Have these guys dropped off the planet?? They were coming out with releases like every other month, then nothing. Are they still in business??
The last Skull Viking came out 08/2008.
I NEED MY VIKING FIX

Nice collection and set up!
The last Skull Viking is this one (I think):

and released on Jan 11 2009 @ SF.

I don't talk with Ms.Michiko - Main person of VJ a lot but I hear she is interested in other artistic works now so we rarely see the release of Skull Viking or other figures recently. But undoubtedly VJ is still alive.

Is Ms. Michiko = Ms. Blobpus ?

Thanks for the info, now does anyone know how to buy these 2 from Bobos Shop?
http://bobosshop.com/?pid=11883313
I can't get a decent translation to check out.
As a last resort, I'll go thru Celga & pay out the ass.

At the top right hand corner of the webpage, there is a link that says "International orders." Click on it and it will explain how to order. They even accept paypal.

Thanks, I just noticed the other link at the bottom, & emailed them. Hopefully they still have one of each left, I hate being incomplete

Yes, she and Kaji-san are married. They're both really cool people.

Recently, vinyl wise, I think Michiko-san has been focusing on making incredible customs. She had some amazing pieces at the Blobpus exhibition at the Ghetto a few months ago.

It seems a number of sofubi companies are pulling back and releasing less. By all accounts, the market in Japan is really down. At the same time, there's been a shift to more artistic custom work from some sofubui makers- VJ, Cronic, etc.

From what I thought, selling custom work is frowned upon by most Japanese makers. I hope to see this attitude change as we would all like to see more 1 offs for sale.

To see the market pull back and refocus on taking these toys more serious as works of art is cool.

The break neck speed of releases was really killing things and a slower pace is welcomed.

Quite a few sofubi makers sell one-offs (or one-off customs, as they usually call them). I wouldn't say there's a general attitude against it.

But in the past, you often would hear people saying that Japanese collectors weren't so fond of one-offs. They usually went for production pieces. Maybe that's changing, I'm not sure. Cronic collectors are definitely interested in both. A bunch of hardcore collectors were there for the One Up shows.

Over the last year, we've seen more and more shows in Japan (Many Many Mey, Kaiju Blue and Ghetto exhibtiions, etc) dedicated to customs.

I agree it's a really cool and welcome shift. Along with the slower release pace, we're seeing some stunning work. Michiko-san's customs are mind blowing.

VJ has been putting out the T9G Vatundoos as well, so I think those might have been more of a focus as of late.

I think I would be more of a fan of custom one-offs if they didn't cost 5 times as much as a production piece at retail.

Seems like VJ has been very focussed on the Vatundoos as of late.
Rumors are that there will be an VJ expo in the spring though, should see lots of interesting releases then.

Rumors huh?

I remember hearing she marked them those prices because she really didn't want to sell them? I dunno, something like that.

I'll never be a custom/one-off collector really, even when it's done by the toy creator. Just too much money and time, I mean I spend enough money and time on production pieces. Furthermore, I've said it before, I collect toys, not art. That's not an insult, btw, but it's the way I see it and I don't feel like re-explaining that notion at the moment further. Anyway, that all got off topic a bit.

I really like the pumpkin guys she did, but the other figures never interested me much.

I was told the VJ are a Cosmo Liquid sculpt which explains the amazing and flawless sculpts. The only thing holding me back from buying as many as I can is that their stance is so wide it takes up a bit of room in a detolf.
Looking forward to seeing more. IMO one of the more under rated toy companies out there.