Two artists out of Hong Kong, Ian and Jona, have created a grotesque creature known as the Maggore. She is a maggot monster, with a story as beautifully ugly as she, and I really, really enjoy this toy. I know a lot of collectors are tired of the gross out, macabre, horror type toys, but I feel like this one placates to my 80's horror vibe quite well, and the back story to its inception only adds onto it. I immediately got a Cronenberg feel, a la The Fly. Backstory, concept idea, directly from its creators, and photos below! Toy lovingly borrowed from @plastichunter! Maggore concept: Spoiler Maggore, the aborted baby that got flushed into the dark and filthy toilet coldly by her parents. Expected to be gone, she was raised by the maggots in the sewer, her body deformed after consuming nasty stuff in the sewer. However in there she found another filthy paradise with new friends. Her name came from the people who witnessed the horror scene from the toilet. The huge maggot and gore... Maggore... Some says she lurks in the damp darkness in the toilet, awaiting to seek for the long lost parents. The sound of female yelling reminds the voice of the parents who ditched her, which explains why its usually couples who will find maggore crawls out from the toilet... Brand concept: Spoiler Jona: When I was a child, I’m not sure when but just one day I started to see weird distorted humanoid faces, these faces started to get more and more realistic over the years and I even started to hear voices calling my name. I didn’t tell anyone because I believed that what I saw is supernatural being and I believe that there’s nothing I can do but to be afraid and try to ignore what I see and hear, those horrible distorted faces with huge eyes, long straight nose and a broken mouth. Until sometimes during high school I started to have memory lost and sudden black outs, I told my parents that I should see a doctor, and they tested that I have temporal lobe epilepsy which is a brain epilepsy that is very easily triggered and can happen many times within an hour. My doctor suggested me to sketch out my nightmares to conquer it, as a therapy and after drawing them daily for many years, I have finally conquered it, I have no fear of those horrible distorted faces, I can keep track of my memory lost, I can keep up and live a normal life. That’s the main inspiration for me to create maggore, to use sofubi as a medium to let others feel my nightmares that I have faced for years, and after a discussion with my partner who’s also my childhood best friend Ian, we came up with the idea to combine both of our phobias to create Maggore, which is maggots + the distorted humanoid face. The brand name Trash talk toys actually means that all of our ideas are created through talking trash, talking about everything since we are very close friends, we talk everyday even when we are separated as I have moved to Australia from Hong Kong many years ago.
To echo the sentiments above (more or less): NOT my cup o' tea. The brand name is certainly fitting though!
I knew posting it here would be met with relatively harsh criticisms, but it’s cool! I’m not negating anyone’s opinion, but rather welcome the discussions! Personally, I like this toy a lot. Not only for the aforementioned reasons I’d made, but also because Jona’s hallucinations are what brought this creature’s concept to reality. That’s a pretty gnarly way to formulate and design a character.
Maybe! Maybe not! I’m a fan of it, so I can’t really say that matters to me. I understand the few point, though. There’s some highly coveted toys, that, to me, don’t look like too much time or thought went into them, but because there’s a fan base it kind of makes my outlook moot.
It's going to probably take me awhile to appreciate this toy. Maybe I'll change my tune once a few more color variants pop up.
I'd like to see more pictures preferably in a different color to really get a feel for the sculpt. I don't hate it and reading the story I'm glad it doesn't look more like a baby. I'm curious, if you lean it forward does it stand on the little legs and look kind of like a maggot? Regardless though for a 6 inch toy $120 bucks is significantly more than I would pay especially for something without paint.
At 6", it's $120?! Is it made in China too? I don't know, so I can't say for these artists, but what is it with so many of these Chinese vinyl makers where the overhead is much cheaper than having them made in Japan, yet on average, they're asking for much more than the sofubi makers? it's a big turn off for me. If I ever have anything made in China, one of the benefits, to me, would be the ability to have a lower price point.
it would have been better if they hadn't included the wall of blah,cos that nonsense just makes a bad 'toy' look even worse. Horrible on every level.
I'm going to probably get slapped for this but... I sort of like it. Not that I would ever buy it, but the story is oddly cute in a dark way, and the character itself is just so happy and goofy-looking. It's like it's utterly oblivious to how fucked up it is. It reminds me of The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Alice in Wonderland's hookah smoking caterpillar, lol. You may now proceed to beat me with bats and prod me with pitchforks.
Both would've been way cooler! Aborted fetus purely for 'shock value' and to pad out a lame backstory . . . not so much!
I've talked to several people making toys in china and you'd be surprised how expensive it has become, practically the same price as Japan and some guys are even spending more. You tend to have a much quicker turn around there but they also seem to be plagued by inconsistencies In the quality of vinyl sometimes having to disgard a big chunk of the pulls. Anyway it's not the cheap option people think it is.
@Waterbear The way it’s sitting in the photos is pretty much its resting position, as the bottom of that particular area is flat. I do get a very maggotty feel for it, regardless. @hellointerloper Funnily enough, they did a Very Hungry Caterpillar version for Fuckaiju this past weekend, and it’s pretty fun! @Anti Social Andy I don’t think the baby factor was for shock value, so much as it’s another part of Jona’s hallucinations. He also used to see babies all around where there were none, so I think he might’ve simply intertwined that into horror aspect of the character. Not to say that necessarily makes it better for anyone, but I rather enjoy that backstory aspect, and appreciate where the Maggore comes from. @boon velvet Joe certainly is correct with his points made. I have spoken with some Chinese artists, and because of both upping in quality for their particular vinyl, as well as such fast turnaround times, they are at times charged quite a bit, sometimes even more than Japanese factories. But as he also mentioned, some of the pulls aren’t the greatest, but artists are left with ‘em anyway, and also still paying for it.
I think the right paint job could make a big difference with this guy. Conceptually it's just so close to the Velocitron Berserk creepy baby...
@JoeMan, @xSuicide Squadx, I figured it would turn at some point with the amount coming out of that region. Well that makes me feel better about the pricing as a whole. I don't know if I'll ever become comfortable with a 6" run of blanks priced @ $120ea. though. Yeeaah, I first heard about the waste toys on here a few years back while having a conversation in response to my negative Nutipati review (for anyone who didn't read it, it was in response to the horrible quality of the toy, not any issue with the toy design). An artist then shared their producing thru China experience, which included the need for sifting through new arrivals to separate the bad from the good. But it was also during the beginning stages of this China vinyl movement. Sad that it's no better now.
Well, if there's anything positive to come out of this thread/toy, it's that absolutely anyone can achieve their dreams of making a sofubi toy if they have enough money...