Yamanaya has a four part series about Bullmark minis on their site: http://yamanaya.sakura.ne.jp/miniworld/index.html http://yamanaya.sakura.ne.jp/miniworld/02.html http://yamanaya.sakura.ne.jp/miniworld/03.html http://yamanaya.sakura.ne.jp/miniworld/04.html
Whole bunch of articles on Bullmark minis on the Robot Robot blog: http://www.robotrobot2.com/?cat=23
Came across this mini Saigo on Mandarake: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order...ispAdult=0&soldOut=1&keyword=ブルマァク ミニ&lang=en I was recently watching Eiji Kaminaga's interview of Saburo Ishizuki and Ishizuki-san mentioned how some Bullmark minis had high defect rates when they were pulled from the molds. I wonder if Saigo was one of these. Also, out of stock, but so expensive: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order...ref=list&dispAdult=0&keyword=ブルマァク ミニ&lang=en
Beautiful group Dave. I really like the Taro with the gold paint, really cool look. Ill have to track one down.
Not that i know of, Gigas is shown on the Yamanaya packaging but as far as i know it hasn't been issued in any of the sets so far or as a single.
This is the only original/reissue pair I have right now, but there is a pretty drastic size difference with Skydon.
I have Hyper Hobby Dash 6, which was published in 2001. It shows Yamanaya Bullmark mini sets A through F. Did they ever do a set G or beyond?
Answering my own question, sets G and H: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1135147142&ref=alist&lang=en https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1142458303&ref=alist&lang=en Wonder if I'll ever be able to find all of these sets.
Yeah I think those ones stopped at H, not seen an I set. Also when they released the reprint Leo Kaiju sets they started at A again.
Yeah I'm not too sure if they did come from the same mould. I read somewhere that the mini Dorako mould was lost but they made a new mould from an existing figure. Though I have no idea how this is possible it's hard to believe they resculpted as it is almost identical but larger. They even have the same small tool marks etc.
I sent my picture of the original and reissue Skydon to Kaminaga-san at Marusan, who talked to Yamana-san about it. He said the Yamanaya reissues of the minis were produced from master molds. When the original toys were manufactured by Bullmark's factories, many production molds were made from copies of copies of the original sculpts, which resulted in figures that were progressively smaller.
@djkemp - Dave, I am glad to see he arrived safely (and much faster than the last parcel). It is quite surprising how soft and squishy some of the later Bullmark variants are compared to their earlier incarnations. I have observed this with both the mini and mid-size toys. I was wondering if it was the quality of the vinyl being used.
I would say the dark green Anguirus I have is somewhat squishy like most others, but the two light green Anguirus I have handled have both been noticeably more squishy. I have also noticed this with other variants like the mid-size Mechagodzilla where the standard black/silver spray versions are somewhat squishy, but the metallic teal spray versions are very squishy. Perhaps they were made at a different factory.
