Just Arrive!

Transformers Classics Soundwave (such a lie...)
Souchaku Henshin Shadow Moon
Extended MSiA Sazabi

New shit that I's been a-wantin'. That's about it. Reviews and pics later.

[Rumble Monsters] Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons

It took me three tries to get this title right. Bill Watterson and my dog-eared copy of AOTDMKMSG are ashamed of me.

So let's dispense with the chit chat. This is a review of Rumble Monster's Snow Damnedron and Pharaos.


Rumble Monsters is another one of a myriad of small Japanese companies that produce high-end vinyl figures. Many of their works are collaborations with other artists/groups, such as Erostika, Rockin' Jelly Bean, and the smorkin' Frank Kozik. Most recently, they decided to do a seasonal series. Like the good addict that I am, I snapped up the Christmas releases immediately.

Beats the hell out of me where RM picked up these designs. For the most part, RM has two basic sculpts (well, three, if you count the headcrab baby Pharaos; four, if you count the Pharaos and Pharaon separately), and they couldn't be more different. The Damnedron (actually pronounced Damn-dron) is a gloppy Hedorah-esque creature; Pharaos/Pharaon is a bulky Stygian kaiju-thing.


Some people have commented on the similarity of the vinyl color to another sticky white substance. Yep, coconut syrup for sho'.


One of the weird QC issues showed up with the Pharaos. Notice all the little bubbly things embedded in the vinyl? Apparently, those are not supposed to be there. When I first opened this guy up, I was all, "Oh damn! That's genius- they used the bubbles to make it look like SNOW!" And then I found out that some people had received the Pharaos with no bubbles or lots of bubbles in random places on the figure's body. Intentional or not, it makes it look less... fluid-like, which is probably a good thing.


These have proven to be some of the most widely available RMs to date. I didn't have any problem getting my mitts on either. The most I would pay at this point is about $80 a piece.

Weird fact: Rockin' Jelly Bean did the artwork for Velvet Revolver's new video, Dirty Little Thing. Watch closely and play "Spot the Pharaos."

It Was Really Cheap, Part II.

Inspired by a post at the skullbrain forums, I thought I'd share my typical weekend. Well, typical toy-buying weekend, anyway. Usually I either sit in front of the computer all weekend, or go into the office.

Of course, for this sort of entertainment, there's only one place to go in Honolulu for a fix: Kaimuki. Kaimuki has the best toy and comic shops on the island, in my opinion, all within walking distance of one another.

First stop on my list is Gecko Books. Gecko books is, hands down, the best comic shop on the island, possibly, in the state. They have all the new releases of comics and magazines, and a good selection of figures as well. They were also late in opening this morning.

Across Waialae Avenue is the infamous Toys N Joys store, which sadly, is THE place to go in Honolulu for anime games, CDs and toys. They also have a healthy selection of Airsoft pellet guns and faux-katanas for the armchair warrior in us all. I call TNJ infamous because it's well-known in Hawaii for having all of the latest goodies (at healthy markup a lot of the time) and well-known on the Internet for having sketchy online orders. I'm serious. Type in "Toys N Joys" on any Transformers forum and see what you find. I speak not from experience, but only from what I've heard.

Anyhow, overpriced though some of its new stuff may be, TNJ recently remodeled their Kaimuki store into a monster anime outlet. This is exciting to me only because it means that they periodically go into their back rooms and dredge up dead stock, often at ridiculously outdated prices. On this particular day, I find old Dinozone figures from Bandai's late-90s CGI-animated series. Normally, I would pass these by... buuuut, now they're marked down to $10 each! Wheeee! I picked up a ShadowTyranno, one of the "Deatheater" villain characters (yes, you heard that right, J.K. Rowling).



He makes a nice companion piece to my EXOHEAD Marc.


So after spending a half-hour grubbing through the boxes in TNJ, I figure Geckos must be open by now. I head back across the street and, sure enough, it is. I say hi to the owner- very cool guy, who will always help you find the issue that you're looking for- and go through the back shelves. Nothing that I'm looking for today, so I head back out.

Up Waialae from Geckos is Collector Maniacs. This store exists somewhere between Gecko Books and TNJ- they sell some anime stuff and some comic stuff. Good place to get single DC Direct figures, if you don't feel like buying the whole set. Otherwise, I often skip this one.

