My son's toy collecting so far has been limited to my hand me down He-Man and Star Wars collection and some Domo blind boxes. The other day though we went to the LCS and I let him look through the whole store to pick something out. After looking at Ice Bat BB and some G.I. Joes he came up to me holding a Bandai Godzilla. I was so proud! I asked if he knew who that was and he didn't so I bought it for him and we went home to have a Godzilla marathon. Most older movies lose his attention due to a lack of flashiness and not having something happen every 15 seconds but he sat and watched wide eyed. I have either saved him from bad toys or created a monster who will one day be coveting my shelves!

Anyone else have tales of kids and toy collecting?

That's truly awesome!

This story reminds me of that scene from Shogun Assassin

"choose the ball and join your mother, choose the Bandai Godzilla and join me"

... my daughter loves watching Ultraman fight scenes and Godzilla movies. She even taught herself the Godzilla theme on the piano!

She's seven now and loves power ranger stuff, kaiju etc. But, she loves the cutsey stuff best, like Mothra and baby Godzilla. We have a lot of fun, lately we've been reading Tintin at bedtime, another favorite from my youth.

Right on.

Nice one Golden! I'm not usually into movie based 1/6th but the Shogun Assassin setup with the cart is one thing I would love to get (well, that and the Akira bike).
Nice pic, that's awesome. I love the attitude, I bet she's a firecracker. My son just found Power Rangers today, the original episode. Going to have to get a DVD set or something because he was mesmerized. I havent though about Tintin forever, good stuff. I hope when he gets older he likes horror movies so I can bust out Toxic Avenger and Dead Alive!

My 21 month old likes costumed characters and puppets over cartoons. I'm hoping she'll be into kaiju too but I'm not going to push her into it.

yeah thats the thing, at first I thought my enthusiastic encouragement was pushing too much.. but then she gets into it on her own. She like to take my big shoebox full of bullmark repro minis and make them have school etc.

But the Power Rangers stuff, she found that all by herself.

Yeah I hate when I see parents just shove stuff on their kids. The way me and my wife figure is she's around it, she's being exposed to it but we're not saying "HEY LETS WATCH THIS INSTEAD!" it's just present. I know she likes it now because it's what's familiar but in the future when she begins to see other things, things we may hate or whatever, we're not gonna be dicks and ban it. Just let it happen.

She plays with all of my old toys, Pee Wee and Urkle dolls and weird Star Wars junk but that's just for now. I know one day she'll pick up something all her own. I want that for her, her own choice and identity even if it's not something I think is cool. She's naturally into "girl things" even though we never pushed gender specific stuff so I'm sure she'll do her own thing.

my favorite person with my favorite toy!

giving keylla a hug!

I guess my photo of a 1 1/2 year old with no shirt was a bit too pedoish for photobucket?

your favorite person is beautiful Brenda!

the posture of the damnedrons arm's give him a life like presence too.

rad!!

i think as long as parents are exposing their kids to the timeless classics, there is certainly hope for the youth.. key word being "exposure", as opposed to forcing something on them. I rejected many things that my parents tried to force on me as a youth out of wanting to stake my claim and assert my independence, only to fully realize their everlasting qualities and true value later in life. I now cherish many of those things and hold them near and dear to my heart.

On the other hand, tintin was something that i was exposed to early on and i immediately fell in love with. I will always hold a special place in my heart for snowy, professor haddock, and the rest of the gang

I couldn't agree more about the forcing thing. I grew up with a kid that was throwing baseballs at 90mph in high school. He had several full ride scholarship offers but his dad had pushed him every day of his life to be a ball player and he wanted nothing to do with it. If he had just let him enjoy it I bet he would be pitching MLB right now. The hard one was not telling my son Barney sucked but I let him enjoy it and it passed. I see parents all the time saying things like "no Sponge Bob, we are getting you DC (or some other brand)" when the kid clearly would be happier with the Sponge Bob than fitting in with adult concepts of hip or cool. you have to let them be kids and enjoy their youth.

Not forcing something on a child is key, but aren't we talking about Kaiju here?
My experience is that every little boy (at least, can't say for girls) has an innate love for monsters, and when you hand them off a Bandai sofubi they get it right away. Later, when you place them in front of some actual Toho or Tsubaraya production it blows their little minds wide open. There is no forcing this stuff on kids, since it is basically intended for that audience.

P.S. I have a GID Yamanaya Jiras in the safe keeping of my 8 year old nephew, which I can't wait for him to outgrow. Any year now!

I think we may have the same brain.... I feel the exact same way