Halloween Wheels

Halloween... Hot Wheels?

Omg, how have I not heard about these before?? For the past 5 years, Mattel has been producing holiday themed Hot Wheels cars to celebrate the two most holy days of the years: October 31st and December 25th. Holiday. Themed. Toys. Maybe it's just my deprivation of decent holiday-themed sodas over the past couple of years that makes holiday object lust fill me to bursting. I was also a gigantic die-cast car freak as a kid (and frankly, I'm surprised that has not manifested itself before now). Anyway, these are awesome and I want them all.

Our Target has been relatively bare (or picked-over) in recent months, as far as Transformers and the Iron Man deluge of 2010 are concerned. As a result, I have picked up the bad habit of grazing in the other aisles of childrens' products. This has led to such questionable purchases as the 11" tall Batman Proto-Batbot and Battle Force 5 Hot Wheels cars. Following my usual passes through the action figure aisle this past Saturday, I made my way over to the toy car section. I really don't understand how kids choose toys these days- every line is over-segmented to the point that I feel like I have to read the package to figure out what I am buying. But out of the morass, THIS jumped out and latched on to my eyeballs like a HL2 headcrab: Nothing makes toy-buying choices clearer than a trio of jack-'o-lanterns staring at you from the side of a box. I've even bought My Little Ponies simply because they were Halloween themed. (No, really.) This 5-pack of store exclusive "Scary Cars" is still priced rather affordably at $4.29- heck, that seems worth it just to get cars in a box that cool. But maybe that's just me.

SCARY CAR RODZILLA Seeing this in the Scary Cars box really hit me with a wave of nostalgia. Rodzilla is the old-timer of this set, hailing from way back in 1988. I can actually remember seeing this guy in KayBee Toys as a kid (and later with my younger brother). Rodzilla translates well into a Halloween set, cast in a fierce hue of red with gold and orange chrome details. Very AD&D Red Dragon. I don't think I owned the original, but the neck is pretty loose on this one. Not a surprising problem given the likely age of the molds.

SCARY CAR '59 FUNNY CAR CADILLLAC This is a fairly new model of Hot Wheels car. I'm not a huge fan of the tampographed designs printed all over the car body. Maybe it appeals more to people in the custom car and hot rod culture- I don't know. That aside, I do like the basic scheme of matte black and clear orange, which do have a certain look of class on the Cadillac body (minus all of the crazy patterns). The car body can also be lifted up to expose the motor beneath. The placement seems a little improbable since I am pretty sure that the driver has to sit near the windshield to see out. ...unless it's a GHOST DRIVER.

SCARY CAR THE GOV'NER This is the weakest piece in the set. The car design and orange plastic that comprises most of the upper body of the car are not bad on a bottom-line aesthetic consideration- it is the ugly printed patterns (again) and the opaque plastic windows that kill the appeal of this car. The overall look is just really cheap; sub-par for the normal Hot Wheels offering. Bleh. BLAAAAHH.

SCARY CAR TORPEDO JONES I would call Torpedo Jones the sleeper hit of the 2010 set. Most people will be attracted by either Rodzilla or Phantasm when they pick up the box, but the execution of this car is simply brilliant. Torpedo Jones is an old-timey open top race car that premiered as Hot Wheel..s in 2002. There is quite a bit of metal in this car, and most of the non-metal is chrome plated, which does a lot to eliminate that 'cheap plastic' look. I don't think the car design is based on anything in particular, but I do dig the ample mechanical detail and shiny bits. Shiny. Pipey. But this Torpedo Jones has a supernatural secret!- when you turn off the lights, the driver GLOWS IN THE DARK: This brings to mind countless ghost stories of unfortunate drivers that were killed in a dangerous race, only to return to run the foggy roads on moonlit nights. Or something. Very clever use of the driver piece, in any case.

SCARY CAR PHANTASM Ok, let's be honest. If you bought the set, it was probably for this car. Phantasm is a newer car model that was also some sort of Wal-Mart exclusive chase item a few Halloweens ago. Yeah, I'm sure it was a gigantic pain in the arse to obtain (I'll tell you how much harder it is to find years later when I get done finding one on eBay). So Mattel brought the ghostly Phantasm back this year- and in Hal-lelujah Jordan CLEAR GREEN. The car design is fairly bland without the clear plastic thing going on. But maybe it was a good choice for this type of item, since the large curved planes on the car body surface show off the internal structure better than a more complex design might. What more can I say? It's clear green and it's beautiful. The car is also really lightweight compared to the others, since it is made entirely from plastic. I also like the little ghost Hot Wheels logo on this one. As Garfield says, nice touch.

After buying this set, I found out that there is a corresponding set that is exclusive to Wal-Mart. So guess where I am going sometime this week.

And then I found that they make Christmas-themed cars...

I think I am in trouble.

