Generation Mech » Toy

Amazing Japanese toy collector of his generation

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:00:53 +0000

A first glance, you’d think he’s just an ordinary bloke who earns a normal income just like very ordinary Japanese salarymen you see in the streets of Japan’s metropolitan cities like Tokyo.

However beneath that his youthful exterior, this man leads a life with an extraordinary life activity no one would imagine he would dare to undertake.

A man whose life’s passion is collecting walls of toys in his wardrobe.

Yes. That’s right! This man is a toy collector fanatic for over 35 years!!!

Simply amazing! Here’s the small clip of the CNN interview with the greatest toy collector of his generation, Kazunori Saito.

CNNGo: This is pretty impressive. Can you give us a brief overview of what’s on display here?
Kazunori Saito: In a nutshell, it’s a collection of merchandise from live-action and animated television shows that aired in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s. They’re toys of monsters and heroes that are familiar to any Japanese in their 30s and 40s.

CNNGo: When did you start collecting all this stuff?
Saito: About two years after I graduated from school and started working. 25 years back.

CNNGo: So these aren’t the toys you played with as a kid.

Saito: No! I started as an adult. I loved the shows as a kid. Like a lot of kids raised in the “golden age” I was mesmerized by them. But I wasn’t really into the toys back then, more into building model kits. Years later, as an adult, I read an article about vintage toys in a magazine. That really piqued my interest. So I went to a specialty store in Shimokitazawa that sold them… And now here we are today. (Laughs)

CNNGo: What’s the charm? What do you think gives these toys their power?

Saito: Well, they come from a powerful era. The immediate postwar period was tough, and these toys represent Japan making it through that. It was an era of rapid growth, not only economically but for popular culture such as children’s shows as well. The expressiveness and technology of anime and live-action shows was growing in leaps and bounds. The toys were born of that. I think they’re powerful because they came from a powerful time.

CNNGo: What’s your single favorite piece on display?

「サイクロン号」
Saito: That would be this little motorcycle toy, the “Cyclone.” It’s the bike Kamen Rider rode in the very first series. This was the first toy I bought when I started collecting. I paid four or five thousand yen for it and decided, “I’m just going to buy all the different bikes and then I’ll be done.” But…

CNNGo: Looks like things didn’t exactly play out that way. How many toys are on display here altogether?
Saito: About 2,000 of them. This is about 99 percent of my collection of Showa era (pre-1989) toys. But I have another collection of Heisei (post-1989) toys at my house.

CNNGo: What exactly is it that you do? Are you involved in the toy industry or the anime industry?
Saito: No, nothing like that! I’m the senior executive director of an advertising agency. I plan commercial campaigns, make commercials, things like that. Collecting toys is an escape from all of that for me. A sort of extreme one. (Laughs)

CNNGo: So you have 2,000 toys here. Are you done? Is this it, finished, complete?
Saito: No. Not yet. The problem is, the things I need to complete it are incredibly difficult to find. The rarest of the rare.

CNNGo: Even as a commercial director, it’s incredible to imagine how you afforded all of this…
Saito: Even I can’t afford this stuff anymore! I purchased the vast majority back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was cheaper, much more so than today. I was lucky to get the bug so early on. I couldn’t have done it if I’d started today.

CNNGo: So where do you keep all of this stuff when it isn’t in a museum?
Saito: In my house. I display what I can, but my house is small and a lot of it has to be stored away.

CNNGo: This is kind of a personal question, but what does your family think about your collection?

Saito: Oh, they’re used to it. (Laughs)

CNNGo: You never take any flack for it? None at all?

Saito: No, not really. But then again, keeping the collection was the only condition I insisted upon when I got married. Actually, when she agreed to it, I knew for sure I’d found “the one.” (Laughs)

Source: CNNGo.com

All of his toys onto display at the Showa Hero and Monster Toy Exhibition in one of Japan’s renowned doll-action-figure museums.

Source: CNNGo.com, Yokohama Doll Museum Website, All images are owned and copyrighted by CNN

400,000,000 reasons to like Gundam

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:38:57 +0000

Japan's samurai mascot for 30 years

How’s this for an amazing fact? Bandai released their total figures of Gundam plastic toy models in its 30-year franchise business.

