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Post by xiombarg on Jan 29, 2008 17:08:06 GMT -5
I remember distinctly the first time I saw my first Godaikin. I was roughly six years old and it was Combattler. It blew my mind. I remember standing in the toy department of ZCMI and staring in unbelief as it sat high above my head on the very highest shelf. I almost could not believe it was a toy. The size was beyond any toy I had seen up to that point in my life, but the gattai action of having multiple spaceships was an overload to my young toy lust. It was like the ultimate vision of toydom that was forever burned into my brain, but even then I knew that it was more than could ever possibly be asked for. The closest I ever got were Shogun Warriors.
So now I'm wondering who of you guys actually had one of these early peices of toy legend? And what was it like to get this thing? Did you freak out? Did you ask for it? And when you got it were you stunned or was this type of a "toy" a normal thing in your family?
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Post by whatj on Jan 29, 2008 17:51:58 GMT -5
The closest I came was my mom bought me a Daitarn 3 for Christmas I didnt know who he was but I loved him she also bought me a jumbo Godzilla on clearance in 1981 or 82 my all time favorite toys...
Like you I was always in ah of the toy shelves with the robots stacked to the roof but the ones I wanted most were the 2 in 1s probly because of the Force Five cartoons sadly I never got any of the 2 in 1s till I was grown...
WhatJ
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Post by sketcher on Jan 29, 2008 18:23:17 GMT -5
Didn't get too many of the larger pieces, but I did have quite a few of the ST sized Popy pieces and the like. I grew up in the SF Bay Area, and my grandmother used to like to go to the city and take me along. We would feed the ducks on Stow Lake or go to the zoo, or some other type of day trip, but my favorite trips always included a stop in China Town or Japan Town where I could go into the shops that carried all of these wonderful toys. Whenever we did this, I would be allowed to pick a moderately priced gokin or a set of vinyl toys to take home with me. I wish I still had some of those toys. I guess the memories of the time are the best part for me. Later on, when the Shogun Warriors line came to the US, you could buy some of the toys in almost any store, but they were never as cool or special as the real Japanese language packaging and the factor of only being able to pick them up in the city at a few unique places. Oh how I miss those days.
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Post by lurkerx on Jan 29, 2008 22:17:19 GMT -5
I too received my 1st and only godaikin when I was 6. Voltes V was ridiculously popular in the Phil. during the 70's prior to it being banned. I was buying into everything Voltes V: Hotdogs, coloring books, stickers, school bag you name it ;D Then a classmate of mine brought his DX Voltes V to school one day, the bugger wouldn't even let me touch it. Since then I hounded my dad for one. Shortly before my 6th birthday he had a business trip to Hong Kong. Sure enough I got my Volt in Box Voltes V on my birthday ;D Me and my Voltes V have had some great battles together. To this day I still have him all battered, beaten, incomplete and everything.
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Post by jrcrunch on Jan 30, 2008 0:08:08 GMT -5
When I was 5 or 6, bioman was very popular in PI. I asked for a bio robo to my uncle... He gave me the ST version. I was very happy with it.... I'll admit that I didnt take good care of it that well but I kept in a organized area and displayed it. Then he is missing,,not sure if my dad gave it away when he cleared my toy area.. fastfoward to 2004, i kinda miss that toy and doublecheck our stockroom.. no sign of it. check ebay and joined rj..then learned of Godaikin DX robots. I fell in love with the DX bioman and and buy it to replace my missing ST version hehehhe... but I would still love to get the ST version someday for memories sake
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Post by Dragonclaw on Jan 31, 2008 2:27:56 GMT -5
My first GoDaiKin was a Christmas gift, Tetsujin 28 (Yeah, heck of a way to start!)...I soon got a paper route and literally all my $$$ went to fuelling the early collector fire (I was 13) I think that if my mom knew how far the hoby was going to take me she never would have bought it...
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Post by hellric on Jan 31, 2008 7:02:47 GMT -5
I got Daltanius (name in french) and Daimos from Popy/Bandai when I was about 10. At these times, toy shops here were fun, you had people to explain you how to transform and to play, etc. I still remember when my mom bought them to me as one of my best souvenirs of that age. They are actually the reason why I'm here. I was amazed, especially by Daltanius and I still got this one. I sold Daimos last year, but I'll keep Daltanius.
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Post by jwm on Jan 31, 2008 11:52:17 GMT -5
Well, I wasn't exactly a kid (I was 25), but the first time I saw Combattler I reacted about the same as the rest of you guys. It was at Toys International, an upscale toy store long since out of business. I had bought a couple of Popy toys already, GA79 Dangard, and GA81 Daitetsujin17. I remember Tony, the clerk there showing me the gattai, and I just went nuts. But the damn thing was way too expensive, almost a hundred bucks at a time when my month's rent was a hundred and twenty five. I thought about buying it one module at a time, but I figured if I did that I ran the risk of someone else buying one of the pieces. Make a long story short- I said the hell with it, and bought it anyway. But when I got home with the five boxes I discovered that the tip of one of the antennae on the head was broken. And they didn't have another one to exchange back at the store. Major bummer! But there was a sticker on the box from Marukai Trading Company, the folks who were importing the Popy, Bullmark, Takara lines. I looked up the address, and sent them a letter. Several weeks later they sent me a replacement unit. I still have it.
