Unpopular opinions about toys

Something else I was thinking about mash-ups and forced homages ...

I think newcomers to the hobby would see my dislike for toys like that as being grumpy, or a gatekeeper trying to spoil people's fun. For example, the recent 'Kaiju Cream Hedorah', which is a heddy-head poking out of a bowl of ice cream. Now, I've not got anything against it really, it's fine. But it just seems so uninspired. Slap a famous characters head onto something else. Just like Kaws slaps X's onto other people's creations.

Bootlegs do this sort of thing all the time, but most bootlegs are cheap. Most bootlegs don't get displayed in galleries. Personally, I think if you're going to go to all the trouble and expense of sculpting and producing sofubi, then at least try to make it original. Something that reflects you as an artist. Stop going for the low-hanging fruit and take a chance. Practically anything you come up with will be better than another boring mash-up. Even half the fugly thread is better than most mash-ups, at least a lot of fugly sofubi is original, godawful, but original

 

I think soft vinyl doesn't taste very good. Maybe it's the texture. I also find the high pitched screams irritating when you put them on the stove to boil.

 

I love it, but I have to admit it's a nightmare to photograph properly.

I have to say I'm not a fan of the Meatz style marbling either. Even on sculpts I admire. It just has that serial killer vibe some of the fugly toys have, the gross-out trying to be edgy vibe. The horror vibe. I've never associated sofubi with straight horror or torture porn. Sofubi should be fun, no matter how scary!

 

So with the homages thing, for the people with that gripe does it count if the character is not new, but also not a current pop culture fixture or already famous soft vinyl character?

For example, I've always wanted to see the classic illustrations from Wizard of Oz brought to life as soft vinyl toys, especially the head-butting guys from the end of the book. This would be like plucking a character from a more obscure manga or anime, which I think happens from time to time with some makers.

Is this kind of thing irritating or tired? Or is it a better version of an homage?


https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/w-w-denslow-illustrations-wonderful-wizard-of-oz-1900/

 

Unpopular opinions, I have a few!
1. I don't like unpainted black toys.
2. All toys are better in neon pinks, greens, blues, and purples.
3. I always prefer marbled vinyl in theory, although that's changed a little.
4. GTFOH with all those horror toys and Chinese vinyl.
5. Usually one of a single sculpt is good enough. I have a few sofubi that I have 3-4 variants. I don't get buying 50 of the same toy. As a result, I also skip many toys that I would like, because I have/want one specific version only.
6. If I stopped collecting tomorrow, I'd still enjoy what I have now. I too am pretty bored with the current deluge of toys and probably buy less sofubi every year.
7. Bring back Conifas!

 

my Secretbase collection feels attacked. lol.


That being said I don’t care for blank black unpainted either. I like colorful.

 

Unpopular opinion- There should be more splatter versions of toys.

 

Not really my Jam. But I don't think the concept is bad at all. I'd take this a thousand times before I can stomach another mickey homer or spongebob rip. And I love Homer and spongebob.

 

I think they can be very polarizing. If under the right light with other unpainted blacks of various sculpts, it can be a very subtle good looking display. But if sprinkled along other painted ones in a regular display situation, they definitely can come across as a dark blob.

This I can totally get behind though. Brighter is better!

 

I wish gas was 2 dollars a gallon again. A junior bacon cheeseburger at Wendy’s was still 99 cents. Mortgage rates were 2.5 again. A case of Coke was still 3 bucks. I wish you didn’t have to drop 6 thousand usd to make a toy in Japan, just for a newb factory hand to melt away half your detail in the wax and shrink your parts non-uniformly, and then wait 6 more months for thin vinyl figures. But that’s the world we live in.

 

1.) I very much disliked the marbled meat colorway until I saw it in person. First one I saw was the Sarujirushi Shin Goji at Wonderfest, and immediately surprised myself how much I liked it. Picked one up and then followed that up with a pair of Galaxy People Sensorbats done the same. I could see someone who did like it putting together a pretty fun display with an old minifridge and a bunch of meat sofubi. I also saw someone package a toy with the foam tray and plastic wrap and thought that was fun / novel.