I also found a black DeLorean DMC-12 on the same trip. Commence loud humming of the Back to the Future theme in the Target aisles... which were mostly empty! (Benefit of going to Target at 8:30 am on a Saturday.)

[Shirahama] Go Kumon!

Like a diligent mother hen warming her eggs, I have been sitting on this review. Has it really been 3 months since last Wonderfestival? Kumon [クモン] is the latest creature to be cast in Japanese soft vinyl. Emerging from the mind of newcomer Shirahama, designed by Yatsuashi and sculpted by Kiyoka Ikeda of Gargamel, Kumon has some serious lineage... but who knows how they were planning to fit all those names on its feet! The first version of Kumon was sold in limited quantities at 2010 Summer Wonderfestival in July. The header is hand-printed by Shirahama on traditional Japanese paper in two different versions. Since then, Shirahama has also produced several one-offs and a new version for the recent Superfestival.

The name "Kumon" was probably chosen because of its dual meanings: 'kumo' is the Japanese word for spider; I've been told that a reading of 'kumon' can also mean 'agony.' Kumon additionally happens to be the name of a Japanese accelerated math after-school program (hopefully unintentional on the part of Shirahama- unless he's gifted with a sick sense of humor).

Although one might be inclined to pass Kumon off as yet another skull-faced patchi-kaiju, I think that would be a rather unfair statement. Owing to the tastes of its creator and masterful sculpting of Ikeda, Kumon has a level of polish on par with the best M1 and Gargamel vinyls. The skull is integrated into the sculpt and provides textural contrast with the surrounding spider-fur. Paint colors- dark silver and gold metallics- are also well chosen and given a balanced application to the glossy black vinyl. Kumon exudes a sense of planning and refinement that is rare among new vinyl toys. I should mention that the toy is articulated at the arms and mid-section. Not at all obvious from my photos. Overall, a very strong first showing from Shirahama and Kumon. Not typical vinyl fare, but a company to watch for collectors with tastes outside of the mainstream.

[Nitto / 日東] Pretty Neat-O

Last time we dug into Daikyou, and before that, moseyed through Marushin. Today we have a couple of obscure oddballs from an otherwise very well-known soft vinyl company: Nitto [日東]. Nitto is short for Nitto Kagakukyouzai [日東科学教材], or Japan Science Educational Materials. Reputedly an education company that also produced plastic models, Nitto acquired the rights to certain Daiei properties (e.g., Gamera and Yokai Wars) and produced them in soft vinyl form in the late 60s and early 70s.* Around the late 70s, Nitto developed the Kawada series of vinyls as a competing line for Popy's popy-lar Kingzaurus toys.

And it appears that Nitto dabbled a bit in dinos as well. I was aware of the Tyrannosaurus (identified as a Nitto toy from the personal knowledge of another collector), but not the Brontosaurus. The Brontosaurus was brought to my attention via a Japanese collector's website, but the site's author mistakenly believed the production company's name was "Kawada" (because of Nitto's later-era toy line). So it was entirely by accident that I turned up an auction for the Brontosaurus on a recent auction scouring. I placed my bid request with my agent and waited for a few days. On the morning that the auction ended, I checked my bid... but the agent forgot to bid! Worse yet- the auction went for well below my maximum bid. >:( But that dark cloud had a silver lining that would not emerge for a few months. Two lots of dinosaur vinyls turned up at auction with rather low-key titles, each including one of the Nitto dinosaur vinyls (the other items in each lot were fairly low-value JP and CN dino toys). I was able to win both of them for barely anything. Disregarding the fact that I had to accept about 3 lbs. of random toys to get them, I was able to grab both Nitto dinos in one swoop!

So how do we know that both dino vinyls were made by Nitto? Well, the original Japanese website that identified them as made by 'Kawada' happened to have a photograph of a bagged example of the Brontosaurus. It was very blurry, but the header clearly displayed the Nitto logo: a half blue, half red circle. Upon further comparison of the Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus, the sculpting and printing style of the foot stamps show great similarity. Therefore, I feel comfortable in concluding that Nitto did indeed make both the Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus. Whether there are others in the line, who can say...?

The most distinctive characteristic of the Nitto dinosaurs is their incredibly textured sculpting. Typical vintage dinosaur or kaiju vinyls may vaguely gesture at natural texturing with lumpy limbs, rough fur or rocky horns and shells; however, the Nitto dinos are sculpted to reflect flaps in their hide and the underlying musculature. The detail is really quite amazing. The sculpted vein that runs down the belly of the Tyrannosaurus and the neck of the Brontosaurus is, in fact, the feature shared by the two toys that indicates a common maker. While their product offerings were limited in the dinosaur realm, these two examples are some of the most realistic dinosaur vinyls that you will find. Yes, those are three fingers on that Tyrannosaurus hand.

