I've finally "completed" my jumbo Shogun Warriors collection.

I say "completed" in quotation marks because of course there are still variations out there that I should probably get someday, but for the time being, I just wanted one version of each character available in the Shogun Warriors line. And some may find it odd that Dragun would be the last one I would get since he is among the most common and popular ones out there, but I was waiting for just the right specimen, at just the right price.

So, why did I need a particular specimen? Well, it's been awhile since I was cranking out jumbo reviews on a regular basis, but you may remember that I do have the original Popy version. And by all accounts, the first version Shogun Dragun was the exact same toy simply in a different box. So I figured that if I'm going to have more than one toy of the same character, I would like them to be as different as possible. To that end, I decided that I would not buy a Shogun Dragun until I saw a complete, box "lightning legs" version at a decent price.

As you can see, this version replaces the traditional "V" stickers on the legs with some silver lightning bolts.

Why?

Who knows? But this is usually the version that is the least popular so every time I'd say I specifically wanted this version to a friend, they would often wonder what the heck was wrong with me. But variety is important to me. So here are all of my jumbo Getter Dragons.

(l-r) Popy, Mattel, Nacoral, Famosa

(Famosa review forthcoming..)

I'm really glad I held out for that version because when I got it, I noticed some things about it that I didn't know before. For instance, did you notice that the Popy version is shorter than the Mattel version? Why would that be if the only different is the leg stickers? Well, upon closer inspection, I noticed that the feet on the Mattel version are actually modified feet from a Great Mazinger!

I'd never seen this reported anywhere else and it makes me wonder what other barely noticeable differences there are among the various versions that can't be seen without having all of them in one place!

One other difference that WAS known is of course the fact that the spinning sawblades from the Popy version were removed from this version. Also, the star shooter accessory was added to the Mattel version. The first version Mattel one has a strap but this one has the more common clip on version.

My specimen came with 12 stars and three axes.

So, other than pointing out those differences and just adding this toy to our database, there really isn't much more I feel like I can add.

(And yes, I know I haven't reviewed the Shogun Warriors Goldorak. I have it and will do it....later. )

As I draw closer to having almost every Raideen toy ever made, I continue to discover new and unusual bootlegs of the character. This one really blew my mind.

As I draw closer to having almost every Raideen toy ever made, I continue to discover new and unusual bootlegs of the character. This one really blew my mind.

The toy comes bagged and carded, with the card reading "Kaiju Set" in Japanese, although I doubt the set is Japanese in origin. Inside the bag is a backing card with a nice full color illustration of a generic Japanese monster.

Inside you have two toys. Raideen, and a Jet that looks a bit like Mazinger's Brain Condor.

Raideen is Polyethylene - the same material as jumbo machinders, although much thinner and flimsier. It stands about 7 inches tall, and is articulated at the waist and arms.

The sculpt is very homely, clearly done by someone with a vague sense of what Raideen looks like. The rivets molded into the figure are reminiscent of the old Popy vinyls, suggesting perhaps one of those was used for reference.

Paint application is both sprayed on and applied by hand. visible brush strokes can be seen on the shoulders and other parts.

One hand has a closed fist with the shield, but the other hand is pointing out into the distance. With real Raideen toys, this pointed hand is usually accompanied by a clip-on bow, but perhaps the bootleggers were using a loose figure for reference?

The back of the figure has a grooved tab molded into it.

The ship is also blow molded in Polyethylene and this time in two distinct colors. The nose is cast in black, and the body in red.

The molding on this one is rough, possibly an original creation. The ship is reminiscent of the Getter Machines (Eagle and Jaguar) or the Brain Condor.

This piece has a curious protrusion on the bottom of the ship... Hmm what can that be for?

You guessed it, the ship "docks" to the back of Raideen!

The figure cannot stand with the ship docked on the back, but still, it looks damn cool. I love the ability of bootleggers to improvise when they lack crucial information.

This is yet another curious specimen from the world of bootleg toys. Before this one, I had never seen one before, and I haven't seen one since. Good luck finding one.

Brothers should be close, don't you think?

Before we go forward, let's take a quick look back for a minute, shall we?

