Shamrock Arrow / シャムロックアロー - Fang / ファング

After seeing a new version of Shamrock Arrow's distinctive toy, Fang, revealed after nearly a year, I thought it might be time to revisit some of its prior releases.   Fang [ファング] is a finger puppet-style soft vinyl toy sculpted and produced by Shamrock Arrow [シャムロックアロー]. It is part of Shamrock Arrow's Poseidon Impact Series and currently the sole figure in said line. Perhaps you recognize the 90s-era action figures that undoubtedly inspired its design.   The first version of Fang released used clear yellow vinyl with no paint. It was sold at Super Festival 55 on January 9, 2011. This and successive versions of Fang were packaged in a simple fruit mesh bag with a Poseidon Impact sash-style label.

Super Festival 62 Glyos

At Super Festival 62, which took place on April 29, 2013, Fig-Lab sold a number of one-off custom mash-up Glyos figures from its booth. These were most likely mash-ups made from back stock (similar to the Crystal Marauders sold at 2010 Summer Patchi-Summit), and not special production or pre-production items.   That said, I can't figure out where the deep mauve head on the last Pheyden comes from.

Tomy Beyrobo / ベーロボ

Beyrobo [ベーロボ] is a robot toy produced by Tomy in the 1980s, probably as a way to follow the real robot, cute robot and ripcord/gyroscope toy trends of the time. The little information out there on these toys suggests they were produced in 1983, although they strike me as being from later in the 80s- can't say why.

Ichibanboshi Oddities

There are a handful of undocumented oddities that I have encountered among the collaborative figures produced by RealxHead [リアルヘッド] and Ichibanboshi [一番星]. The above two are examples that I have been lucky enough to add to my collection.   The first figure appears to be the head of the first release 'Kabuki' paint Ryuusei Ninja Ichibanboshi [流星忍者　一番星] placed on an unpainted black vinyl body, and given a black scarf. The first Kabuki Ninja was sold at the Shinto Gangu After-School Club event on June 20, 2009, so I would imagine this figure was distributed around that time. Many Ninjas use black vinyl, so that portion of the figure does not provide any particular insight.   The second figure is the Ryuusei Ninja in unpainted black vinyl with a yellow-orange cat eye. No scarf or eye-patch is included. This one could have been an unpainted test shot for one of the earlier releases of the Ninja, as a couple of them used a black vinyl base and a yellow-orange cat eye.   Other Ichibanboshi oddities that I have seen include:   Ryuusei Ninja in unpainted milky-white vinyl with a yellow-green cat eye (no eye-patch or scarf); Ryuusei Ninja completely painted metallic red with a yellow-orange cat eye and black scarf; Ryuusei Ninja in unpainted black vinyl with a grey cat eye (a fairly unusual eye color) and red scarf; Mikazuki Joe in unpainted black vinyl (probably more of a test shot than a mystery version); Mikazuki Joe in unpainted clear smoke vinyl with gold tinsel inside; Mikazuki Joe completely painted metallic red with a black scarf; and Mikazuki Joe in unpainted milky-white vinyl.   Stranger yet- most of these were still in their original packaging. They were also sold at around the same time, and alongside a large amount of more common Ichibanboshi figures, leading me to believe that someone was cleaning house.   It is still a mystery to me as to why these figures were produced and how they were originally distributed.

Mist-erious Bigaro

It was around 7 years ago that Mutant Bigaro [ミュータント ビガロ] became the first of the original 4 to receive RealxHead's [リアルヘッド] trademark 'Gold Mist' paint treatment.   Owing likely to tight production schedules, the Gold Mist Bigaro was produced on two different colors of base vinyl: translucent slime green and black. The slime green vinyl figures probably used the remaining supply of Bigaros from the slime green set released at the end of 2006 (technically becoming the fourth slime green Bigaro to be produced). I also suspect (but have not confirmed) that the slime green base figures were only sold in Japan at the Super Festival at which the Gold Mist Bigaro was initially sold. Once RxH produced the overseas allotment after the show, there was sufficient lead time to pull the figures in proper black vinyl. The slime green base figures are considered something of a rarity among RxH collectors and have commanded a significant premium in the past.