*Thanks to Mark K of the Skullbrain forum for the history lesson on Nitto.

Saturday Night Updates

Since I am such a fun and swinging kind of guy, I did a major update to my Glyos Custom Corps. article last night and tonight. Saving a spot for FORCE DELPHI!

[Onell Design] Glyos Custom Corps.

Check it out!

[Daikyou / 大協] Diggin' Daikyou Dinos

Jumping right back where we left off, this entry is a decided Part II of a small set of articles digging into the ranks of vintage Japanese dinosaur vinyls. Part I would have been this article on the Marushin company. Dinosaur vinyls are an obscure aisle of Japanese vinyl toy history. Most of them were made as low-end toys by small companies- the rationale was probably that dinosaurs are like kaiju... but without the licensing fees. The only dinosaur vinyls that could be considered 'mainstream' were produced by Marusan in connection with the 1 Million Years B.C. movie that debuted in the 1960s. (Incidentally, these are some of the most accessible of Marusan's older toys- with the exception of the Archelon from that line.) These vinylsaurs remain largely undocumented and collected only by those crusty old folks who have had their fill of Bullmarks and Marusans. Daikyou [大協] is one such obscure little monster factory. They are best known for producing the original Zagora monster and Mighty toys (from Nakaoka's now-world-famous Sekai no Kaiju book). Unknown to many, Daikyou also produced quite a diversity of dinosaur toys in sizes ranging from around 15 to 50 centimeters long.

While I must admit that I don't care for all of Daikyou's designs, this Scolosaurus is an absolute hit on every level. I had a case of genuine, long-lived dino-envy after seeing a photograph of this toy in someone's collection. The pebbled ankylosaurian armor; the sheer size of the toy; the rough, old-style design of the sculpt; vibrant, yet natural paint colors- everything you could possibly want in a vintage vinyl and dinosaur toy.

The problem was finding one. Only about 3-4 of these will show up on auction sites each year and the prices can vary wildly. I wasn't kidding about the 'crusty, old collectors' part- not many people bid on these, but the people that want them, really want them (I don't always bid on vinyls, but when I do, I choose Daikyou.). Rarity also means that some dealers will price them to the sky (esteemed hole-in-the-wall vintage store, Cosmo Knight Alpha, had one in his case for about 40,000 yen on my last visit). Suffice to say, there was no way in hell that I was about to pay that much. There had been a few Daikyou Scolos making their runs on Yahoo Japan Auctions earlier this year and ending at very modest prices, so I decided it was time for me to strike. Problem was that most of them were broken, covered in magic marker, or at the least, very, very dirty.

And then, as I spent a crisp spring morning hunched in front of my monitor in the gloom of our library, this beauty cropped up. The normal Daikyou Scolo features predominately dark green and light lavender paint over a duller yellow vinyl. This was, therefore, either an extremely rare paint variant or a custom job. Paint variants are not unheard of on Daikyou dinosaurs. But a custom would be essentially worthless to me. After closely inspecting the photographs, I decided to throw in my hat on the auction. What swayed my decision? If you look at the crown of the Scolo's head, the green paint parts in the middle when the red paint begins, whereas the original is completely painted green in this area. Granted there are some people with amazing skills when it comes to refurbishing old toys, but the paint looked otherwise original and it would have been extremely difficult to alter the original paint in that manner without removing ALL of the paint from the body of the toy (which would then create a problem with matching colors on the legs). The seller also did not say that it was a custom work. (Japanese sellers are notoriously honest about toy condition.) On consideration of these two points, the chances were good that this was a genuine article. So I placed my bid with my favorite buying agent and waited patiently for the auction to end. And end it did... WITH NO BIDS. A polite e-mail went back to my agent to inquire as to what in the H-E-double hockey sticks happened. And astoundingly, I won the item on the second go-round, again with no opposing bids. I found the lack of opposition in no way suspicious.

Anyhow, I'm not sure what else there is to say about the toy that is not revealed by the photographs. The bright yellow vinyl painted with a deep grass green and a swath of floral red on belly and back is a classic color scheme. Many Bullmarks and other Japanese vinyls feature these colors. The Scolo is itself in excellent condition, with no significant damage or deformation to the vinyl. Like other non-licensed vinyls, the vinyl is lightweight and cheap feeling, which explains why so many of them end up with broken spines or limbs or warped vinyl. Paint is still vibrant and glossy with only minor wear on edge parts; strangely, the red paint is slightly more matte than the green paint. The condition of the toy still raises personal suspicions. Ultimately, though, I can't see someone spending the immense amount of time it would take to restore and repaint this (obscure) toy into this condition, only to have it sold for virtually the same amount as the beat-up originals. Implausible, although not impossible. And I doubt we'll ever really know the truth. Such is the joy and heartache of buying obscure and weird toys. There's your dip into Daikyou. Next up- Nitto!