the undead thread...

[bryanarchy]

to put a little life into this board, i have a few questions that have been burning in me for a while....

1. Bounty Hunter Skeleton Kings.... are they takara or bootlegs?

2. Do people do a lot of non-takara costumes? Like this one... what is it?:


3. what the hell is the story with ppfm's?


that's a start...

[GUYx1]

Very happy to answer your questions. This is lengthy.
If you have any more questions after that, just ask me : )


Dokuroking and the other Takara cyborg monster costumes are now Public Domain. Takara is putting their money into reissuing the liscensed characters that they can afford the liscensing to. There are lot of costumes folks. The Unliscensed characters are all up for grabs.

BxH (and a host of others) make vinyls. Bounty Hunter made the ring and even issued it in a nice official King Walder box. (It seems to be rather pricey in the box) As I said, it is unliscensed. You could manufacture Dokuroking toys if you wanted.

However, in Japan, they strive for excellence and the toys made there are very nice and made of vinyl, plastic, etc.
Compounds that can be harmful if breathed in directly and this manufacturing is usually done overseas in some sweat shop you don't wanna know about.
However those shops are willing to do almost anything you want for a really reassonable price but you will need to produce at least 100 units.

Now about all the bloody costumes.
The first question to ask yourself, is what constitutes a toy being in the cyborg toyline?

I'll use mircoman for example:
All quality control issues aside, is a microman made by Rommando, Takara, Hour Toy, Airfix, Palisades or Mego any less a Micronaut?
They are all constructed in a similar manner and are in the same scale.
The Micronaut Aliens were called "Alien Acroyears" in Japan and were constantly being asked for in trade for years in Japan. (In our prehistoric days before the internet)
If a toy is meant to go in a previously existing toyline, it is often warmly embraced by the Japanese collectors.

The one thing that ultimately annoys USA completists about collecting Cyborg is that there are Exclusive items popping up seemingly every other week from some weird clothing store or another. Back in the day, we could only keep our toy orders in check by reading hobby japan and placing the orders 6 months in advance with our Toy dealers in Japan. It was a nightmare keeping track of the stuff.

The modern releases are probably being documented somewhere in a Japanese cyborg forum, but I have yet to find it.

PPFM is a clothing store called Peyton Place For Men.
They were one of the first EXCLUSIVE NHC cyborg items. Other VINYL and hip hop specialty stores
started doing this in more recent years. PPFM's angle was more towards Fashion, but most of the modern vinyl companies aim at replicating the
more vintage style of the cyborg subforms, but aimed
at Moden 20-something Japanese vinyl collectors. When I say this, I mean they aim the toys at people who are collecting the modern vinyls with all the color variations.
The vinyl companies tend to issue a new color toy of their mascot on every other holiday or toy show. Often the terms "Prototype" or Repro" don't mean the same thing either, as they are just new moldings in a different color and usually still without any painted details.

The Dokuroking you mentioned was a Warp magazine exclusive.
Takara made the black Walder body underneath, but often the companies
who produce the vinyl bits are acting of their own accord. Dokuroking is Technically in the public domain, so they actually could mold it themselves if they wanted to. It is a strange relationship the vinyl companies have with Takara. The Dokuroking is Legitimate. Japanese
companies often do "Team-ups" one vinyl manufacturer doing the odd bits,
another doing the actual figure underneath. If you read Hobby Japan, it happens CONSTANTLY.
Take this for example Medicom made the Kamen Rider DX Cyborg costume from Takara for their Retro Heroes series (in a funky color variation exclusive). That is Cyborg as you are gonna get, but it is technically a reissue done by a company other than Takara. Now the OTHER figures from the line are very similar to dokurokig and fishman, so are they any less cyborg? Medicom's outfitted retro heroes, the rumina borg, the Mach Roid, the cocobat stuff, etc. They all have retro cyborg artwork and color schemes.
The companies are too big name to be making underground "Bootlegs", but the characters being created are original or public domain in nature.
None of this is officially cyborg, but everyone knows it is supposed to be for cyborg.

Currently there are only a handful of DIFFERENT vinyl characters being
made, but they each have about a dozen variations each (give or take).
Some are just special heads. Often you must purchase a special t-shirt
or clothing item to obtain the inner Head, so this bumps up the price again.
If you go the the CURE store and drop over $120 on a special parka, you
get Two free limited edition heads.

Some of the figures have a brain AND an inner head. The inner brains are often sold separately. All too often they made of vinyl which is tough to remove without the use of a hairdryer.

The EAGLE MAN costume photo you attached is technially a Reissue of a
Takara 1970's cyborg costume, but has been very modernized (and issued in a
vast number of colors with many inner brain head paint and color variations.)

