Printing on foot of giant gorilla

Discussion in 'Vintage Vinyl' started by daveblog, Sep 6, 2019.

  1. daveblog

    daveblog Toy Prince

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    Hi

    I just got this silver Marusan Giant Gorilla today and was hoping someone might know what the print says on It’s foot





    Thanks!
     
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  2. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    Hi David, I am not sure what the stamping says as I can't quite make out the kanji, but this figure was one of the versions of the re-releases from the 'neo' Marusan company that came out starting in 1998. They were based off the original mold for the vintage figure. The gold and silver versions I believe were from festivals/events or magazine mail-orders, I cannot remember exactly. Here is a photo in the package:



    The writing, per the sash, is similar to 東西企画, so this could identify the version (released in the 1990s as part of this special promotion). Note that this is for the standard sized figure, as Marusan also did a 450 version last year. More info here, which has reference to the original release:

    http://sofvi.tokyo/180503_marusan/
     
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  3. daveblog

    daveblog Toy Prince

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    Thank you for the info and for the image. Mine was received and unbagged and without the sash.


     
  4. akum6n

    akum6n Vintage

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    What an interesting mystery. Since I wasn't really after the Giant Gorilla reissues, I didn't pay much attention to this version in the past.

    The article from Hyper Hobby has this one listed as a 'storefront display'. Interestingly, the item in their photo has no sash.

    The characters on the sash (and, probably, foot) say 'Touzai Kikaku', which seems to be the name of a company, and translates more or less to 'East West Planning' (not terribly descriptive).

    Probably only Mr. Kaminaga would remember at this point.
     
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  5. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    Yes, thank you Daniel. That is as I read it as well, and hence why I linked to the reissue description because it specifically referenced also this 'East-West Planning.' I was not sure whether to take this as a specific shop expansion, or just the location of a proposed event, etc. It would be interesting to see if anyone knew though. The other person who always comes to mind (for me) in reference to these earlier Marusan toys, as he seemed to be in the know back in the day in any case from our past conversations was Ricky/bonemask. I've commonly seen the figure without the sash, but I have not come across many packaged versions either.
     
  6. Roger

    Roger Vintage

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    I shared these screenshots with Dave separately, Kaminaga-san posted them on Facebook a while back.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    It doesn't have the sash, though. Maybe there was an unbagged one for the store displays, and another one that was bagged with the sash as an exclusive for buyers of the book?

    I googled 東西企画 and a Japanese Wikipedia entry came up:

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/北海道出版企画センター

    Name of the company translates as "Hokkaido Publishing Planning Center." Maybe the publishers of the book?

    I'll see if I can get Kaminaga-san to straighten things out.
     
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  7. akum6n

    akum6n Vintage

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    @ultrakaiju Apologies, as I didn't click through the link, as I thought it was just about the 450 size version.

    The link actually has a bit on the origin of the white-silver gorilla, and generally confirms Mr. Kaminaga's post (thanks @Roger !): very low numbers of the figure were distributed by Touzai Kikaku (a publishing house) to bookshops as a store display. His post fills in the gaps, as they were apparently made to promote the Marusan & Bullmark book released in the '90s.
     
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  8. ultrakaiju

    ultrakaiju Die-Cast Staff Member

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    Printing on foot of giant gorilla
    Thanks both. Happy to have this mystery mostly cleared up then. That's interesting to hear the story from Kaminaga-san, as I had not expected the numbers on these guys to be so low, based on what I have seen on the market in the past. Of course, all of this may have blown up the interest even more, but I for one am quite happy to have this information sharing still as part of the board. :thumbsup: It doens't hurt that this has been centred around one of my favourite toy designs of any era. Someday I'll get that vintage fella, someday.
     

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