Hirota Saigansho: Gorilla-ju, Mecha Gorilla-ju, & Others

I'll be thinking about this for a while

 

Hoarding is chaotic, unrelentless collecting

 

very true, and even though what we do can sure be a level of chaos at times... my " Toy Room" for lack of better term ( I hate man cave)... is nowhere near what I have seen on Hoarders.

 

juddapatow
"This book is a bunch of bullshit!!!! I am fine!!!!! It’s not hoarding if all your shit is awesome."

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Hoarding is kind of the wrong word for it...I'm conflating like 3 different issues. Being an "insider" or "outsider" (and the mentalities that go along with it) is probably the best way to talk about it. But there is something to be said for thinking about what you like channeling your impulses--building your collection slowly rather than binge/purge cycles (equally true for music gear, books and records etc). My favorite pieces from the 00s are all still in my collection (except a few sadly lost in chaotic moves) and most of them are on shelves around my place. I gave away a bunch of toys at one point when I needed to cut back but have sold very few--nothing wrong with selling when you "move on" or need money, but my aesthetics haven't changed much and I'm doing ok financially. Honestly I wouldn't know how to make money from selling toys anyway and they'd probably languish on eBay.

A lot of "insiders" I'm sure are delightful people, but by definition I don't think they can relate to other collectors. Being able to talk freely about toymakers or any artists I think is healthy. No one should have to adopt a deferential attitude to a creator in order to preserve access to their work (access that is conferred based on wealth or socioeconomic status, or "knowing the right people"--in other words, luck). As long as you have some access, flippers are the enemy. When you have zero access, they become a kind of secondary ally in the shadow of kind internet friends and board members.

 

This is fantastically worded.

 

Always felt that way about art. It's meant to be enjoyed. Collectors who value owning more than showing are compulsive and fickle. Not a good audience to cater to.

 

Wouldn't that depend greatly on the 'artist's' intent and motivation?

If their goal is financial success, the counterpoint would be they are catering to exactly the audience they should be.

 

Sorry bud but you got this ass backwards. Collectors who value owning more than showing are not catering to anyone but their own interests, and are thus inherently less fickle. Who cares about a trend if no one is seeing the toy to begin with, but the owner?

 

I think Chris may have got them mixed up, that's all

 

One would hope!

 

I’d really, really like to get my hands on the new Kikaider/Hakaider pair but no chance in hell it seems without being able to physically pick them up.

 

You can always ask a friend to pick it up for you.

 

About a million bucks about to spill willingly from 250 people’s pockets. For a plaything freshly made at a factory by laborers no doubt (seeing as Hirota most certainly isn’t making these new things).

A bubble indeed.

 

I don’t know about a million, seems like it’s $2,500. At least he’s being open about the price. Usually when he’s not, that’s when you’re looking in the $10k+ range.

Surprised to hear him say that this is always where he’s wanted to end up. I’m sure there are quicker ways to have achieved this than to take the sofubi to Hot Toys pipeline.

 

Run of 250 * 385,000円 each = 96,250,000円

If it weren’t for the exchange rate, that’s the classical definition of almost a million dollars.

 

Oh, I don’t know why I thought you initially meant per toy. I guess that’s just where my heads at with this artist.

But… I can’t help but have to comment again on the million dollar thing (I’m so annoying!). Exchange rates are real, so it’s looking more like he’s going to walk away with closer to half a mil. Bummer!

 

Depending on production costs still quite a pay day.

So am I reading right that these are metal?

 

Let’s see…
Die-cast, ABS, PVC, POM, LED, magnets

He might not be making much on this at all…

 

Yeah sounds pretty elaborate. He doesn't seem to ever cut corners when it comes to quality.

The description called to mind the Micronauts Force Commander Mego from the late 70s. Anyone else?

 

Zollmen just did something metal for 250USD.

He charged a premium for his vinyl; it is no more to make a toy for him, than it is for any other toy maker. I’m sure he’s following the same approach here, likely charging even more.

Not hating, just stating my thoughts on the pricing. I think it’s really cool, I’ll hold out hope he makes a cheap revoltech version for us pleebs.

 

I wonder who is producing it and the math behind the production cost and margin. We will obviously never know the specifics. A price of maybe $250-300 seems normal for a gokin doll, or a Metal Build Gundam, and I've always imagined those runs are in the low thousands. So bizarrely, $2k for a run of 250 makes sense to me?

I will not be buying obviously

Edit--

Zollmen was my first point of reference here too. I could imagine the run sizes being pretty similar in the end, maybe double or triple at most. Complexity does seem lower for the Zollmen; there are screw holes on the back and the joints are very limited. Most of the 10x increase in price is probably not down to product cost, but really I have no idea. I'm kind of shocked we're seeing a sofubi design with hip and shoulder joints, for example.

 

Oh, there's a video on his story with the articulation; I saved it. Looks pretty cool, actually way more than I was expecting. The ab crunch in particular is very "whole nine yards", very little motion possible with this kind of design so it would have been easy to leave it out.

While I find the prospect very exciting, I've owned enough gokin to know this isn't for me... and that final production quality could really be all over the shop. For $2k I could not live with the headache of loose joints, taking toys apart, handling with gloves, etc

For your viewing pleasure
https://imgur.com/a/1eXhCCV

Looking at it again, I think the fingers are poseable too by the way.

 

My comment about Hot Toys was, besides the insane articulation here, because it comes with multiple hands in different poses, as well as fire blasts for action shots. I think he’s left the realm of sofubi here.

There was a recent discussion about toys with multiple materials incorporated, I forget where. This one might take the cake!

 

It was probably no small feat to get this made, however I can imagine one really needs to love this artist and love die-cast toys to pay that much to own one.

You could also get one of these for 1/10th of the price: https://tamashiiweb.com/item/14903/