Orghan Bat (Green Vinyl)

Real x Head is a small Japanese vinyl company started and run by Mori Katsura in 2003. Mori’s first figure was the Oni-Head, but he saw much more success with his second figure, the Mutant Head, the start of the iconic Mutant Zone series. The Mutant Head sculpt was borne out of Mori’s love of classic 80’s toys, especially Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Taken from the Super 7 Mook and the new Encyclopedia of Kaiju, the Mutants are an invisible race that lives in the forests and mountains in natural harmony, existing outside the realm of human perception. The evil Mutant organization Akrobat is led by the militaristic Akro-Kaiser, and the Mutants dislike humanity because of the damage we do to their natural habitats, and so cause accidents and natural disasters to punish us. During an engagement, Mutant Head is injured and loses his ability to stay invisible. Mutant Head is found by a young boy and nursed back to health, showing Head that not all humans are evil. When Mutant Head returns to confront Akro-Kaiser about their aggression towards humanity, a schism erupts within the Mutant world over how to deal with humans, leading to what amounts to a civil war among the Mutants against Akrobat, with the human-defending Mutants being lead by Mutant Head.

Orghan Bat is a gruesome clone of Mutant Chaos created by Akro-Kaiser, described as being created from Mutant DNA and Space Kaiju organs. Orghan Bat is described as ‘A twisted, organic mess’ that ‘wears his insides on his outside’. Orghan Bat features a mix of the old Mutant parts and uses a unique additional piece to make a new character. Orghan Bat consists of a Mutant body, Chaos arms, and a single head and body piece that slips over the torso in a similar fashion to the Armored Vest. Because of the one-piece slip cover, Orghan Bat lacks a neck joint, but that is not really a huge loss, as he has no discernable eyes to look at things.

Orghan Bat is one of my favorite Real X Head designs. While it is far more abstract than the previous figures, it manages to use a single new piece to create a unified looking figure out of dissimilar parts. The figure used here is based on a really wonderful hunter green vinyl with very loose black, gold, and yellow sprays. Part of Real X Head’s kaiju pedigree is because the legendary Goto-san paints the releases based on Mori’s designs. Early figures like the Orghan Bat showcase Goto’s fantastic control over sprays, both tight and loose, with the ability to put colors exactly where they need to be while still retaining that hand-painted look that vinyl heads crave.