JWM
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Post by corellianvette on Jan 31, 2008 18:29:30 GMT -5
Transformers, yes. Shogun Warriors (Jumbo and Die Cast), yes. Godaikins - no, unfortunately. It's strange because I distinctly remember seeing them in the stores and having no interest in them - mostly because I didn't know who they were. However, I *did* go on a massive hunt in 7th grade for a Voltron when the show first came out. I saw someone on the playground with one of the Lions, so I knew a toy was available. Must have been the GoLion because this was well before the Matchbox version game out. I called every store on the planet and finally found a LionBot at the local Asian grocery store (?) I had no idea about GoLion/LionBot so I just figured I got the "Japanese" version. I *loved* that toy and still have it to this day. It's beat all to hell because I *played* with that figure and it eventually got a teenage quality repaint because of all the chips and chrome wear. It's quite a sight to behold
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Post by henshin75 on Jan 31, 2008 19:53:06 GMT -5
Man,you're so lucky indeed. I couldn't afford one at that time due to my family's financial problems , Godaikin? nahhhhh, didn't dare to think bout it. The only toys I have at those time were some cheap Taiwan bots, but they did their job very well. I didn't care wether they're godaikin or not at that time, I just played with them, simple as that. But now .... I WANT TO TAKE MY SWEET REVENGE !!!!
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Post by admin1 aka Ed on Jan 31, 2008 23:11:49 GMT -5
Goggle V. It had the most diecast and the best price point Ed
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Post by lurkerx on Feb 1, 2008 7:19:43 GMT -5
Speaking of Voltron, I distinctively remember wanting that, at around my 7th grade as well. There was a street vendor right out side my school selling the whole set or by piece whichever you could afford. At that time, my family had also been going through hard times [my dad had passed away and my mother & uncle were taking over the family business they didn't do a good job at filling in], so I never ended up getting one. I had also wanted the G1 Optimus & Megatron, never got one. When I was 16 years of age, my family moved to North America. I immediately got a part-time job working at an antique store. Down the street from the antique store there was a comic store unloading their "dead-weight" stock of godaikin for $9.99 a pop. They had Voltron and Daltanius needless to say I got both in a heart beat, even though it costed 4hrs of work [almost a day's work]. I was making, a modest $5/per hour ;D ;D ;D Of course, I threw away all the missles, the boxes and just kept the bots with some accesories to save space, both are in reasonable fantastic shape with just some minor chrome-wear, as a teenage I didn't really play with them very much. As for their current market value..... The G1 Optimus & Megatron, I got much later and paid "an arm & a leg" for them, this was before ebay had caught on and the retail stores were grossly taking advantage of collectors. When you think of what we go through to arrive at where we are today as Jp Bot collectors its just pretty neat. And inherently from the "get-go" we've been destined to be "Jp bot collectors". Its also neat how most all our stories are pretty similar and that it was mostly "youth deprivation" which fueled our current collecting desires.
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Post by Ben-Ohki on Feb 1, 2008 9:29:14 GMT -5
At first I wasn't going to post, but since the thread header is in the form of a question... The answer is "no." I did not have a Godaikin as a child. As an Asian kid growing up in small-town Canada, the only exposure I had to my culture was from import video tapes traded between my folks and my family's friends. I think I mentioned this before. Anyway, the "biggest" toy I had were from when my grandmother spoiled me rotten on a trip to Hong Kong. I got the DX BF Robo with the Battleshark. And well, it's in pieces now. It occurs to me from reading this thread that I'm actually a bit younger than a few of you guys. The big die-cast Voltron came out when I was only in grade 5 (I think). There was, of course, the requisite rich-kid in the neighbourhood who had it and I got to play with it because I happened to be his best friend. But I did not have the nerve to ask my parents for one. Same went for Vehicle Voltron (which that kid also had). It's this kind of background that leads into my late-teens when I started making my own money... A combination of new-found independence and the emergeance of eBay, I started buying up DX sentai sets. Some of them are still in great shape... some not so much (sadly, when I unpacked my Mega Voyager this year for inspection, Mega V1 was cracked and his head is currently stuck inside Mega V3). Oh well. He was never mint to begin with. Back then I also bought that ridiculously expensive Optimal Optimus. So anyway, while I didn't necessarily have all the toys I lusted for as a kid, it hardly matter now, does it?
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Post by xiombarg on Feb 1, 2008 11:48:06 GMT -5
This gets me thinking of the early days of eBay, which really wasn't that long ago.. But it almost seems rediculous now that we all would buy stuff based upon text descriptions only! Of course back in those days, one mega pixel cameras cost about $500. Pricing sure has stabilized with collectables. I remember bids being so random. A given gokin could sell for thousands of dollars, way above market value, or be way under valued too. It was pretty exciting though. I couldn't really buy gokin while I was going full time in college, but I would buy other things occasionally, and I remember getting these packages based upon text descriptions and the thrill of edgey excitement of opening the box to see whether you got ripped off, or whether the description was correct etc. When it comes to collector market values, eBay has been one of the best executed phenomenoms of the whole birth of the internet.
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Post by drakepasha72 on Feb 3, 2008 2:53:00 GMT -5
I got Google V, Voltron Vehicle, Golion and God Sigma.
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Post by REX-203 on Feb 4, 2008 23:37:04 GMT -5
Godaikins came out just a couple of years before my time, but I remember seeing a few in a specialty toy store as a kid. I thought they were neat, but didn't understand what any of them turned into. At age 7 in 1984, I was obsessed with TFs and had no understanding of the traditional Super Robot genre. Too bad though, really.
I did have one of Combattra's feet that I think I got from an older cousin, but I had no idea what it was. I think I thought it was a Hot Wheel or something. If only I had known...
On the other hand, I did have Lion and Vehicle Voltron, as well as the black Gladiator Voltron robot. So that would be as close as possible. Doesn't beat the unadultered Popy/Bandai versions, but I didn't know better then, and loved them all the same. Still have my originals in their boxes today. ;D
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