Cool stuff and a great piece of Cyborg History (though I personally favor the Dokuroking & Fish man.

If you are going to start somewhere, buy one of those Skull Brain heads you see all the time on yahoo japan. They are made from a really soft vinyl (like the vintage cyborgs) and pretty hard to damage. Most of the other heads and costumes are much harder vinyl. The Eagleman transparent costumes are also the most affordable. Best to start there instead of rushing into buying the $400 color variation outfits. Ironic how a color variation on a reproduction can be worth MORE than the original toy...
You gotta love Japan.

Guy Redwing (c) 3/3/2005

[johnnyhaggis]

Public domain?! xcellent! DOes that include Satan King and Plant man too?

Does anyone know if you can make pvc at home with compounds you buy in a store, the same way you can do with resin (i.e. microman bodies)?

[GUYx1]

Jeeze man, next time make sure I don't tell you to jump off a cliff or drink the strange tasting kool aid.
I will rephrase that - I THINK that they COULD be and probably are public domain. But before you go out and create your own line of Cyborg toys and end up with a lawsuit Notice that none of these questionable costumes ever included a microman or a cyborg. It was only IMPLIED that they were to be used on those figures.

I would doublecheck on the legality before going crazy with those characters. While I know that the 6 monster characters are the only unliscensed character costumes that Takara produced. They also seem to be getting reproduced over and over as well.
I do not know what actual rights Takara may still hold over the 1972 characters that they created. Microman has also been getting remade as well and I don't know what companies have to pay to use those likenesses.
It is not unusual for companies in japan to puchase a 24-48 hour liscense to sell a toy. AKA they sell them at only one show. Officially liscensed toys and it didn't break them.

I will ask around and see if anyone with those companies is even willing to answer my queries.

PVC is not something that you can make at home, however there is a soft resin that may suffice.
Consults the props boards and custimizing webrings.

There are companies in Mexico that do a lot of casting in PVC. It can get pretty heavy though. There is a mexican 12" figure customizer on Ebay who has lots of Batman and Indiana Jones costume parts molded in pvc. Cool stuff.

[bryanarchy]

wow, that's a lot of stuff to digest, Guy. But, wow....

I guess the main thing i'm in awe of is the pure insanity for all of this. I mean, the culture is sooo different.

Are there any people in the states or canada dealing in this stuff or is the only bet through yahoojapan, etc?

thanks for making sense of all this, if you can call it sense...

cheers!

[hypnotator]

I've got six mintutes left on the library computer....
Fascinating stuff, Guy, and thanks for breathing new life into the board in my absence!
Next week!
Hypno

[GUYx1]

Ok, In a nutshell - unless we all start showing a vast wave of interest in this new stuff, it is never going to make it outside of Japan. If a toyline is hot the exclusives kick in. As a toyline dies, the exclusives stop. This all goes in about 5 year cycles, but happens again and again.
The only reason we have so many Neo cyborgs available today in the English speaking world is because Diamond Distribution got them at a really nice rate and had a great volume of the toys imported at a reasonable price. They had preordered so much stuff that it kept the toyline alive even longer.

I realized that it was not going to be as big as everyone had hoped when my buddy (who doesn't like cyborg) had about 4 cyborgs and 3 costumes that he picked up from the comic store only because they were marked on clearence!
When the interest totally died down (the toyline tanked)
You could dig around in the back of comic shops and get a dust covered, marked down KWII figure for $12.00 (I - who had pre-orded my initial figures for $35 each couldn't bare to remove the price tag)

Just as the Neo Henshin cyborg was dying out, The medicom Cocobat Joe toys really shook up the market. Those figures were Huge at the time in asia.
They had the vinyl design by PUShead and this was far more inspired than anything Takara was doing.

FYI Cocobat is a japanese Punk band and it's leader, Takeshi has a big love for cyborg toys. Eventually he was made into a cyborg figure himseld (As well as being made into a cocoboy and eventual a Microman).
Purchase the early cocobat album "Positraction". The inner booklet pix all look like posts from Hypnotator.
Cocobat really liked to play with their toys!

Anyway, after the medicom figure Cocobat Joe became the big thing to fetch big dollars in a short amount of time, the exclusives kicked in again and there were Cocobat boxing outfits and robes with advertising for very same clothing stores and vinyl stores you mentioned before. Really cool (if you live in a country that broadcasts kickboxing)

But, to appreciate kickboxing monsters, you have to really be into kick boxing.

(Now if they did Cyborg Footballers, perhaps they'd have something)

The Japanese toy dealers outside of japan realized that they missed the boat on something and everyone bought up the continuation (sort of) of the series, the RuminaBorg and retro heroes, etc.

