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!!! |