Kaiju are Tooooo Scary!

At least that is what Marusan thought when they first started making sofubi kaiju. When first planning they imagined the monsters would be too frightening if realistic so they decided to make them more charming, and what better influence that a chubby little cherub faced doll, Kewpie! I hope that doesn't ruin the whole monster thing for you now, it actually makes me love kiaju toys even more. Maybe thats why when I started collecting it was the Bandai figures with thier attention to detail that got me started, I didnt see alot of the Marusan and Bullmark toys around in the early '80s and when I did they were already beyone my bugdet, so I ended up with a huge shelf full of Bandai figures. But that changed not long after I found a bunch of Bullmarks tucked away in a botton shelf at a certain store in Emeryville, now if you came to my house you would be hard pressed to find a Bandai figure unless its one of the re-issue Bullmarks they have been releasing for a while now, actually I found a clear Bandai Mechagodzilla in a box yesterday I totally forgot about.

So next time you see a Kewpie give it some love, its party responsible for the vinyl madness you enjoy today.

WF Winter 2010

It was an M1号 bonanza! I dont usually use that word much but for this I had to make an exception.

Started out by getting up and 3:30 Sunday morning and waking up Scott who stayed at our place, he wasnt sure about having a pass and I knew I didnt so we figured lets tough it out and be first in line. Funny thing is that we almost weren't first in line, the train station was farther than I thought and I had the great idea to walk so we were not going to make the first train. Luckily a cab came outta nowhere and picked us up, and it turned out the drivers favorite monster is King Ghidorah, I figured we were in luck even more as our cabbie was a monster lover too. So, we made it with 3 minutes to spare and rode the 4 stops to Makuhari for WF. When the doors openend it was like that scence from Trading Places with the toilet stall doors flying open when the bells ring at the stock exchange, guys running to trade but in this case running to get hentai figures! And 2 gaijin walking to get sofubi.

Next was the 2 kilometer walk to sit in line, I thought we were way back but Scott could see the guy with a little red light leading us to where we would spend the next 5 hours waiting and as it turned out he was only about 100 feet up, whew. Not much happened after that other than us freezing and me wanting to pee but giving up until I was gonna pop so just stood there hoping I wouldnt but finally getting there and being oh sooo happy. Later Scott did get a pass he wasnt sure about so he was able to go in, but I saw where he would be when the event opened and told him I bet I get there before you (the M1 table) and sure enough, I had gone through the line before he even showed up! I think he had to pick up some stuff for someone else first though so that slowed him down.

Ok, to make this story a little shorter I will cut to the chase, Scott got some killer Yutari figure and I bought a ton of M1 and won 2 Giant Garamon so it was a great day to saty the least. The End.

Actually I had the Garamon in the middle already.