good choice.

wondering why a ripoff is allowed to be promoted on skullbrain,
very disrespectful towards marusan, isnt it?

Gargamel "ripped off" IKB so we're all about rips here it seems.

I have held the marusan version, and it is inferior to the KillerJ one. The test is the physical exam. Hold one of each, and I think most people will agree. Marketing? I have heard many things, but again the choice is the individual collectors: do you like the figure and do you want it in your collection? Personally, I love the HP on flesh vinyl version that KillerJ put out. Each one of that series is extremely special; so much so that I am still looking for more. As for the many different releases, although many of us are completists, it is probably a mistake to buy a figure just because you want one of every version. Being selective can help prevent burnout.

''i i agree, yet no one ever attacks gargamel for this.
but gargamel hasn't released "too many" of any specific sculpt in a short time frame, which i've learned irritates people here. or at least causes them to yawn. so if you are going to bootleg of "rip off" something, make sure it is few and far between....

I thought this whole scene is about inspiration and dedication to toys that the creators grew up with as kids in the 60's-70s in JAPAN. Brands like BxH, SB, Gargamel, Bemon doing tributes. I don't think Hedorans would be as popular in the US if it wasn't for Gargamel.

I thank Gargamel for doing what they have done and for experimenting with beautiful colors and vinyl, releasing lucky bags and HP for exhibitions. If it wasn't for them I seriously doubt we have a "Neo Kaiju" scene today and we would all be collecting KR hahaha. I noticed ever since IKB released the originals, Gargamel have slowed down on their releases of IKB-like toys and concentrated more on collaborations.

its not the concept "play on past designs" that’s in question,
its the poor execution by copykiller:

^ I said that before I saw the entire toy. There is a difference. It does have a stylistic difference. It has someone's "own spin" on it. I eat my words

I'm not bashing Gargamel either, they rule. This toy rules. The seedy and shady things I'm hearing about Killer J DON'T especially if they're true. But I can't say, it's all "I heard this and that" so I don't wanna get into things without KNOWING stuff.

^^
The one difference about the gargamel stance...is that if you lined up pictures of the their zagoran, ikb's zagoran, shikaruna's zagoran, the target earth zagoran, and the marmit zagoran...you would be able to easily and without a doubt tell the many differences between them. They can't be confused. The sizes are different, the stance etc. They look like completely different interpretations of that old drawing.
People keeping saying that nobody rips on Gargamel. But I think that most of gargamel's interpretations are distinct enough to where you would never get them confused with any other toy.
The only sculpt, in my opinion, that looks close is the dokuroman but that's pretty much it.

The killerj toy, the og and the repro look really similar from the front and especially in the head. Yes they aren't exactly the same but they are close enough to where some people feel it's a ripoff.
I'm not saying I feel that it does or that it doesn't..by the way.

It may have started out that way, but the better the art, no matter what the genre, the more it will bleed into other communities. The more popular it becomes, the less available it will be, and the more it will cost unless more toys are made.

Right now, neo kaiju is in its infancy. We have some control over price for one simple reason: if people start to make profits from these things a la flipping, putting them up on the Bay, etc., we cut them off from the supply, because right now the artists, fans, and collectors, so to speak, are working more or less together as a RFSO community.

But the "community" is expanding. People who collect these items are toy collectors, monster and critter collectors, Japonica collectors and, more critically, i.e. more eventually influential, art collectors.

And some of these collectors couldn't give a rat's ass about anything which happened back in the 50s, whether referring to Japanese culture, movies, original toys or what have you. They recognize good art when they see it and they see it as collectible. It's entirely possible that kaiju art could go mainstream, in the same way that ragtime went mainstream.

What will happen then? A couple of things. As demand rises, artists will turn out more items, i.e. runs will start to get larger and come more frequently. And more artists will join in. Commercial, bland stuff will flourish for a while. But the inspired designs, and the items which have more of the handmade quality to them, especially made in small runs or one-offs, will still be worth more than the mediocre stuff.

People will start to collect for investment purposes. (Some will need advisers to tell them what to buy.) If an artist becomes known, people who collect him might pay more for his early stuff than for his later stuff, even if the early stuff isn't as good, knowing that as material gets older in history, it is not only less readily available, but it becomes an important "document" in the life of the artist.

Kids, twenty years from now, you might wish you had had the foresight to have been able to pick up an early Naoki Koiwa for as little as $400.

And if we keep the ragtime analogy, the market will be eventually self correct: it will be overrun with crap and the popularity of the art will decline. Less dedicated artists will turn elsewhere to survive. Demand will drop. Prices will fall on the junk, which will be discarded, but, and this is important... stay level or rise on the truly inspired items. (Of course 100 years from now, even the junk will fetch antique collector prices, bus that's another story)

And the community will again shrink to a dedicated small group, just like it is now.

What to do? Just trust your eye and your gut, buy what you like, don't worry about what anyone else is doing, and enjoy the hell out of the hobby.

End of ramble.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Although I agree that when certain versions of toys like the Zag by different companies are compared, they are distinctly different, but what is irrefutable imo, is that they are the same ( Zag) character.
How intellectual properties or characters are protected in Japan is a mystery to me.

You obviously haven't met my girlfriend. "Don't you already have this toy???"

Anyway here is an interesting post by Roger about the hate that Gargamel gets in Japan over the same issue. http://www.skullbrain.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9465&p=129172

has anyone got the scan of the original drawings from that book?

Just received my manipulative marketed, to many to often, wrong colored, non-GID, "Mark" targeted, overly produced, overly hyped, Bleh, Killer J/Cronic Sarumon.

that's one beautiful scam, plastic hunter!

I like the colors on that one alot... it's like some kind of weird ghost, with awesome contrast from the opaque face.

That's awesome. Both Cronic ones are the best so far, I even think they're better than a lot of the one-off's. Wanting!

Naoki killed this sculpt with his style--both the blue and the red faced Sarumons are awesome!

Meh, this sculpt dosen't blow me down, but then if someone were selling this on this here website and it was cheap, 'shrugs', who knows, I might pick it up to see what the fuss is all about. I was totally let down by KJ's last couple of sculpts I picked up (anyone even remember the star pet or 'alien puppet thing'?). So I'm reluctent to spend any more bones on his work for retail. I do like cronics take on it though.

It really is all about innovation here. The cheerleading has me convinced.

An incredibly original sculpt plus a Cronic paint scheme that's both new and experimental.

Can't think of any other production rainbow paints Naoki's put out before. Except the Illusion, Hallucination, and Taipei Mavs, and the Taipei Zyurai, and just about the last production Mav released, and also a Dorogami, a Dorome, and a Nougaki, and don't think he's done any other collaborations like that either if you exclude the Itokin Park BP rainbow Himalan, and the Itokin Park BP rainbow Mikazukin and the other Itokin Park rainbow Mikazukin (w/ glitter).

New ground is really being tread here and everyone involved with these breathtakingly original ideas deserves a big KR style thumbs up emote.

+1 to everything being awesome about this line.

Damn man, a "yawn" or " " may have done the trick hahaha.

All I can say is if you have never owned one of these figures,you will be amazed at the size and texture of it...I don't give a shit how this guy moves his product,I think it's awesome!

don't know if these have been posted yet (and yes, we know that there are too many versions of this guy out now, so those of you who are like broken records, we get it already)....

You could always let a few other people ride Killer J's jock for awhile. That and a few less +1s and you'd sound a lot less like a broken record.