If you go back to the cross street that intersects Waialae, and head up the hill, you'll eventually reach a little shopping plaza. Here you'll find a little urban vinyl store and the awesome Mechahawaii.

The urban vinyl store doesn't open until 12 p.m. on weekends, so straight to Mechahawaii it is. This is probably the best Japanese toy shop in Honolulu. Sean, the owner, has killer hookups in Japan, so he always has the latest releases in trading figures, model kits, and toys. This is one of the few places that you can buy trading figures straight out of the case- just like in Japan! The owner's also a really nice guy and has a wide breadth of Japanese toy-expertise, which makes him great to 'talk shop' with. If you're looking for anything that he doesn't carry, chances are that he can special order it.

Today was a particularly bad day at Mechahawaii- and by bad, I mean good for him, bad for my wallet. The new S.O.G. Gundam gashapon had arrived, along with Koto's Blue Knight 2 trading figures and various other mecha trading figure sets that I've been jonesing for. To make it worse, he also opens up a bunch of the blind boxes, so you can actually go through his display case and buy the figures that you're looking for. I take a slow look through all of the new inventory, as some random girl gushes about Bleach and Naruto to Sean. I'm not sure what it is, but something inside me withers and dies every time I hear those people talk. Yes, those people. Anyway, crazy anime-girl finally leaves and I can purchase my S.O.G. figures. Have a quick chat with Sean about Henshin Cyborg stuff, and then it's time to go.


I'm not even sure why I took this picture.

[Machine Robo Battle Hackers] It Was Really Cheap.

Every time I think that I have prices figured out on eBay, something always throws me for a loop.

Meet R-Jettan, BH-05 in Bandai's Machine Robo Battle Hackers line. I won this foot-tall beast from some d00d in the Hollywood area of California for about $10. Shipping, I think, almost cost as much as the figure itself.

Who is it?:

I have no idea who R-Jettan is, other than that he was a character in the MR-BH line important enough to warrant a huge figure. Battle Hackers, I believe, was the last animated series in the MR universe in its initial run (ending in the late 80s).

Design/Sculpt:

R-Jettan is a quadra-changer- is that a word?- with robot, jet, gerwalk (!!), and guntank modes. As all mecha-fans know, awesomeness is directly proportional to the number of legitimate transformations. The "giant hand" mode on Devil Gigatron was a little creepy, though.


R-Jettan also comes with a shitload of accessories. I don't think I even got them all in the box- but I don't really care, because it was $10. I haven't figured out what the white thing with the wire is. My guess is that it fires the BBs and disks and stuff from the various guns. My box did not have said BBs included. Boooo.


Robot mode kicks ass. It's giant, pink, and the little black part over its eye can flip down for sniper scope action (complementing the giant sniper rifle in his left hand). Only complaint is that the hands hold the guns a little loosely, which can be problematic when posing him.


Jet mode doesn't look so impressive with the tail-fins missing. Kind of reminds me of the Legioss/Alpha Veritechs of Mospeada and Robotech. The cockpit of the jet pops open (not shown) and it looks like it can fit a little person in there.


Fortunately, Gerwalking the jet makes the missing pieces much less noticeable. I particularly like the Gerwalk transformation on this thing, because it looks good and is far less of a pain to execute than for the Macross jets. R-Jettan's shoulder cannon has to be attached to the white thing-with-the-wire, in order for the whole ensemble to clip on to the wings.


Finally, the tank mode is a nice surprise. Usually multi-changers have that one odd mode that really doesn't fit in and involves some kind of half-assed transformation. I guess this tank really isn't that odd, if you look at it in the context of SDC Orguss, which had a tank mode for the main mecha as well.

Despite transforming into four different things, R-Jettan really doesn't have a weak mode. All of his modes utilize a distinct transformation and accessory set, which is pretty remarkable for a brick.

Articulation/Transformation:

Articulation is brickish. The arms swivel at the upper-arm portion.

Transformation is simple enough- the hardest part is getting the accessories to fit on to the figure. The coolest feature shows itself when you transform R-Jettan into tank mode: the legs split apart to form a long set of tank treads.

Materials/Color/Paint:

R-Jettan is a lot higher-quality than some of the earlier MR offerings. Good, hard ABS plastic on a die-cast frame with ratcheting joints. Paintwork is also quite clean, as would be expected.

