Creatures from the Stars

There is a set of really rare Albegas gashapon that is near impossible to track down. I had already tracked down the red and blue ones, but the black one always eluded me. One day about 10 years ago, I saw this gumball machine card, and right in the middle of it was a black Albegas gashapon. I assumed it was a bootleg, like all of these were. But I figured it would be a good stand in for the original.

But holy crap! It was an original Bandai Gashapon! What an amazing score!

The rest went into a bag, and I sort of forgot about them for 10 years. Now I’m finally getting around to looking at the rest of them. Let’s go through and identify each one.

In storage the shrink wrap quickly degraded once I removed the Albegas toy. There’s no mention of what company put these together, but the 25-cent sticker has a date of 1989 on the coin, so I’m using that as the release date.

1. Zarbon

Thanks to SpaceRunaway, this guy has been identified as Zarbon from Dragonball Z, and this one is a legit release, not a bootleg.

2. Octopus Dragon’s Follower B

This is a knockoff of the 104th Kinnikuman figure, creatively named Octopus Dragon’s Follower B. 

3. Generic Bootleg Kinnikuman (M.U.S.C.L.E.) figure.

This appears to be an original sculpt based on the style of the Kinnikuman figures

4. Unknown red robot

I really feel like I should know this, but I cannot place it. It seems like a villan mech from Godmars or Ideon, but I can’t ID it.

5. Acguy, from Mobile Suit Gundam

This one is a KO as well.

6. Gelgoog, from Mobile Suit Gundam

This one is a real Bandai Keshi. It’s a bit too warped to stand sadly.

7. Kamen Rider

This one’s a knockoff that’s so poorly done the camera couldn’t focus on it.

8. Kamen Rider V3

Again, pure crapola.

9. Saint Seiya Phoenix Ikki

Bootleg. These required you to cut the shoulderpads off and stick them on the shoulders. I’m sure that worked out fine.

10. Transforming Famicon Baseball Game

Famicom was the Japanese predecessor to the Nintendo NES. In Japan, they sold small transforming versions of their cartridges in capsule machines. This is a knockoff of the one for Baseball.

11. Unknown Purple robot

I’ve seen these around, each has a place on them for a sticker of a coin. The arms move. The coin on this one is from Taiwan.

I’ve seen them sold this way as well.

12. Egg robot Foo Dog

There were a bunch of these egg robots back in the 80s, some of them imported to the Masters of the Universe line as Meteorbs. To this day, they still make variations of them for dollar stores and the like. This one looks like it transforms into a Chinese Foo dog.

13. Camera Robot

There’s a whole set of these that i’ll be reviewing. This one sadly was missing his arm. he transforms into a 110 camera. Obviously bootleg, but i’d love to track the originals down.

14.  Metal Joe 04 Chain Rock Gashapon

This is a knockoff of a Bandai Metal Joe toy, only the cheaper gashapon version. Still transforms great.

15. Jet Robo Gashapon

This is a knockoff of the Gashapon version of Machine Robo MR-03 Jet Robo. Later in, in the Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos anime, he was christened Blue Jet, despite not being blue. Well, here he is finally blue (albeit in knockoff form)

I assume each card got a random assortment of whatever toys were hanging around. Here are some more I found, on the littlerubberguys forums.