| 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. |
Great write up! I also find myself "rediscovering" my old Cronic figures and appreciating their brilliance. As you know, he actually went on to make a LOT of customs after the Black Parade shows. I regularly stumble upon pieces I've never seen before. A lot of them are from his "war torn" phase that marked the last of what we saw of him, at least in terms of large batches of releases of his own figures.
ReplyDeleteI like your comments about his color blending and arrangments. When Naoki put his mind and creativity to a piece and ratcheted it all the way up, he really entered a unique zone, didn't he?
Actually, two of my favorite figures are two of the first releases: black/purple Mav and Zyurai Asu. Very few colors, but the application is brilliant, giving the figures an organic quality and brilliantly bringing out the sculpts.
Though most of his final works were customs, most of his releases from 2005-2006 (like those two) were super short runs. Since he painted them all himself, I think one-offs or short runs suited him best.