...grew up in the 70s, watched Ultraman and Speed Racer everyday after school, Battle Of The Planets too. Weekends were Godzilla and Gamera movies ... In 1985 Cherry the singer for Japanese hardcore band Zou came to stay with us in Pittsburgh...he brought a 6 inch boxed bandai Ultraman as a gift. I was hooked. Me and my friends bought all we could get in Pittsburgh, which wasn't much. Godaikens, weird bootlegs...then when my band ( Half Life ) would play we tried to hit every Japanese toy store we could, usually the one in Philly but we made it out to CA once and got to hit the stores in LA .. I worked in a record/comic store and had a bandai figure connection so I was able to get a smattering of stuff. I used to get Japanese kids mags with all the great ads.
This is an excellent topic. It brings back fond memories of my childhood growing up in San Francisco during the mid-70's watching Godzilla movies and TV shows like Ultraman and Space Giants. I didn't have alot of Japanese toys as a kid, except maybe a couple of Godzilla toys and a jumbo machinder. It would be many years before I would start collecting again, and I can thank places like Super7 and Kimono My House for re-igniting my toy-collecting passion.
I'm still in NJ, and I miss this SO MUCH. I have no idea why WOR thought that a movie about a giant gorilla had something to do with Thanksgiving, but it became a holiday tradition for my dad and I to watch it together.
I grew up watching horror flicks, japanese,american,british... on late nights as well as saturday mornings and afternoons out of Cali. My first collecting started with the Star Wars stuff. I am lucky enough to still have most of my star wars toys from back then. However most of my other toys were lost over time such as, Micronauts, Six Million Dollar Man, Shogun Warriors, Battle Star Galactica, Buck Rogers, etc. After i grew tired of Star Wars, I got into skateboarding and punk. As young teens are want to do we would get into trouble and use drugs. Skating and drugs ate up a few years. A comic book shop owner took me under his wing and gave me my first job at 15. While there, I started collecting comics and toys again. This was when anime started making inroads into middle america. Star Blazers blew me away. It was like no cartoon i had ever seen before. This ignited a passion for anime. I re-found my affection for Shogun Warriors which introduced me to Chogokin. Chogokin re-introduced me to my affinity for all the japanese movies and tv show's i'd watched when i was younger, Gamera, Godzilla, Johnny Sokko, Ultraman, etc. While searching for a Hedorah toy, I stumbled upon my first Neo Kaiju -- the Astro Zombie Chaos by RXH. It's been downhill from there. I heard about Skullbrain from the Toybotstudios website. I blame Kirkland for my empty wallet.
Man, it is cool to here how similar everyone's stories are. Everyone got started young with an introduction to Japanese television, or movies. Everyone gets bitten by the collecting bug, and then someone drops the bomb and grandfather's you onto the board. Then you lose your ass on toys.
I collected (still do) Transformers, especially the precursors, the Diaclone toyline- Along with all the other standard 80's toys... But I always liked painting and customizing toys too. I think at some point in college I was at Tower and ran into Q.EEs, and was draw to them, especially the blind box aspect. Through that I found the art of Tim Biskup and Gary Baseman, then Kubricks, then I think I did a search for like "Vinyl toys in Philadelphia" or something and ended up here, and found out about Japanese vinyl, and v-color, then I saw the connection to Super7 (which I remembered from the Optimus Prime issue) and I was checking out the store when I saw Secret Base figures (particularly the Horror Skullwing) and I knew I had to get it. Plus I had the idea for my first custom (the Chia-brain) and so it goes. And at the same time I think I stumbled upon Toybot's website in an unrelated search, and I've always, always loved Jet Jaguar ever since the Godzilla vs. Megalon MST3k episode. =) Phil
Working at a comic shop from 94-00 was also hugely influential (unbeknownst at the time) on me as that's when I first saw G-Fan, which renewed my interest in the movies, and some of the toy magazines at the time (either Tomart's or Action Figure News) featuring stories and ads for Neo Henshin Cyborg stuff. At that time it seemed so expensive and unattainable. If only I had put my money towards things like that instead of stupid ass Spawn figures and new Star Wars stuff*. *Not that I dislike Star Wars or the Power of the Force figures I have, I just don't want them and know I can't get rid of most of it for what I paid for them a decade ago.