Around 400,000,000 Gundams were sold! That’s like…. A LOT ZEROS to count!!!

Talk about insane numbers that give local Japanese accountants to stay up all nights and days to reach this final figure!^^

Most of the sales come from 1/144 scale model range, and the first one (in 1980) sold was for US $3.20 or 300¥.

Now. That same model selling in today’s price is US $28.20.

Nine times the original price.

If Bandai were to sell that many toys at today’s price, they would be about $12 billion richer worth of its merchandise!! Guess there was a lot of public reason why Bandai really took the trouble to make their Gundam statue over in Odaiba last year! Just to commemorate this major special occassion.

When I was browsing the links of the news source, I found a couple of great Gundam plastic model (1/44) pictures on display, such as these ones.

It’s the exact model of the giant statue in the Odaiba park before they dismantled it. . ^^

It was interesting to gather understanding how everything works behind the scenes of making these robots in the mass production lines. They said how Gundam sales was ballooning so well towards mid 80s and suddenly it nearly died off completely thanks to the increasing but vast competition of electronic goods and video games swamping the youth market of Japan, from early 90s till now. It was thanks to new and innovative business ideas by Bandai Namco’s business leaders and renew faith by Gundam fans from elder generation that gets their children to get active in accepting Gundam (and other mecha) toys as part of the mainstream entertainment. Just as much as latest video gaming console from XBox, Nintendo, PS3, Wii etc. They’re equally as popular as the rest of today’s youth enterntainment, fun and games.

Good on them for persevering to the very end^^. And wish them for another great success for another 30 years!!

Source: ANN.com, Asahi.com, GameWatch, Images provided are owned and copyrighted by Gamewatch.

Voltron Lego

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:29:39 +0000

Since my last post on my own Voltron toy that I “constructed” out of the Toyanmi box and it was another sheer piece of classic toy many mecha enthusiasts would love to have, I bumped into another mecha enthusiast who happens to like building Voltron toys too.

But… this time! He makes them using Lego parts!

Literally!!!

Check out the video and his impressive Lego-building skills after he won this award at a brick building competition.

One thing you’ll notice is around 0:50, you will see all the 5 main hero characters from the show, built as Lego men (or woman for the Blue lion^^). The detail of the character design was incredibly accurate! You’ll also notice towards at the end of the video, there are other mecha builders putting their mecha toys on display.

I praised this guy for doing such marvellous type of work. His passion, his desire to make one of the best classic mecha in the series as a stand-still robot toy for all mecha fans to enjoy!

A super job well done! ^^

Voltron – 25th Anniversary Collection Review

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:57:02 +0000

Wow!

This is it! This is my first official toy review on my blog. Believe I never give reviews like these before. Been wanting to do this for months since I got the toy months ago.

So bear with me. I’m going to have to give a go.

When I first purchased this in November, I knew I was going to send myself up for a big ugly surprise with the BIG spendup.

The shipping fee was just nasty shock to deal with as well… Nevertheless I went on and check out my goods and see how it fares.

I have the following item displayed here.

After working on putting the entire package into one super awesome robot in just under 2 hours, this is what it turns out to be…

I must say. I was really quite impressed with the entire process of unpacking, assembling and finally ‘piece’ them all together. All of the 5 coloured lion pieces were easily ‘configurable’. Meaning they were easy to fold up. Nothing difficult to move the internal structure around with those lions. It was a just matter of getting used to listening to the ordinary clicks when putting them altogether.

The entire body

Black Lion Head

Black Lion Body

Red Lion

Green Lion

The lion legs..

Blue Lion

Yellow Lion

Now comes with its reputable sword and shield!

Voltron…. DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE!!

Voltron charges for battle!!

I must say. I’m liking this toy quite a lot. I like what I’m seeing this toy provides for an old school mecha love like myself sees when having a big toy put into your bedroom on display so people can see what an amazing toy construct it stands up.

All two-thumbs up to Toynami for producing this great toy collector’s edition!

Thanks for stopping by, reading my toy review! I hope to do more of these in the future.

Transformers Animated Series

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:02:56 +0000

Never heard of these new animated series of Transformers.

Said to have been around for past few years during its airing on America’s The Cartoon Network, and were based on Transformers G1 toy line.

And here’s the Japanease toy commercial toy for the show, by Takara Tomy.

