Yeah I saw this and was like WTF... Interesting just last night I read about the KKK story in Freakonomics. Maybe a good way to expose secrets is to reveal them all.
interesting thoughts mr clam It looks cool but what is it about. Is it a deep arse comment or does he just like costumes? freaky p.s freakonomics was a good read I especially liked the bit about the NY zero tolerance policies.
not trying to imply anything, just weird I just read the chapter and saw this. reminds me of the giant robo remake cartoon in the early nineties with the body guards. i am sure there is background to this. lets see what Don has for us
this from datadub. "Hes a bad guy in the Cord Viper universe. Kyuni (CordViper) said he knows the problem iwth the hoods and doesn't plan to release a white version.Its loosely based on this bad guy from Kamen Rider. - he also looks like the baddy from this old Kamishibai series I love called Robot Alien X."
Yeah, totally looks like the old Shocker scientists from the first Kamen Rider series (which were, of course, basically dudes in KKK costumes). But hey, could you ask for a better villain?
haha...and these guys look loosely based from the real-life KKK. the hood could be taken as more of an executioner flavor, (a wolfman body would've been cool) but with the robe it reeks of the racist kind executioner. I can't have that one on the shelf! hits a little too close to home for my taste. pass.
the sad thing--and commentary on we in the US--is that this comic character was/is just that, another bizzaro dude in a fantasy world. but since some numb-nuts in ol' dixie decided it would be a cool way to chase away diversity, it ruined the character-scheme (white hood) forever. geez, glad they didn't dress like Zagoran!
I dig it, very Kamen Rider looking. They always try to incorporate really evil costume aspects in their bad guys, Nazis, Satanists, Inquisitors etc. Very fitting.
I'm tempted by the design, but have a question. Lulubell lists this as by Cord Viper, so why's it in the RxH section? Is there a connection there?
You guys will talk about this but not about Anraku's Glutamine...or did I miss that thread already (since I don't read the Anraku threads).
Funny, Unpainted GID is pretty close to just White. Here's another pic from kadomiumtank's site: And seems this is smaller than the previous ones out?
The KKK co-opted it from Catholic monks. When I saw the toy I thought more of Characters from the Spanish Inquisition rather than KKK. I don't know what the reference is supposed to be. (all those guys are monks)
There was a little bit of talk by some board members about how the Glutamine is too evocative of old USA racist "pickaninny" stereotypes, but that was some time ago.
Hmm, I never made either connection before it was mentioned here. Thanks for raising my awareness... I guess. Quite honestly, these are far from the worst things that I have seen out of Japan. Remember "that" Nostalgic Heroes toy? As for the toy, it's interesting to see the Cord Viper series taken in more of an action figure direction than most other new vinyl toys. Can't say that I care for the robe design, since it makes the figure seem more static. Whenever I had robed action figures as a kid, they would always sort of stand around in the background.
I remember that. I see it but it's not so DIRECT. I mean, arguably, a lot of Glutamin comes from the Qupie dolls too (spelling?) though I can see the "pickaninny" connection, though I doubt it has any meaning oustide of appreciation for the design once any substance can be stripped from it. I would have thought "KLAN!" too the first time I saw this, but also thought "Mad Monk" from Batman and assumed there had to be some henchman/villain/shocker connection before jumping to any conclusions.
It's all about context and connotations, isn't it? What might be borderline (or over the line) offensive to one person could be nothing of the sort to another, and to the next person, "racist" but an interesting collectable cultural artifact as such. I don't think this is worth tripping over too much ... if you're uncomfortable with a piece for your own reasons, that's good enough. If you're not, it's cool. I don't know anything about the origin or inspiration of the Glutamine. While I see what bothers some people (and me a little bit) I suspect it's a case of one culture projecting its discomfort about imagery on something that may have absolutely nothing to do with that history. It's hard for a historically aware American not to think about Klan hoods, but as others have already pointed out, the figure wasn't intended to depict a Klansman per se.
Oh yeah, I agree, however any American collecting THESE Japanese toys has to pull themselves into that mindset instantly. I do it almost instinctivly "what was the makers inspiration?" and from there I go.
