Jet Jaguar

I just realized something.

I haven’t seen the movie that Jet Jaguar is from (“Godzilla vs. Megalon”) since I was a little kid. I really need to reacquaint myself with this one. Besides Godzilla himself, I think Jet Jaguar might have been the one character from all those old kaiju films that really stood out to me. And watching this awesome German trailer doesn’t hurt either..

Anyway, this toy. The first thing that comes to mind about it is that it’s long overdue. M1 first released a standard size Jet Jaguar in 2000, but for some reason waited all this time to release a movie accurate color scheme.

However, now that it’s out, they’ve gone and released it twice. Or at least I think so. Initially, the figure came out in December of 2008 and the one reviewed here was released just a couple weeks ago. But my specimen looks to have a grayer body than the previous one, which seems to have a more bluish tint to it. I’m not sure if it’s just lighting/camera differences that cause that or if they are really two distinct colors. Either way, if they are different, it’s not by much and either one would be fantastic.

Jet Jaguar is based on the original giant sized Bullmark figure, but stands only 9.5″ tall. According to Club Tokyo, Bullmark never made a standard size Jet Jaguar sofubi, making it all the more unusual that M1 would keep people waiting so long for this!

There are only 5 points of articulation here (hips, shoulders and neck) but that’s really all we expect from a vinyl. Though we don’t expect great articulation from a vinyl, we DO expect a great paint job from M1 and rest assured, they’d don’t disappoint. However, it’s not a perfect job. If I wanted to be really picky, I could point out a couple of spots where there’s some color where it shouldn’t be. But you know I’m not that type of collector. Especially when they did such a detailed job on the arrow that points to his crotch (and what’s up with that anyway?!?!)

Jet Jaguar comes bagged with a header card and a two-sided backing board that is also apparently an homage to the vintage Bullmark. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about the backing board style of packaging vinyls. I’ve got a few, mostly from Max Toy Co, but part of me wishes I didn’t have more extra packaging to store away. I haven’t really made up my mind about it. I guess I’ll just have to buy some more until a decision is reached, eh?

card front
card back

This is the third Jet Jaguar vinyl in my collection and I finally feel like I have one worthy of the character. I already had the Marmit Vinyl Paradise one that I scored from Sanjeev at the 2006 Summit and also the Bandai Movie Monsters version, which, while it’s really cool, is just not my style as we previously discussed. Now I just need a really cool Megalon to go with it!