I've loved toys ever since I was little. I grew up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, M.U.S.C.L.E., Monsters in My Pocket, Transformers, He-Man, Madballs, Garbage Pail Kids, all of that. My dad would buy me a shitload of toys all the time. I had this giant, ugly orange hamper in my closet full of them. I have also always been really into horror. Once I saw some of the fight figures from Gargamel and Secret Base, along with some of the more creepy / horror-related sculpts (Skull Toys suits, Obake Dogs, BLObPUS stuff), I knew this was the hobby for me. I've been into many things over the years (comic books, video games, action figures, CDs) but nothing has held my attention nearly as much as sofubi. There's always going to be something I am after, and something I am focusing on more than another, along with a new sculpt that piques my interest.
In '78 there was a little hipster boutique near the college I was sporadically attending. For some reason they had a shelf of mekanda robo at prices that a student loan working dad wasn't going to get, but I was transfixed. I'd go there and stare 'til I'd be asked to leave. So for Father's Day my ex and my son got me one. Still have him, he's beat to hell and gone, but 24 years later I was messing around with it while trolling the 'net and it kicked in. Talk about delayed reaction!
I had that same big ass Godzilla! Loved the "tongue" of flames that shot out when you pulled that lever. Great blast from the past! If only I knew what happened to him...
Ever since I was a kid I didn't care much about most of the "heroes" in cartoons or comics or whatever because they just seemed boring. I mean, Superman is a strong guy in tights, who wants to look at that? But the bad guys were so much cooler... robots with claws for hands, guys with skulls for faces, fishmen and lobstermen and snakemen and leechmen... So of course I loved Godzilla movies, and my favorite Star Wars characters were the Rancor and Darth Vader (in that order). Aside from the RoTJ Rancor figure, the Ultra Kaiju figures Bandai put out in the early 90's and the Kenner Aliens figures from the same time were pretty much the best things my 10 year old self had ever seen. Then when I was a little older I got into MST3K and through that the Gamera movies, which led me to spending pretty much all the money I earned from working in high school on Bandai vinyls off eBay (well, the money I didn't spend on Evangelion and Guyver VHS tapes). I started learning Japanese in high school and then college, and when I came to Japan I was able to see all the older stuff that I hadn't been able to get my hands on in the US, like the old Kamen Rider series, Akumaizer 3 and Ogon Bat. I'd always been a toy collector, but going to SuperFest and getting the clear blue Marmit Flatwoods Monster was my introduction to "real" vinyl. SB came a bit later, but that was the real death knell of ever having any kind of savings...
I grew up with robots too and remembered my uncle sending me a gigantic Getter Robot with missiles and the works. I spent the first 5 years of my life in Hong Kong and had those diecast robots with me when I immigrated to Sydney. My parents threw them away during high school... Besides collecting Star Wars toys, I sometimes would appreciate kaiju in toystores but never bought. Then when I got into Medicom toys and collected the 12" Kamen releases that I started getting into the villian kaiju line. Still love the detail they put into it. I always loved the quirkiness of Kaiju from Kamen/Ultraman and other live action Japanese shows. It was in the mid 90's when I started to catch up with with these shows and started looking to collect Kaiju. I was very shocked at the prices of Bullmark etc. Back then I thought a toy over $30 was very expensive (before committing to Medicom toys). The Garamon and Matango were my first buys. It all went crazy after that...
my grandmother used to buy me bandai vinyls when I was a kid. I don't remember the store they were in, but I do remember picking them out. I distinctly remember the smell of them...which I covet now. oddly, my grandmother now thinks I'm insane for buying the same (or similar) stuff she got me hooked on...I never stopped buying toys, but it was the Secret Base around TT that really kicked it into high gear.
Figuring out kaiju wasn't just secret base and blobpus (which I wasn't into) and all those characters I loved watching morning TV in the 70's were being made by M1, Marmit etc etc. Coming here helped, you can learn a boatload in a relatively short time.
+1 This is where all of my kaiju toy knowledge came from. thanks captain cosmic and all you skullbrainers!