Price & Availability:

I have no idea what the true price of this figure should be. The highest price that I've seen for an MIB specimen is USD $350.

Due to its large size, and presumably low distribution during a series that was failing in popularity, this figure is extremely rare in any condition. This is only the second example that I have found for sale. To illustrate just how rare it is, one of the admins of a prominent Transformer board told me that he was still searching for one.


This figure is awesome because: it has a Gerwalk mode and a sniper rifle. These are a few of my faaaavorite things....

[Gargamel] Taste the Rainbow, Lick the Vinyl

There is a custom in Japan known as fukubukuro, or lucky bags, in which merchants fill bags with a blind assortment of merchandise and sell them to customers at an overall discount on the first day of the new year. If you are at all familiar with Japan's obsession with the blind assortment phenomenon, this should not surprise you. Gargamel, supplier of all things expensive and vinyl (well, maybe not all...) has picked up on this and offers each year an assortment of lucky bags (at various price points) stuffed with exclusive colorways of its most popular figures. Reportedly, they sell out from its Thrash-Out store in minutes on New Year's Day.

Fortunately for those us on this side of the Pacific rim, stores such as Super 7 and Max Toy Co. have gone to the trouble to acquire a limited number of lucky bags, which are then sold to the scrabbling junkies online and in-store.

This year, Gargamel took us back to the early 90s with a crazy neon assortment that would be at home with slap bracelets and t-shirt ties. Aye carumba, man! Although I didn't have the scratch to pick up the holy $1,500 fuku-bag, I did manage to scavenge a couple of choice pieces.

Zombie-Guts Bako (Lucky Bag 2007)


Not an official name anyway. I just call it that because of its greenish hue and visible- and realistically colored- innards.

The Bakobaso is one of Gargamel's newer entries in its Zokki Kaiju series of figures. It unfortunately has not garnered the popularity of Gargamel's original Zokki release, the Zagoran, which is based on an obscure kaiju known as Zagora (who looks suspiciously like a cycloptic Godzilla...). I'm not sure if the Bako has similarly distinguished lineage, but I have also passed over it in the past, mostly because the painted eyes and open mouth give it sort of a simpleton look.

I definitely like this Bako better as an unpainted figure. The blank eyes give it an edgier, monstrous look, and the lack of paint allows you to appreciate the fine detail in the sculpt more fully. Lack of paint also improves the "guts" feature of this figure, as the torso is sculpted completely from translucent vinyl and there is no paintwork to obscure the view of the innards- or their glow-in-the-dark qualities. Yes, it has GID guts. The effect of this figure is much like a Visible Man scientific model, and I quite like it.


Another plus for the Bako is that Gargamel uses a high quality sort of vinyl that is very heavy and glossy. It's hard to explain without actually handling the figures, but no other company's product that I've handled feels quite the same. Unfortunately, my figure did have a few bubbles in the vinyl that migrated toward the back of the clear torso.


As for availability and pricing, this Bako was just released at the turn of the year in both a painted and unpainted version. I paid roughly $90 at retail for this figure; expect to pay anywhere from $90 to $120 if buying one in the near future. The Guts Bako is still fairly easy to find at various auctions and retail webstores at the time of this article.

Guts-Bako rocks! He's like a big (9 inches tall!) Garga-zombie who roams the land in search of brains. Skullbrains!

Unpainted Mini-Tetran (Lucky Bag 2007)


As a bonus, Gargamel included in some of its bags a preview of the things to come this year. Unpainted versions of the new minis- the Tetran and Belagon- were released along with the other Lucky Bag offerings.

As always, being relatively ignorant of kaiju lore, I don't know where the 'original' Tetran hails from.

I can't say the sculpt for the Tetran immediately appeals to me, but it does grow on you over time. Again, I think the lack of paint was a point in its favor, as I don't care much for the first painted colorway that is planned for this figure.

The unpainted Tetran should run you about as much as the other new mini releases from Gargamel. One question that has not been answered, however, is which of the Lucky Bags contained the unpainted, unreleased minis. Although presumably all items could be conceivably found in either Lucky Bag A, B or Special (the big one), I've only seen the Tetran and Belagon turn up in the $1,500 bag as of this date.

Tetran's cool, but he definitely needs to be buddied up with the unpainted Belagon. They remind me of the comedic henchlings of some Japanese cartoon villain.