You didn't offend me at all! Sorry if that's how I sounded. Everyone's sorry, woot!

Full Vinyl has got some of the best essays on art toy / kaiju culture in any books, so it's worth a read anyhow. Plastic Culture isn't nearly as much. Dot Dot Dash has some great pictures and the best variety of toys in all books I've seen. Tokyo Underground is now very dated. I was personnally disappointed in the Mook but love the Kaiju Encyclopedia, which many seem not to.

So Crazy Japanese Toys looked gimmicky to me... Is it?

Glad to read!

So Crazy is gimmicky and I found Dot Dot Dash and the ilk to be also. A way to kinda cash in on the so-called urban vinyl scene. There is that giant vinyl photo book with the batman image on the cover that has outstanding photos, but again it's mostly non-kaiju related. I love(d) the Mook and can't wait to see a second one. I haven't seen the encyclopedia personally, but will track it down and decide then of course. Thanks again for the input for sure. How's that Woodring treating ya and the boy?

I find it hard for books to find a good balance between pictures and essays, full catalog and overview, for neophytes or connoisseurs... I guess the art toy / kaiju movement is too small for a book geared towards knowledgeable fans to make financial sense. Dot Dot Dash had better than average essays if I remember well... and its coverage was wider than the KR or STRANGEco books which were (understandably) sort of biased.

I love the encyclopedia, great design and all (and the translation is good, quite a feat!), but it covers a lot of cutesy stuff that is in no way kaiju.

Pupshaw and Pushpaw are good. They're actually today's photo on my blog: http://takodesu.wordpress.com/

Wow awesome update, I really need to pick up the anatomical kaiju book. I love those damn pictures.

You can add Tokyo Underground2 on the list now.

NEO RETRO KAIJU BOOK
ISBN:

YUJI BOOK[/quote]
might be these?


awesome books with great fotos.

also have these 2:

right one is a mix of a lot of vintage kaiju including merchandise and also booska.
left one is funny fotos of monsters photoshopped in real landscapes streets etc.
make it look like scenes from movies.

fully vinyl one of my favorite books.
great selection of toys as opposed to kaiju encyclopedia.
article on rockin jelly bean real cool too.
hated encyclopedia on first site as it seemed pretty superficial, but then
reading little interviews with artists blew me away with so much
insights on artists inspirations etc. and explanations of figures.
also liked plastic culture a lot for their theoretical approach.

thanxx for great thread - should be "made" sticky.

Where can I get my hands on a copy of these?

Ultra Sofubi 1 and 3 are on Amazon Jp. The Encyclopedia of Kaiju can be purchased from s7 or your local vinyl retailer (if it's a good one!).

I think the Encyclopedia of Kaiju is superb; i love reading the mini interviews and seeing a lot of pictures of toys long gone. Getting the brief history plus a lot of pictures, as well as the way the book was organized was really helpful.

I can't wait to get my paws on TU2.

Thanks for letting me know about the Encyclopedia. Don't know how I missed it.


Sounds even better, now I really want it. I'll have to wait on Tokyo Underground. (Gotta pace myself)

Maybe we can add some purchasing resources here as well? Obviously Super7 when available and even Amazon JP, but if people know of others that would be helpful, please post. Also, if anyone has the original SRLP of some of these books or current face value. That too would be useful. Thanks

What was the name of kaiju-taro's quarterly publication?

Kai-Zine

might be these?


awesome books with great fotos.

also have these 2:

right one is a mix of a lot of vintage kaiju including merchandise and also booska.
left one is funny fotos of monsters photoshopped in real landscapes streets etc.
make it look like scenes from movies.

fully vinyl one of my favorite books.
great selection of toys as opposed to kaiju encyclopedia.
article on rockin jelly bean real cool too.
hated encyclopedia on first site as it seemed pretty superficial, but then
reading little interviews with artists blew me away with so much
insights on artists inspirations etc. and explanations of figures.
also liked plastic culture a lot for their theoretical approach.

thanxx for great thread - should be "made" sticky.[/quote]

Thanks Alife, any chance you know the title of the two books in the second pic? There's a sale on eBay right now saying that the book in question is the Yuji book, but there's no pic of it that matches either of the two you're posting, but that certainly doesn't mean they aren't. Maybe Brian might now or someone else on the boards. If I can get titles for all the books you posted pics of I can put them in the thread.

The first is: The characters in red are too small so I don't know if it's the actual title and the white is too blurry, but the big characters in black read "Ultra P"
The second is: Ultraman Omochabako (Ultraman Toy Box)

will post bigger better single shots later,
dont have books in hand right now.
sorry. thanxx!!!

besides searching on yja a lot of books up usually: http://auctions.search.yahoo.co.jp/sear ... F-8&mode=1

here is some bigger shots. hoping it helps and in case of adding to list.

I already covered the name of these books in an earlier post.Hope that helps.

What he said. The only one not in his list is "Ultra-P: a photography collection by Eiji (Agee) Kaminaga"

Not to be a stick in the mud but I just picked up the Encyclopedia of Kaiju and found it almost useless for what I'm into. I enjoyed 15 pages of the 143. Basically Siccaluna, Elegab, Yamomark, Emupaiya, and Butanohana. The last two really lacked much info at all considering how diverse especially Butanohana's line is. Toygraph only really showed Spacetroopers and Sunguts had no Mizuki figures shown. The layout and overall design was great but defintely not for the traditionalist/ patchi collector.

Man it is really hard to find any books that cover newer kaiju (but traditional stuff from old molds, patchi kaiju, or vintage looking etc) between say 2004- 2009 and cover specifically these companies: M1, Zollmen, Siccaluna, Marmit, Yamanaya, B-Club, Charactics, Kaijuken, Toygraph (besides Spacetroopers), Target Earth, Butanohana, Bear Model, Emupaiya, Pilot Ace, Sofvi Life. Someone does a book like that with nice pics I'd cream my jeans. Seems it's all neo kaiju (or non kaiju as I like to call it), vintage, or good books but circa 1997-2001 before M1 or Marmit came out with tons of glowies etc.

I'm surprised Super #1 Robot hasn't been mentioned yet.Great little book.

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Robot-Japan ... 467&sr=1-1

Did anyone pick up Tokyo Underground 2? How different is it from the 1st? Can someone in Tokyo say if it's up to date?

Sorry gang. I have been slacking on this I know. I will update this thread asap. Just a bit bogged down at the moment.

^ Dont forget the Kamen Rider book. Yeah Super #1 Robot is completely awesome. Ive spent hours staring at those photos. The name of the thread is Kaiju books so thats probably why no ones brought it up.

Flynn's shelves (too bad I can't identify anything)....