Howvever the Ruminaborg was NOT cocobat. He is cute looking for one thing. Every doll Medicom issued, it was always a NEW body. Some are much better than others and all would do better if they had a cyborg body underneath. Unlike the cocobat, this Ruminaborg was (and still is) easy to obtain. The dealers really took a bath on the Medicom Retro Villians and the RuminaBorg.
You can't get rid of the ruminaborg, yet in Japan there is a whole like of TEAM RUMINA fighting outfits, a human version. Tons of stuff. Even an opponent, the Mach roid.
However after ruminaborg failed in the USA, that nixed any more imports.

Without DIimond buying vast amounts of a toyline, you are dealing with the usual Japanese toy importers in the US, Canada, Uk Italy, etc. I know that they may SEEM EVIL (and some may even be evil), but when toys are NEW, they may be only making $20 on an item.
They only import toys that people are asking them for (and shelling out money for)

Not Surprisingly all the usual canadian & us Toy dealers have bowed out and don't feel it is worth the financial risk. They like buying toys they have a chance at making a profit on and Cyborg has only a small but close knit following.

Guy Redwing (c) 3-5-2005

[johnnyhaggis]

Do you have a picture of the cocobat guy as a cyborg?

[GUYx1]

Okay, I'll have to pop off the Grasshopper mask to get to the Takeshi head. Looks pretty much the same as cocoboy though.

I'll send a pic of the Takeshi Head to you and you can post it.

Do you want it on the basic medicom body (a gutless clear Android-A body) , or a cyborg body?

Here's a brief history on Cocobat:
www.sound.co.jp/~grind/j-underground/cocobat/

Apparently actual manufacturing of PVC is illegal in some countries due to the toxic wastes produced.

While you cannot make your own PVC, this company should be able to help acquire the latest in plastic moulding compounds and how to use them.

www.smoothon.com/

Got any more questions?

Cheers,
- G-

[GUYx1]

I just remembered the Shonen costumes.
The Shonen costumes (and jaguar costumes) are also unliscensed characters of Takara's creation.
Really great stuff if anyone ever gets back into producing more 8" toys.

Please remember that the UK cyborg is sort of it's own animal. We were lucky that it was not too altered in it's assimilation. I mean Rom Spaceknight was released as Action man's Space buddy. Anything can happen when a foreign company purchases the toy liscense.
We are just lucky that we didn't end up with a USA company getting the rights and issuing them as a cheap knock off.

Denysfisher Did a decent job of releasing the toys right as the line was coming to its end in japan.
Though I love the Torg, Amaluk & X-akron, nobody seemed to notice that the X-Akron had a big "RB" on his belt. The X-Akron figure is really a lisensed character named Red Baron. Remember this. LISCENSED CHARACTER.

On a side note: many japanese characters were "borrowed" in a less than legal fashion during the mid-late 1970's. (See the Tonland/Combex 3 3/4" Star raiders figures for some fun knock off character heads - Cylons, Mach Baron, etc)

The photos on the back of the UK cyborg subform card show distinctly different toys than were produced.

Pull out your UK boxed cyborgs as well. The Comic artwork is also unusual as it shows the shonen cyborg "cybo-guts" instead of the released toy.

Laterz,
Guy Redwing (c) 3-5-2005

[hypnotator]

Yeah, that RB on the X-Akron's belt really confused me as a kid. I thought maybe it stood for Ro Bot. Much later, when I grew up, I saw an imported model kit of the Red Baron at Comet in London, and that REALLY threw me.

[GUYx1]

Here is that Takeshi head on the 2nd version of the Cocobat Joe.



I'll also include a photo of PPFM-03 (Peace Shirt version).

[GUYx1]

Below are a couple photos of the Remake of the “PLANT MONSTER” costume that we all know and love (and can’t seem to pronounce). We know and love him as plant monster, but the name of this Walder subform is actually Shokubutsu Kaijin.

The Artist Hirogrim took the 1970’s costume and revamped it to include more heads than Zaphod Beeblebrox.
The heads fit over each other to create an effect similar to a Russian nesting doll.

Below is the first version molded in black vinyl.


(With that color scheme it kinda reminded me of that black pudding monster that killed off Tasha Yar from STNG.)


You can compare this to the original sculpt (sorry I didn't have time to take a decent photo, but you get the idea)




Below is a more recognizable version featuring the original color scheme, however there are many color and paint variations available of this figure.



Cheers,
Guy

[hypnotator]

Beautiful - I'd seen the black costume but never realized how close the design was to the Plant Monster. The nesting heads are a great idea, very much in the tradition of HC.