellis molds in all varieties of homage colors (which would, ironically, become independently iconic in the Glyos community), or the variation in paint application between versions (it was not yet a settled fact that Pheyden has pupils and Exellis does not). Nebula Pheyden is one of these fellows from the formative days of Glyos. Still holding the distinction of being one of the few solid purple Glyos figures, what sets Nebula apart from his brethren is his 'reverse pupil.' He looks like he was ripped straight from an 80s-era Marvel newsprint comic where they didn't run the white ink for his eyes. Most of the early figures don't have much of a back story either- the idea was that we were supposed to come up with our own Glyos universe, if you will. Clever in theory, but Matt Doughty probably didn't appreciate the woeful lack of coherent imagination possessed by most toy collectors (self included). Fortunately, some folks don't need to have every aspect of canon spelled out for them in a Wikipedia page... Folks like John K., aka Doctor Kent, who runs his rather entertaining toy blog, Fans of Pheyden. Nebula now has an an unofficial background story as a scientist and inventor forever changed by absorbing of the cosmic energies of a nebula. I like it, and hey, my army of multi-colored Pheydens needs a scientist, so that works.

[RealxHead / リアルヘッド] MH-L01

Check out the latest addition to the Mutant Head database (which, by the way, has been newly formatted!):

MH-L01, Feb. 2005 Getting closer to the beginning (MH-01), this is a pretty good consolation prize. This Mutant Head was the very first 'limited' RxH toy to be produced. It was sold in July 2004 at a store called "Toybox Hoop," which has likely since gone out of business (no web address to be easily-found, at least). Mutant Heads are peculiar in that there are a very large number of limited MH releases in comparison to the other figures. Many of them are very similar in appearance, and nearly all are virtually impossible to track down (in fact, this one was not even available to be photographed in the Super7 Mook!). I suspect that Mori was simply experimenting with various color arrangements on airbrushed toys (the Oni-Heads were primarily paint-masked, with the exception of one) without really intending to make a limited offering. MH-L01 is simply a painted version of the unpainted MH-01- and the paint style is nearly identical to the blue MH-06. It's very cool as a historic piece, but I'm not sure if I would buy it as a normal release.

[Glyapaedia] A Classy Combination

In nearly every major science fiction toy line or property, white and black variations are a recurring theme. Stormtroopers and (now) Shadow Troopers (I guess Darth Vader was really the obvious choice there). Ultra Magnus and Nemesis Prime. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

Glyos continued this proud tradition in the late spring of 2008 by releasing the duo of Eclipse Pheyden and Empire Exellis. Eclipse Pheyden was sold through the Onell webstore in a mini release in March 2008.[1] (This is technically a version 2 of Eclipse Pheyden, as a very limited number of version 1s were created from off-white Standard Exellis parts and hand-cast urethane heads.)[2] Empire Exellis was exclusive to New York Comic Con 2008 in April 2008, but a number were sold through the webstore as well.[3] Nerd fact: Eclipse and Empire are two of the only three production Glyos to exchange Pheyden and Exellis torsos (the third is Andromeda Pheyden). In their production configurations, Eclipse pulls off the swap a little better than does Empire. The slim white armor is very striking against the black head and extremities. Exellis' head has a unique appearance due to the prominent pupil on its eyes. Very few, if any other, Exellis versions have this added paint detail. Hyper Exellis may have this detail as well, but I'm not certain without checking. The detailing on Empire is pretty rough compared to current Glyos figures. Onell has certainly come a long way in terms of its production standards.

But ultimately, I think it was Onell's secret design to have the parts swapped between Eclipse and Empire: Those names make a LOT more sense when seen this way. Recombined Eclipse also became our first (unofficial) Classified Glyos figure (an official Classified Pheyden would have to wait until the Soul of the Traveler release in September 2010). Classified all-black figures are a neat 'gimmick' version that have made their way into the Glyos lineup. Nearly every major character has received the Classified treatment to-date.

Soul of the Traveler (SotT) introduced the first all-white counterpart to Classifieds- the Enforcer Sarvos. (I guess Empire Exellis kind of counts, but he had a lot of paint detailing.) Supposedly introduced in response to demand for DIY figures for customizers, Enforcer was also neatly shoehorned into the SotT story as one of the Glyaxian troops, along with Classified Pheyden and Sarvos (I was waiting for the MJ-style synchro dancing, which sadly never happened). My only complaint is that the new white PVC seems to pick up dirt and smudges much more easily than the old material (suppose that is the trade-off for parts that can be disassembled without breaking your hands). Onell recently also released an all-white Pheyden torso and head w/ Scar Pheyden head set to complement the Enforcer Sarvos. The classic colors of sci-fi live on in Glyos.

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[1] The Mystery Trio Arrives, Glyos Transmission Web Log, March 15, 2008, at http://onelldesign.blogspot.com/2008/03/mystery-trio-arrives.html

[2] October Toys forum/ Onell Design / Glyos/ Metran Times, thread titled "What is Glyos? + Official Checklist and helpful links," (page 1, post 1, dated April 7, 2009, 5:08 a.m.), at http://www.octobertoys.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3118 (last visited November 6, 2010).

[3] New York Comic Con, Glyos Transmission Web Log, April 7, 2008, at http://onelldesign.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-york-comic-con.html.