To be honest, I’m not really impressed with the way the series’ been produced, let alone its artwork. It’s not that because the artwork was anything but “clumsy”, but rather it lacks its unique appeal as compared to the 80’s classics. And because I’m such an avid old school mecha fan, I felt whole plot and content of the show was more……

“Kiddie-like”

Sure the original series was aimed for kids too. But (on a personal note) I just felt this is very wrong for new animated series to have reduced itself to a type of show where people could not fully grasp on the whole picture why Transformers G1 was made as one of the pop culture phenomenon of that decade! I mean that’s what made it special.

But this…. I’m just not too sure. Maybe I’m a bit biased?

What do you think? You’d think the new Transformers animated series live up to its expectations of the original?

Robot made out of fine wood

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:29:59 +0000

Was reading this post from AltJapan. They surely got this amazing talent of making (or should I say, crafting) robot toys. And it’s not one of those ordinary die-cast materials you would be expecting.

This time. It is made out of……

GUESS WHAT?

WOOD.

Like plain chopping wood. 0.0

Have a look below

I know it’s crazy. But it’s possible now you’re seeing them with your very own eyes. Apparently it started with this little small shop called Take G toys in the Tokyo where people can come in and order themselves a new Jumbo-sized wooden robot. However, the toys are not on sale online. But you can still view them at the exhibit that the company’s looking forward to put it on display.

The exhibition starts between 30 March and 14 April.

Before I finish off writing this post, I thought it would be nice to show the 3D video rendering all the three robots featuring in todays’ post. (see video)

Enjoy!

Source: Altjapan, Take-G

Gundam Unicorn Merchandise on the go

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:09:26 +0000

It’s been more than a week since my last post in the beginning weeks of March. It was more of friends catchup, rather than focusing on blogging work when it should be…

Nevertheless. I’m back to posts a few more interesting notes during my absence.

Whilst it came be seen here, we have plenty of Gundam Unicorn merchandise on display. Since its late February premier, people starting to come up to this shopping complex called Makuhari Complex in Tokyo. Lots of excitement are brewing all over the shopping complex with several of its toy exhibition around the complexes.

All pictures are sourced(and copyrighted) from Gundam Info.

Plenty of impressive range of Gundam UC toys to be seen.

At the end of the page there, you will find several commentators expressing their thoughts on the Gundam UC products covering everything from magazines, artworks to electronic devices and gave the public audience a good view on why they are so hot for sale!

Really neat huh?^^

Really wish I could buy the entire store all to myself, if given the crazy opportunity to do so.

Source : Gundam Info

Thinking of having a toy business?

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:29:40 +0000

Ever thought about running a toy business of your own? Does that ever come to anyone’s mind that this is a business that they could do, even though it may sound uncommon to you?

No matter what your varied opinions are on how this type of business could (or should) work, there’s one person who demonstrated her major love affair in this tin-toy business. And it’s an Australian Chinese celebrity, Claudia Chan Shaw, who’s definitely loving her robot toys like none other you can imagine! All of her toys ranging all the way to the 50s classic like characters from Lost in Space. And she also takes a great fancy with Japanese toys too, including Astro Boy!^^

Image sourced from Sydney Morning Herald

I was left amazed of how this OZ celebrity could run a toy collectable business in this industry, when the fact is that her actual profession is working in the fashion industry, making boutique knitwear for women! And she’s also running a toy business that any guy (like myself^^) would love to spend their entire life working on?

For there’s a lot of money to be made in this industry. Crazy lots.

It’s time for me to building my collection so one day I’ll end up having a closet as big as hers!

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Japan’s Population Declining… Solution: More Robots needed?

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:02:55 +0000

I was supposed to blog post this yesterday. However, had experienced major problems with my internet broadband due to an major outage around my neighbourhood, so had to leave it till now.

After reading off this Danny Choo’s newsfeed, it worries me for a long while now that Japan’s having one of the lowest birthrates in the world means they’re going to be ‘wiped’ off from this side of the planet, if the government doesn’t do something about it, at this level of urgency. And one of their proposed solution was to manufacture more robots.

Is this right? Is this way forward for Japan’s future of saving its dying population?

Here’s the Youtube documentary video link below to give you a better idea what’s being said…

Source: DannyChoo.com