2.)

Gotta admit, that I take waaaay too few photos of my stuff (or do I...), but totally agree here. I see so many pictures of people with seemingly interesting collections and they never post / talk about their stuff other than what seems to be the flavor of the week.

I can't fault someone for getting what they can for their toy, but man I am appreciative of people who offer their stuff at a reasonable price. Galaxy People are my favorite toys and I'm constantly surprised how cheaply he sells his stuff for in comparison to other toys ($68 for a brand new 10" sculpt!). Especially stuff from new makers that are releasing their first toy or two.

3.)

This didn't bother me at all until I saw it pointed out a few times. Now I give things a bit more critical eye, just taking more time to really admire / see what's going on, and I tend to agree now. Something about asymmetry really adds to the toy.

4.) Mashups / homages are a really interesting one. I hate some and love others. I personally really think the Kaiju cream toy is super fun! Where does one draw the line on something like this. Toygraph Racers seem to be incredibly popular here. I'd be over the moon to see this in the style of a Toygraph Racer: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CinoaLFJ8FD/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

But would this just wind up being "just another mashup toy" or would folks love it because it invokes the racers?

5.) This has been covered elsewhere and wouldn't isn't unpopular, but I just don't fucking get the need / desire / the whatever of including Nazi iconography on a toy. I replied to an instagram post of a maker co-opting the SS logo into SSS. I asked why use the logo and what SSS stood for. The maker DM'd me and tried to gaslight me saying that 2 S are different than 3 S and sent me some gentile swastika bullshit. Then told me to unfollow if I don't like it. Never did clarify what the SSS stood for (nothing I could connect to the toy or the maker), so I did, but what the fuck...I just don't understand...

For a couple of probably really unpopular opinions

6.) I don't particularly care where a toy is made (Japan vs X). I came waaaay to late to this collecting scene to plant any sort of flag on Japanese vinyl being the definitive. (Although I do really enjoy learning about the process / history). A good toy is a good toy no matter where it's made.

7.) The Hawaii colorway is overrated. I don't hate it, but there's a bunch of better color combos and it lives off of reputation.

7.) There's not enough scenery / playsets / accessories with sofubi. Too many toys exist in a vacuum. Build out a world already why don'tcha. I'm thinking Astro-Mu 5 here. The line had a playmat, mini-vehicles for the figures to ride, missiles that could fire, removable helmets, armor and weapons. Just more stuff to bring a world alive.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

 

I think it was used a lot because of the ease in which it took to marble. The contrast in colors made work so well that many were able to replicate it. It was definitely early on in the new wave of marble from many factories. But yeah years later I think it’s ran its course.

Marbles today feel like a very nice way to make sure they are original and less likely to ripped. As way for makers to still make blanks and feel safe for their fans.

 

I'll take it a step further - blanks are boring. The only blanks that I have (and thus, not boring ) are the M-Pop Marusan Godzilla series - together they look amazing and make sense. Individually they'd be boring. But flesh blanks are the most boring.

 

Interesting, that example isn't really how I would define a "mashup".

An ice cream sunday just isn't a specific enough thing to trigger any of my alarms. Maybe it's not a super revolutionary idea, as Hedorah is already melty looking, but I guess it almost fits in that effortless category where it just feels like a logical fit. As if it always should have existed. I don't need to own one, but the execution on those was great, so I enjoy that they exist.

To me, a "mashup" is like two (or, god help us, MORE) recognized intellectual properties combined together into a single piece. Like the Cookie Monster head on a Godzilla body figures somebody makes. Is that more of a "crossover" in your mind? Either way, I've started to find most of whatever THAT shit is, to just be super obnoxious (even outside the realm of toys). Things that have virtually nothing to do with each other being forced to fit into together. I blame the likes of tee-fury, and all those shirt companies for doing every possible TMNT logo font + every other big 80s nostalgia property combo people could think of. The LOWEST hanging fruit.

