Curious what people here think. There seems to be a split with the though process here. Some consider certain figures or lines or companies Kaiju and some don't.

Why, what in your eyes makes what what .....

Does it have to be clearly a monster, like Godzilla, Hedoran or Matango to be Kaiju ?

Does the mutant evil fall into kaiju or just seen as an eastern designed toy ?

I've always took it literally. 'Kaiju' is used for classic or repro Japanese vinyl monsters toys from the Japanese TV shows/Films/Manga/Legends. 'Kaiju' is also used for monster toys created with that kind of idea in mind...for example, I would call Elegab's stuff kaiju as well as some of Nagata's creations like the new Drazoran. Especially if they are given a cool backstory as a giant monster!
I generalize kaijin as kaiju too most of the time...quite a few people don't know the difference...not that that is a good excuse...I'm just lazy.

All the other stuff...Eastern vinyl.

sofubi?

x2

i'm a sucker for a giant monster with a story. i wish more sculpts had some kind of story to them.

I'm with Yoda 90% on this (not kaijin part). I'd even throw in Patchi monsters also (sucker for rough crude sculpts).

I'm just a philistine and use it as a pretty generic term for any kinda ugly ass monster dolly coming out of Japan . . . sue me!

Kaiju are giant monsters. Godzilla, his pals, and the things Ultraman fights are kaiju.

Everything else is not. Kaiju don't wear pants.

yea, i always considered kaiju as some kind of giant monster. when i see bounty hunter, secret base, usugrow, and pushead toys, i just refer to it as japanese vinyl.

But they CAN wear shoes!


Oops, that's wearing pants too - I nearly missed them because of those shoes.
Shoes, no pants:

For applicable SB, RxH and Gargamel toys, "Fight Figure" is also appropriate.

yeah, RxH, SB, etc I throw in the "fight figure" category. it's japanese, it's vinyl, but I don't associate it with Kaiju. Kaiju, to me, is random, big monster stuff in soft vinyl from japan. it's got a certain flavor to it old and new.

I think the term 'Kaiju' has evolved into a vague representation for Japanese vinyl toys in general. Technically it just means 'monster' so something like RxH could fall into that category or maybe 'Neo-Kaiju'?

THEY'RE MUTANTS NOT MONSTERS JEEEEZZZE!!!

Mutants, monsters, call'em what you want but they're still all the same freaky shit

BUT THEY WEAR SHOOOOORTS! I think RxH characters a bit too "humanoid" to consider "Kaiju" at least to me. I mean, SB figures have skulls for heads and brains on the outside, they can be monsters too. We can go on all day man! I like the naked=monster formula. Also, they should have to be big enough to crush buildings, and have very low IQ's.

so what is Itokin Park in you guys' opinion? I just saw mikeee's avatar and was curious.

I guess I think it's like this:

Sovubi is the main category, then you have sub categories: fight figures, kaiju, cutesy stuff, what's BxH?

Awesome sofubi

Itokin is "cutesy". BxH is "urban vinyl".

Who likes short shorts? eh... To be specific what you're saying is true. But then again, our current hobby all stemmed from one source from waaaaay back (IMO) and that's Godzilla. So what would happen if Godzilla wore shorts...

we can expect to see him on ebay with a BIN of 299usd.

Wouldn't this then indicate that RXH could be in the Kaijin category? After all there's plenty of examples of Kaijin in suits. etc. Heh, heh, might be funny to see a Mutant Chaos in a suit.

You mean something like this?


(Pic via gatchabert)

But than why wouldn't the TMNT be kaijin too? They're humanoid monster/mutants who can wear suits? Where do we draw the line?!?!

I don't strictly catagorize stuff, really, just very generally. It still burns my buns when some one calls something "kaiju" and it's not, but I mean I probably do it too in the eyes of others. I'm not gonna go rip they're head off. Like when people call stuff "punk" that's not.

How about "monster toys" I think that works, it's what I say to people who have no clue what I collect. I collect monster toys (and mutant toys and robot toys and sci-fi toys and......)

I'm with BloodDrinker on this.
For me, kaiju = strange beast, from Japan, made from soft vinyl in various colors, not painted too well.
Kaijin wear pants.