Ok I am a full time nerd now, I got this magazine because it had this picture of hiddy and hikaru with some cool toys. I sent the page to my translator, here is what the article says. pretty cool stuff. Americans getting some credit in the toy/character game!




Hikaru, Hiddy and the interviewer are talking mainly about Smurf and Snoopy. Although Smurf is not American character (from Belgium), the interviewer say it is like a toys of good, old America. BxH Hikaru brought a Smurf for Halloween edition. He especially like Halloween edition. Although in Japan only a few people celebrate Halloween, he want to have Halloween every 3 months. Hikaru starts checking Halloween items every September until Halloween day.

Hiddy took his Snoopy collection made in 1966. Somehow Snoopy is wearing shoes and Lucy is dressed like a doctor. Hiddy liked this era of Snoopy and describes it as a royal road of American toys.

Common thing about Smurf and Snoopy is they did not change their appearance for a long time and has been loved by many people. That is a royal road of character toy.
Even if one is not interested in toys, almost all of the people “go through” these characters and these character are so perfectly designed so they can be anywhere, anytime, any age.

Snoopy got his 50th birthday last year. Snoopy and Smurf are so catchy, and once you get into it, you will see their long history, but we don’t see these history or depths in Japanese character’s and toys.

Hikaru: When we were a child, our hero was absolutely Ultra-man or Masked Rider, but what is nowadays hero?

Hiddy: Nowadays in Japanese TV, Hero is replaced every 6 month for TV company’s schedule, so I don’t think there is almost no absolute one, like the past.

Interviewer: So, Snoopy, Smurf, and Mickey Mouse are really great.

Hikaru: Doraemon would be the closest existence in Japan.

Hiddy: We don’t have such a long selling character for a long time.

Hikaru: I think we have superior technique to evolve the character, but America has superior discussed thought to give birth to the character. Recent example as “Simpsons” can be loved by any generations.

Hiddy: Sure, nowadays Japanese character grows up rapidly.

Interviewer: American character seemed to have designed completely thought through how to be loved so many different people. How do you think?

Hiddy: I think so and I also think the fact many Japanese get bored on one thing easily may be one of the reasons too.

Hikaru: In contrast, America has kind of slow changing of the interest. That may contribute to the existence of long-loved characters. Now I am making toys, and I get so amazed by seeing these characters from professional point of view. Japanese toys tend to have more elements than needed, so many different colors, make too much details. So now I think most difficult thing is making simple thing. This can be referred to cloths, if you see “Things that has been loved for a long time”, You may find something interesting.

interesting...
one of my friends wasnt allowed to watch smurfs as a kid.

i wanna see some of your top picks haha

Sweet, thanks for the translation Isaac. Cool article and great to see how these guys are thinking about their toys as icons. Really interesting to hear their influence from the old american iconography. Reading the article I started thinking about some smurf inspired SB mix-ups. That might be too cool. Papa Skull Brain. Worker Ghost Fighter. They've already done the obake dog, so who knows!

I like it becuase I collect smurfs and snoopy characters already! Smurfs was my favorite as a kid, they played it for an hour on saturday mornings at like 6am. first show to come on the saturday morning schedule. That saturday morning schedule I think formed my life, cartoons!!!

Saturday morning cartoons were the defining force of my childhood brain. I remember so many shows I couldn't wait to see - super friends, thundarr, the smurfs, so many more. Thinking about it, I remember having a smurf themed party at a putt putt when I was real young! Damn! I admit to having a few smurfs in the collection and a set of all the modern snoopy stuff. At christmas, the holiday set comes out too. Okay, my name is keith and I am an extreme nerd!

It's interesting how things turn out... I always wanted to watch saturday morning cartoons, but I decided to go to "Japanese School" which was taught on saturday mornings...

As it ends up, I think learning Japanese has ended up turning me into a much larger cartoon nerd later in life.

My name is Keith, and I'm an extreme nerd!

That was so cool! Smurfs were the first things I ever collected. I collected them in the 70's when I was a kid. I have always been a Schultz fan, hell my avatar is a Schultz version of Led Zeppelin. Thanks for the article I really enjoyed it!

+1 on the nerding out! My wife had collected snoopy off and on since birth. Thanks for the translation...

Great article Ramos. I find it ironic that Japanese toy makers collect old American toys and we collect old Japanese toys. To me, old Kaiju characters are timeless in the same sense that Snoopy or the Smurfs are.
I guess toys and characters that were created in that era are considered classics and it doesn't matter where they come from.

I was just thinking that at the same time I was playing with snoopy stuff, I was playing with Shogun Warriors, watching ultra-family adventures in the afternoon, collecting godzilla stuff. No wonder I ended up where I am today with all my wacky collecting. The imagery from my childhood has returned full circle.

killed double post, not sure what happened.

Cool. Thanks for posting that, Isaac! Interesting read...what magazine did it come from? The little Frankenstein Smurf in that pic is so cool!

smurfs was the shit, but it jumped the shark when Johan and Pee wee were introduced.


^that's some geek shit right there...


I had a shitload of 1st edition smurfs...even some weird spaceship ones that werent smurfs, but were made by the same company...and i tossed them all away. They're probably serious collectors items now.


I wonder if/when all those thundercats/silverhawks/mask/captain power toys will start to appreciate in value and attract a market.

battlebeasts and mask are worth a little loot.

My and Jackies cousins used to have cases full of Smurfs back in the 80s..Years before Hallmark and every other gift shop had even heard of them...Nutty thing is they used to buy them in Hawaii..

MASK is the gospel yo!

Thanks for the lunchtime reading.

really? I have a shit ton of those back at my folks' house. maybe I'll grab em when I'm down there in a few weeks.

In regards to MASK and Battlebeasts - Complete in good condition people - not hammered and played with...... Think about how you feel when a vinyl is all dinged up. Sorry - my dealer side comes out when we talk condition.

Yep, I'll own up to still having all my smurf collection from the 70s including a couple of smurf houses and gargamel! In the UK they were often sold in petrol stations before the cartoon was ever shown. Of course I think they were around longer in Belgium where they were originally a comic strip like Peanuts. To me Smurfs belong to the classic selection of European characters such as Tintin and Asterix...maybe because I liked all these at the same time but certainly the figure size (roughly 3") is the same for all of them.

The interview is from Ollie - which is a Japanese skate magazine.

I think the Japanese collecting American toys etc. is to do with this relationship between Japan and America in terms of Japan embracing an american view of modernity which began in Japan after the war.
It seems that the American military prescence in Japan introduced American goods to the Japanese and these became "must have" items since they were not only expensive but seen as very modern and aspirational. I'm assuming that this began the relationship with America and Japan that saw Japanese goods ending up in America. There was an article on this in issue 5 of Theme magazine
http://www.thememagazine.com/
entitled "The American Dream through Japanese Eyes "

One thing about the Ollie article though is the way Hiddy and Hikaru don't mention Sanrio when they talk of Japanese character toys. Guess they're too cool to talk about Hello Kitty etc. but I would argue that Hello Kitty and some of the other Sanrio characters have endured over time and are internationally appreciated. I think Hello Kitty is from the early 70s so certainly Japan produces character toys which have long lasting appeal - perhaps one could says that they only do this with cute characters though.


cheers,

Sol.

i have a smurf i call "drinky smurf"

he has a big mug of AHEM! "rootbeer"

to me he's just my little blue drinking hero.