Another *type* of mashup leads to something I have started to not like as much in toys, and might be considered an unpopular opinion about sofubi:
Painting a toy like a different character even though they have NOTHING to do with each other, design-wise. I like Longneck Ooze-its, but SO many of them feature some random cartoon character's colors splaaated over the top, with just nothing to do with the sculpt itself. It's less bothersome when the colors might pay more of a passing nod to a distinct character's color palette, and the colors are applied to compliment the toy's sculpted features. Maybe that just sounds like I'm some sort of "paint inside the lines" toy fascist. But, whatever! I get that having the paints totally ignoring the sculpt is the point. But it often looks like trash to me.

 

hmm, one is a giant monster who's name translates to sludge, slime, vomit or chemical ooze. The other is a delicious bowl of ice cream.

I'm not sure what 'execution' you're talking about either. They just slapped a heddy-head into a bowl of ice cream. They could of done that with any type of food. In fact, it's already been done on a pizza slice. Hardly food that is difficult to sculpt.

I take your point about the intellectual parties bit, though. But I still see it as a lazy idea.

 

Basically just mean the quality of the sculpt. It retains a rather classic soft vinyl-ized approach with smooth details, simple readable forms, and very consistent application of those elements throughout. Even down to how the dish was stylized.

Well, it's certainly a forgiving texture in some ways, yet kinda difficult to keep the goopiness evenly distributed. It's hard to explain, and every sculptor probably has their own feelings on what things are more difficult to pull off. I've seen some attempts at goopy stuff that gets sorta squirrelly, where all the goobs become excessive, resulting in meaningless static.

But yeah, they could have made it an ice-cream cone, a candy apple, or whatever. Who knows why the NannerSplit specifically seems to have resonated with people. One of those strange anomalies, I guess. Maybe it's luck, maybe it was design choices, or both.

Hey man, I agree, it's nothing ground breaking! I guess "lazy" is one way to see it. Sometimes "effortless" feels like a more fair way to phrase that for me. Some stuff just clicks into place, and it's almost praiseworthy when somebody doesn't over-complicate it, and just go with what flows. Leaf on the wind 'n stuff.

Perhaps part of the issue is that it became the new "it" toy? It's just simply pleasant but not "worthy" of quite so much praise and fuss? I certainly feel that way about MANY things. It's like trying to predict what meme will go viral next.

 

I hate the term AMERIFUBI.

 

If an American came up with this term then it is twice as hatable.

 

I've never heard that term before, but I have heard MEXIFUBI.

 

I want to clarify my stance a bit by saying symmetrical sculpts can be okay when they depict something that is manufactured, like a robot or a spaceship, but when I see a perfectly symmetrical pattern in fur or scales, I can never un-see it. Living things have an inherent randomness and messiness to them, so sculpts of them should have this quality, too.

Agreed. I can give a little leeway to someone outside of America or Europe who doesn't have the context for a Swastika or other Nazi iconography like SS-style lighting bolts or a totenkopf-style skull, or some other reference to World War 2-era Germany. I have no idea what some maker in mainland China, Thailand, etc. has learned about that time and the impact of that symbology and what the context is for them. I would hope that their contemporaries that do have a perspective on it could educate them and hopefully they would reassess.

Here in present-day America, though, everyone should have a good understanding by now that the resurgence of white nationalists is a real and present threat. If you are using those symbols and words in 2023, you are knowingly spreading something deliberately hateful. We should all have zero tolerance for that bullshit.

 

one time i posted a toy i was excited about on instagram, a dork then bought all the others i was missing in the series and tried to use them as trade bait for me to give him other rare stuff in my collection.

 

I thought we said this would remain our secret…

 

You are not alone. Same shit happened to me a few years back after posting in the ‘WANTED’ forum! Trying to lever a trade is the ultimate in lameness!