Since it is the most copied toy in the junior machinder category, I often must reference the Robo Kress bootleg, a toy that was based on an original Japanese toy by Takemi (which unfortunately, I do not own). And if you've been reading for awhile, you may remember a toy made by the same company (Galba) that I condemned as being the worst Combattler V toy ever made. Remember this guy? Our old friend UFO Star Boom?

Well, since the Robo Kress was not an original design, it shouldn't have come as any surprise that neither was the Combattler. And yet it did. This past week, whilst doing my regular Ebay searches I saw this guy in a preview picture and didn't even need to click the auction to recognize the similarity.

Of course, I knew right away that I needed this and sent an offer to the seller, which he graciously accepted. So soon I would be able to unite these two "long lost brothers".

But something seemed unusual to me. In the seller's description, he said the got it at a train station in Japan. Now, I am well aware of cheap bootleg Japanese train station toys (called "zokki") but this just didn't fit the profile. I'd never seen a Japanese toy that looked this....bad. Yet, I had no reason to doubt the seller.

When it arrived, the story would become clearer. There is a sticker on the stomach that says "Combattler" in English and the rest of the writing appears to be in Korean! A-ha! So it's not Japanese after all, but Korean. That makes sense, especially since I've seen a similar style toy from there before. (More on that in another review!) So how did the seller get mixed up? Well, I asked him if he ever lived there as well and he said he did make a brief trip to Seoul as a child and that his dad often went there. So it must've been purchased on one of those trips, brought back to Japan, then back to the US and finally to me! I love being able to trace the travels of a toy like that. It's great to know what adventures a toy has had before settling in your hands.

Combattler here is about 15" tall and as you can see from the pictures above, has more play value than the Italian "Star Boom" version. Both fists can launch (although the left one is missing the spring) and there is a big disc shooter in the stomach (this too, no longer functions). Now, when I say that the fists launch, I mean the entire forearms, yellow and all, not just the black fists. Fortunately, those black fists can actually be turned since it is a separately molded piece held in place by a screw inside the forearm.

The blue feet are also attached via a screw inside the bottom of each foot. The color scheme, while ludicrous, is very appealing in a goofy way. And while there is no "Star Boom" or dot stickers, I think I like these ones better than the knockoff version. At least it's sort of got a proper face.. even if it does appear to still be smiling for some reason.

All lightheartedness aside, I am extremely happy to have added this one to my collection. I consider it an important find, mostly because most Korean toys are those hard plastic bots that we used to cover very often. While interesting and often amusing, those are really not my thing. As a sort of polyethylene junkie, this is a rare find and it's connection to an existing part of my collection only enhances it's appeal.

BONUS!

There's definitely a lot more to discover from Korea. Check out this old magazine picture from a Korean marketplace that was sent to me a couple years ago. There is a rare unknown Taekwon V circled in red, but you can also see a Reideen, a Grendizer, a Robot Keiji K and a Hiyata from Ultraman!

Bigger....better....blow molded..

So maybe the standard size Marusan Godzilla is not your thing. Maybe you preferred the big Bullmark toy seen in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Well, not to worry, there is a big blow molded bootleg of that one too.

I got this toy at around the same time I got the other one and it's discovery (to me, at least) happened in nearly the same way; it was in the Super7 issue, not noted as being blow molded and I just happened to see it by accident, while searching for more information about the Marusan one, actually. In fact, I found a completed auction for this very toy that ended with no bids and I thought I had missed out. But fortunately, it was re-listed shortly afterwards and I bought it.

This guy is 12.5" tall and articulated at the hips and shoulders only. The legs are a little loose, but not as bad as my Marusan one and the arms hold their positions perfectly. The only problem with the condition of this one is that a lot of paint has chipped off over the years. The eyes in particular are completely missing. I briefly thought about repainting them, but quickly decided against it.

This version is made out of light orange poly for the main body with a darker orange for the arms and legs, but there exists another version that is all dark orange. Interestingly, this guy differs from the original scuplt (check out JoshB's review of the B-Club re-issue here) in that the fins on the back have been shortened and rounded off.

