Ho. Lee. Shit. I had no fucking clue that Machine Zaurer head came off to reveal the lil dude inside! Aw, man...I'm gonna need one of these, aren't I??
I think they were made as a bit of an expansion to that Gatchapon (sp?) set. The guy in the far left is Roco, same character that Amapro did. I don't remember for sure, but I'm sure some (or all) of the releases were for Patchi Summit. I really love the sculpts.
Thanks for the info, Chris. Yes, I do recall Raco now. Its cool that Marmit is dabbling in patchi kaiju too.
Well, Marmit's been doing patchi kaiju for a while. They have a figure of pretty much every kaiju-y monster in Sekai no Kaiju.
I've always wondered whether to classify Sekai no Kaiju as patchi. Yeah, they didn't have a tv show but hey they've got a book for themselves.
This is the original Raco Sentai set from Patchi-Summit in '08. The middle guy is Raco- as 3x3 notes, same as Amapro's larger toy. Believe one of the others is Toboze (also produced by Amapro in standard size). All 5 are based on characters from vintage picture cards. The size also matches Marmit's Tiny Series figures, which are given away at various events.
Very true...but the characters aren't licensed, right? I mean, *I* could make a Zagora toy if I wanted to...and I assume that makes it qualify as "patchi"...
Why wouldn't the rights to the character be owned by the author/artist? The book was authored by Nakaoka Toshiya, and the illustrations done by one or more artists (i.e., Kajita, who did the Bagun illustration). EDIT: Oops, Kaijita-sensei, not Fujita.
Marmit ( Target Earth) licensed the rights for the Bagun figure from one of the artist of the book. http://toykarma.blogspot.com/2008/06/bagun.html Rights to these guys have been heavily discussed...as a matter of fact the myth that the og Zags and Mightins were bootlegs or produced without obtaining rights, was sort of debunked when Mark K. posted a catalog referencing the figures being made from the published works of Nakaoka Toshiya which akum6n thankfully translated. What the licensing terms were is anyone guess but he is acknowledged in the original Daikyo catalog. More here... viewtopic.php?f=30&t=13537&p=428864&hilit=Nakaoka+Toshiya#p428864
I'm pissed I missed the first version. I can't imagine that's going to be easy to track down. I'll take some more pics this weekend to share.
I had pretty much all my old "Vinyl Paradise" Marmits in boxes until I started unpacking everything to shoot photos. What was I thinking? The first-generation Marmits are wonderfully goofy. They're a nice size too, between standard and giant sizes. I bought these suckers every time I visited Kimono My House in the nineties. It wasn't until I took these shots that I realized I have a pretty big chunk of the Vinyl Paradise series. I love how these guys all come from the same basic body sculpt:
I agree I really like how portly most of them are. I've got one of the bird ones (not portly) and the texture on it is so great. I just wish they had flasyer colors. I really like this one.
