They say that everyone remembers the exact moment they got serious about buying toys from Japan. Vintage or New, one single purchase that made them change the way they thought about toys forever.

For me it was the (slightly battered) 1971 Bullmark Bemular I won at auction a couple of years ago, the original owners name still scribbled on it's foot.

This was my crossroads piece, it seared off my already disgruntled kiddie-robo tastebuds almost instantly. Sometime back in June or July '07.... but we don't talk about that any more.
Photo nicked from the wonderful & talented Mr. toybotstudios

PInk Dokuwashi is still one of my favorite pieces. Someday I'd love to find one of Mr. Flynn's mini resin ones to match it. I actually think my intro piece to Japanese vinyl was the Valentine's Day Visighost.

I know this is a little lame but, Kozik's Usagi-Gon started to steer me in the direction of JP vinyl, but after I got my first Blobpus piece it was on from there...

my turning point

i believe my first piece was a orange gargamel smogun.
though this basic figure was my first venture into j-vinyl,
i believe these were the turning point towards addiction:

(i don't know who to credit this pic to, but it's been recylcled around the boards forever)

Its a fuzzy dream, but i think the first figure that made it to my door step was



It didn't make me start collecting though because I already had a couple other figures on there way to the door. I think what did it was pictures of kaiju figures that i saw for sale and it was down hill from there.

^^ still one of the best stomps! him and his counterpart, chomp.

I was in Munky King and spied this little red clear vinyl figure tucked back in a glass case. It was the first vinyl toy I had ever seen and I was instantly smitten. It looked like a little red jewel and it was in a plastic bag and a big tag with cool art on it was stapled to the top. I remember that no one in the store new what it was so they gave it to me for $15.

SB Blue Masked Ranger was the one that made me go ohhhh THATS why ppl pay so much for these things

Probably the Fewture 1901 AD Mazinger that I won off of eBay in 2003(?). It went for something like 1/3 of the original retail. More than anything else, I guess, it made me take notice of the fact that I could get some of the toys that I had missed over the past few years (on eBay) for a fraction of original cost. Dangerous stuff, but damn fun. The high point was having my landlord knock on my door to tell me that there were 4 huge boxes of toys sitting in their office (seller was dumping his collection and sold me about half of it for $50). Good thing I did not discover YJA until 2007.

Vinyl came later, in 2006. First piece that sold me completely on THAT was the Dream Rocket GID Doguma.

'nuff said!

First piece.
Black prototype mantis from Secret Base.

Funnily enough that was my very first piece of Japanese vinyl, but not the turning point!

I think I picked up that and an Invisible Brain because they were cheap but didn't see the attraction . . . only once I got the SDCC GF (a few weeks later) did I think 'This is for me!'

Still not a big fan of unpainted figures but they do add a nice contrast against the busier spray apps (just in case roger is reading! )

I blame TBS for it all.
And the awesome art by Josh on the backing.

Nice thread.

I stumbled on pictures on the net in Japan when I was searching for random stuff for inspiration... and looking at toy shows I saw a pic of the RxH Chaosman clear with GID fillings in late 05. I didn't know where I can get them. I printed out this picture and showed some of the vintage stores in HK, and they didn't even know about it. One guy said he saw it at the show in Japan but he said he can't promise me to find it in the stores.

A few searches during that week and I found Skullbrain, joined but didn't interact much but kept looking at the Super 7 store online.

However the first toy was Skulltoys 12" with armor of SID I believe that I got on eBay. This was before S7 had them in. I later found out that Super 7 stocked Exoheads, that's when I got "Andy" I think and also ordered 2 Real Head toys. I also saw an early SB toy that was on bid for $90 which I thought was outrageously expensive on eBay and didn't want to start collecting as I knew it'll make me broke.

However once I received a few RxH (first one was the Bigaro with BB) and also Secret Base skullbrain I was hooked.

I blame Kirkland for a whole bunch of stuff, pile it on . . .

Got my feet wet with my first Kaiju purchase. Was a Marmit Vinyl Paradise
Magura (cause it was dirt cheap, lol). I still have it but I must say that the turning point was when I discovered Dream Rocket.

this was maybe the first 6" classic RxH sculpt I got. I was dabbling in other stuff at the time, but I knew RxH was going to be a favorite.

These guys helped me to make the rigth choices at the rigth time ..

probally the 2006 GID SBxS7 halloween set then the mask ranger set that i knew i was hooked

coke tribute skullbrain is so underrated.
all clear brown is underrated, and not used enough...

november, 2005 first meeting with B. Flynn. He gave me two Ghost Fighters and that was it.

http://toybotstudios.blogspot.com/2005/ ... uper7.html

I got a GoHero Mechabot first and liked it, but wasn't blown away... this was my first quality Japanese vinyl figure, and it floored me. Kinda sad, but because of its height, it ends up at the back of my shelf... I should really take it out more often to play with, now that it's been totally overwhelmed by kaiju.

Beautiful set up. Mine point was finding the Marnon at Rotofugi.