I've done plenty of reviews in the past about cheap blow molded robots so it may surprise you to read that I never really thought about actually seeking out just toys that were blow molded, regardless of genre. I never really gave much thought to blow molded kaiju or monsters or hero characters and vehicles. But there's a lot more out there than I had ever realized. I've already added Red King and a couple of Ultramen to my collection of Japanese blow molded knockoffs and I've heard that there is even a Baragon as well. And of course, the very rare Supersol kaiju toys from Argentina, a country where nearly every toy is blow molded, are on my shopping list as well. Hopefully these guys are just the beginning!

What better way to honor a classic than to buy its cheap knockoffs?

The very first Godzilla vinyl was produced in 1966 by Marusan and was inspired at least in part by the earlier Aurora model kit. After Marusan released this toy, it would later be re-released by Bullmark, Bandai, M1, Super7 (giant sized version) and Marusan again, naturally with many mold and color variations.

But somewhere along the way, I'm not sure when, a bootleg version was made that was not vinyl at all, but in fact, good old fashioned blow molded plastic. So you know I needed one.

When I first saw this toy, I had no idea that it was blow molded. It was listed (along with nearly every other Godzilla toy out there) in the October 2004 issue of Super7 magazine celebrating the big Gs 50th birthday. This toy, and two color variations (red and tan) were simply listed at "bootlegs". Since nearly all of the other toys in the lineups were vinyl, I had always just assumed they were too.

I only found out that it was blow molded when I saw it while doing a general search for blow molded toys. Seeing as how I didn't own the original vinyl (only the giant sized Super7 version), I decided I had to have it. I mean, not only would it be much cheaper than trying to get an original, but it would actually fit in better with all the rest of my cheap knockoff crap.

As I said, I don't own the original, so I can't really make a side by side comparison, but I'd imagine that this one is slightly shorter. This version stands 8.5 inches tall. Cast in light blue with dark blue and green spray, along with with silver and black for the eyes.

There are four points of articulation (hips and shoulders) but unfortunately mine is VERY loose at the joints. Holding it by the head and slowly swinging it like a pendulum will actually cause the limbs to slide back and forth as gravity pulls them down and the arms cannot be properly positioned outwards while in a regular standing pose. They will simply fall to the side.

Still, it has all the ugly but charming attributes you would expect from a blow molded knockoff... atrocious seam lines, excessive flash and no weight at all. I have no packaging for it nor have I ever seen any, but I assume it probably came in a bag with a cheap, generic header card. Now I just need to get the other versions. Which is strange because I do not collect color variations of vinyl. So why do I want color variations of blow molds based on vinyls? As usual, I think it's best to think too much about it and just go with the flow.

For better or worse, my Kong crusade continues...

Here's one that I picked up about a year ago and in fact, I accidentally outbid a friend of mine to get it. This Kong definitely originates in Mexico, no controversy here unlike the jumbo sized bank, and is 100% good old fashioned blow molded polyethylene. That's the good. The bad? Well, it's pretty dang ugly.

The one thing that I like about this toy as opposed to many other Kong toys is that it actually included a figure of Kong's affection, in this case, it looks like the "Dwan" character from the 1976 version of King Kong. It makes sense since this toy is most likely from the '70s anyway.

Or it could be just a generic damsel in distress. Either way, it's a nice inclusion. The figure can actually sit on the shoulder of Kong (so much for the "in distress" part, she looks to be having a grand old time...) via a peg that juts out from her leg and goes into the neck of Kong. Unfortunately, mine is broken off, but it can still balance on there ok.

Of course, if you prefer to have put the "in distress" back into the phrase, you can actually balance it pretty well in the hand of Kong, too. This is my preferred method of display, since the image of Kong holding the girl is so iconic.

This toy is about 9.5" tall and only the arms move up and down.

Before getting mine, I had seen these on Ebay before (and even once on Yahoo Japan), but I had never noticed that there was a different version until recently. Here's one that is fatter with paint applications to the face and feet. Notice also that the right arm of Kong and the left arm of "Dwan" have more pronounced bends to them.

Needless to say, this is just for die-hard Kong fans (check!) and fans of blow molded toys (check!) only.

Familiarity breeds love.....

