That's the story I've heard. I dont believe these guys were ever in movies, the companies were just trying to cash in on the popularity of kaiju toys but didn't have any licenses and somehow created these amazing characters. I wish we had more info, sometimes I wonder if the guy who designed these things is sitting in his house somewhere in Japan with no idea that his toys have so many followers.

I agree I am dying to grab a full size smogun!

wow, gargamel really cleaned these up! the flying in this one looks kinda like a wet cat

It actually kind of reminds me of the Bemon sculpt in a way.

So the Mighti(n) comes out tomorrow at the Patchwork Summit, do we know if the smogun or Hedoran are coming out then too?

I can't wait for the Smoggun.

The Zargora is a super fine figure. I really like it, it's so beefy.

After a conversation with a very happy Zagora reissue owner lsat night, my curiosity was piqued. Digging through the board I came across this from Onibaba's trade thread:



The copyright notice on the header card makes it clear that someone owns Zagora as an intellectual property. What I'm wondering now is: does Gargamel have a business arrangement with them? If not, will this cause any potential IP issues for them?

Also, can anyone confirm that the original price of the Zagora reissues was 6,000 yen?

looks like they just put up pics of the new sumogon
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Hedoro too. The colors are way brighter than the vintage one's I've seen, I wonder if they looked like this when they were new?

Wonder when the other colors are coming.

Unfortunately, I think they all are killer: paint, size etc.

Will this guy be available at Super7? Anyone have one for sale?

I was talking with Matt Alt about Big Z tonight, and after a little Googling he was able to provide some much-needed information about the background of the character.

In 1967 there was a book by an artist named Nakaoka called Sekaino Kaiju (世界の怪獣):



Zagora is in there, in addition to many other original kaiju characters like Deathra:







Daikyo (大協) made the original Zagora toy, apparently without any sort of permission, and years later, Gargamel created their own version of Zagora, Deathra, and apparently other kaiju that appeared in the books or that Daikyo produced.

Matt also found this interesting discussion on 2chan:

http://hobby9.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/toy/1174271481/-100

There are some comments in there like (this is a quote from the thread): "The Gargamel Zagoran was produced without Daikyo's permission so as far as I'm concerned it's pirated...."

Matt adds that based on what he found in the web searches, "it seems that a lot of people are really irked that Gargamel took what was an obscure design, resculpted it, and put his own copyright on the foot. (There's apparently a ton of venom directed at Gargamel on 2ch over this.) Basically Gargamel's re-sculpt is 'cooler' and 'pop-ier' than the original, which is kind of dorky (in a good way), and 'real fans' have taken issue with their claiming it as their own (there are slight differences between the designs but they're obviously very similar.)"

Matt said he was surprised by this reaction because he really digs Gargamel's stuff, as do I, especially their accomplishments in the field of cutaway toys. I plan on digging deeper into the 2chan discussion when I have the time and the resources available to me, but there you have it. Regardless of the language, toy geeks find something to argue about, point fingers, and label themselves 'real fans' in the process.

;p

Great info Roger!

Matt did all the legwork, he deserves the credit.

thank goodness for google translation this is all so clear to me now

I wanna see more of that book.

Thanks to Roger and Matt for their research. I love that picture of the Deathra- and that book in general.

I want that book.

Thanks for the info, seriously interesting stuff.

It pleases me to no end that someone in Japan could be translating my messages with Google and it's telling them that I'm calling Corey "foppish."

Yow...it seems those books ain't cheap! Such cool art though...

Far from cheap, Im guessing.. almost like the holy grail of ones book collection.

Awesome info, be sure to let us know if you translate any more juicy info. Is this mightin?

A couple of hundred for a book isn't too bad. Especially that one.

Thanks guys! Very cool info!