So another slow day, so another silly review. Now I'm sure most of you will see this thing and either laugh or throw up in your mouth. And at one time, I was right there with you. This is another one that I used to make fun of my friend for buying when I was first being exposed to toy collecting. He'd be dropping about $20-25 each on various colorways of this toy and I thought he was dumb. Now they sell for about $50-75 and there's a bunch I need to get.

This is 13" tall, made in Mexico out of cheap blow molded polyethylene and has only two points of articulation (the shoulders). The body is a pretty close approximation of the Gill-Man, but the face seems to be based more on the design from The Creature Walks Among Us. Overall, the look is rather silly, but charming in a crude way.

They look particularly good when grouped together.

(Pic from Madman Murphy's Mixed Up Monster Museum)

But believe me when I tell you, this is actually a pretty popular toy among monster and Creature collectors. It sort of makes sense, in a way. In general, it seems the average monster collectors is older than robot collectors and grew up on cheap toys. And Creature collectors will buy most anything related to the character. I'm not sure what my excuse is, though..

I'm not sure exactly how many different colorways were made of this toy and there is some disagreement about when it was made. Some think it was made in the 1960s, some think the '70s and some think they may still be cranking them out even today. They show up on Ebay fairly regularly. A couple of times a seller even listed ones with bags and header cards, but the general thinking was that the header was fake, just a photocopy from a Mexican lobby card. I can't confirm that one way or another.

Bagged specimen seen on Ebay

So, in conclusion, I certainly don't expect any of our readers to fall in love with this right away and run out to buy one. But maybe over time it's goofiness will grow on you like it did me. In the meantime, consider the point of this review to once again say simply...."this exists".

I continue to plug away on the junior machinders. And as usual, this one held more secrets than I was expecting.

A few years back I bought a lot of junior machinders from a friend of mine, including Dangard Ace, Jeeg and Gundam. As a gift, he also threw in a loose, incomplete Daikengo knock-off called "Robot From Outer Space".

I'd seen it for sale a number of times in the past and just never pulled the trigger on it for one reason or another. So it was nice to have this as a cheap placeholder. But eventually I would have to upgrade and that time came a couple months back when I saw one on Ebay with a 30 euro "buy it now".

I usually associate a bootleg toy with the robot whose head it borrows so that's why I consider this a Daikengo toy. But as usual, it also features the limbs from Robo Kress. The toy is 15" tall and articulated at the neck, shoulders and hips. The arms are hard plastic and the head is vinyl, with the rest of the toy made of polyethylene.

For weapons, both fists shoot and there is a single missile launcher hidden beneath the removable belt. Eight missiles can be stored at the waist and on the sides of the legs. The right hand can hold a chrome sword.

The box measures approximately 16"x9"x3.5" and is interesting for a couple of reasons. First off, it shows the toy with a different belt than the one that came with mine. This isn't much of a surprise since these toys often have variations (more on that in a minute). Secondly, even though the toy was made in Hong Kong and distributed in Italy, all the directions are in English! The only thing in Italian is the warnings on the sides and on the sticker placed on the front of the box.

I'm not sure what it means by the belt being used as an "arm ring". It doesn't attach to the arm or anything like that.

Ok, back to the variations and the toy I originally had. When I compared the two, it was obvious they weren't quite the same.

Disregarding the missing parts and stuff, the first thing you can see is that the arms on the new one are lower than on the old. Furthermore, the plastic missile holders on the legs and the launchers in the waist are different colors, too.

It's hard to see in photos, but even the heads are slightly different with the vinyl on the old one being smoother. It looks ever so slightly bigger too, but it's really difficult to tell for sure.

There seems to have been quite a few of these popping up mint in box lately and these differences made me wonder if this toy might have been re-cast and/or re-released recently? Or perhaps these variations have always existed and there's just been some old stock discovered? I can't say that I really care a heck of a lot either way. I'm just glad to finally have a complete one that doesn't need to be hidden behind other toys on my shelf.

One of these things is not like the others.
Actually, two of these things are not like the others.
Aw hell, they're all different!

So I already told you about my first King Kong score, the large size Imperial (and it's pink counterpart). And I told you about my best King Kong score, the blow molded bank. But you know what was the one item that really got me interested in hunting down some King Kong stuff? It was a goofy figural piggy bank produced by the A. J. Renzi Corp. in the 1960s.

Renzi is a company based not terribly far from us in Leominster, MA and they are known for making a lot of cheap blow molded toys and banks. They made a lot of big, plastic cars and one of their most sought after releases among monster collectors today is a very rare car with four monsters (Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein and The Wolf Man) sitting in it.

The bank pictured above probably isn't technically King Kong, since it does not say so. But most collectors agree that most gorilla items are meant to represent Kong, regardless of whether or not they are labeled as such. It's pretty easy to bypass copyright when the character is question is just a big animal. No one had a copyright on gorillas, after all.

The bank is about 17" tall with minimal paint details applied. There is a slot in the top of the head to drop coins into and you need to cut out a hole in the bottom to retrieve them. There is no stopper.

I really liked the sculpt of this thing the very first time I saw it. It's primitive simplicity makes me think it might have been a statue sculpted by the inhabitants of Skull Island. This looks as much like an idol as it does a toy, at least to my imaginative eyes. It's face is somehow both goofy and menacing all at once.

When I first found out about it, I asked if it was hard to get/expensive and was told it was actually quite common. I got mine on Ebay not long afterward for less than $20 shipped. But then a month or two later, I found two more on Yahoo Japan of all places....and these ones were much smaller.

I asked my friend again about them and he had no idea what I was talking about. He'd been collecting monsters for years but said he had never seen a Renzi Kong in this size (11"). So, naturally, I bought them.

When they arrived, I noticed that they were not the same. Not only was one painted and the other unpainted, but the unpainted one did not have the Renzi copyright info on the bottom. Strange! Other than this, they appear to be exactly the same.

I don't know what the deal is with that, but I was glad to have some unusual variations, especially since I didn't pay much for any of them yet. Still, I thought it was funny that I had to have these shipped all the way back from Japan when the company that made them was so close to my house!

When I told my friend about these smaller ones, he did mention that he had seen another unusual variation years ago... a pink colored one! He said he thought it was goofy and didn't bid, but later regretted it. Well, when one popped up just a couple of weeks ago, I was not about to make the same mistake.

When I got it in the mail, I noticed that there was more to it than just being a different color. It's actually a very slightly different sculpt than the regular black version. Notice that the waist is wider, the arms are lower and the butt-crack is more pronounced on the pink than the black.

It seems that this pink version is particularly rare, having only been seen (that I know of) the one other time. But it might not be the rarest one. One friend told me he thought he remembered seeing a lime green one in a book one time. But it may be false memory or something that wasn't produced. But you can bet I'll be keeping my eye out just in case! Always room for one more in the Kong collection.

Another toy I've had for awhile, but simply forgot to review. So it's time to add it to the database...

Space Hero may be one of the more common Italian junior machinders (sold in Italy, made in Hong Kong, as usual), but it's a pretty nice one. Although it does use parts from other toys, the final package actually looks remarkably good. It doesn't look like a mish-mash of other toys.

The toy combines the arms and legs of Robo Kress with the body of Jeeg and the head of Atoranger. It also includes the same sword, shield and discs that are included with a variety of other toys. (In the interest of full disclosure, mine is missing one disc and it currently "wearing" one from the Oklahoma Super Robot just to fill out the empty space.)

In addition to the actual parts of the toy, it also shares the same box with another toy called Space Hero, one with Combattler's head. I'm not sure why the Combattler one uses this box. Maybe it doesn't and I just have the wrong box for it. But I've never seen it with another box.

Space Hero stands about 14.5" tall and has 5 points of articulation (hips, shoulders and neck). It's a mixture of hard plastic, polyethylene and soft vinyl. The torso however has an odd feel to it. It's harder and rougher than poly, but not as hard as regular old plastic. Frankly, I'm not 100% sure what kind of material it is.

Although both fists shoot, as is standard for these toys, this is one of the few (and maybe the only one) that does not shoot any missiles.

So, what else? Well, naturally, there exists a variation to this toy. This one has much fatter legs and has been affectionately dubbed the "thunder thighs" Space Hero. I've never seen another junior that has these legs so I can't imagine why the change was made.