Gotchamon Mini Figure Set Preview!!!

Here are some sneak peek previews of the insanely cool Gotchamon set of mini figures being produced for the WHF Toy Show in Japan this December. The best part is most of your favorite Japanese toy designers including BlobPus, Skull Toys, TTToy, Skull Head Butt, Sunguts and RealxHead will be contributing micro mini toy designs for this set. There will be thirteen candy-size mini figures in the set for 500 yen each. If this picture below showing the mini Skull Head Butt next to the full size version is any indication, these little nuggets of toy goodness will be around 2 inches tall! I am told these will be pretty tough to get a hold of so don't hold your breath and wait to open your wallet when they hit Yahoo Japan Auctions!

More Votoms Goodness from Takara Tomy!!!

Takara Tomy continues to push the Votoms licensing envelope with a vast array of new Votoms toys!! Takara taking full advantage of the Tomy Microman line for two completely new Votoms figures following the critical acclaim of the Chirico and Ypsilon figure released earlier this year. In a completely awesome new set, we have the Ality character with his old-skool vintage motorcycle and side-car complete with sniper rifle. Due out in January 2008 for around $40. Then we have another Chirico with a weapons package including a bigger, meaner machine-gun and some kind of bazooka! Due out in January, 2008 for around $15.



Next up, we have new pictures of the 1/144 scale micro mini figure sets. You may have seen this earlier Post with some pretty bad scans of the set, but we now have much better shots. If you are familiar with Takara's Micro Machine toys here in the states, you know how small these little buggers are! Each figure or vehicle is no larger than a quarter. Highly detailed and highly anticipated release for January, 2007.











Lastly, The first new vehicle that caught my attention is the AG-EX Big Carry which is meant for the AG-EX 1/48 scale Votoms action figures. It comes with a Scopedog custom which is awesome, but is really meant for transporting a squad of Votoms like the Reeman Squad shown here. 1/48 scale seems small. They are around 4 inches tall. If you look at this carrier in relation to the Scopedog, this thing is huge! I would guess probably easily more than fourteen inches long! Hmmmmm, not sure I have the shelf space for that...but it would be cool to have it along with the Reeman squad in "down" mode. Order or pre-order them all from our friends at Hobby Link Japan

Max Toy Company Gargamel Mini Zag Exclusive!!!

Holy Snikeys!! Mark Nagata over at Max Toy Company is on FIRE!! He just continues to pump out the toys that everyone wants! His latest is this amazing yellow / lime green Gargamel Mini Zagoran. When I first caught wind on Saturday afternoon that Mark was putting out another Mini Zag, I almost pee'd in me pants and rushed over to his site. I was crushed when I thought they were sold out but finally realized his deluxe package with the glicee print was sold out. He still had a few of the Mini Zags left! Whew! Toy Karma in full effect! However, I'm very sad to report that Mark is completely sold out of all the Mini Zags now, but i'm sure a couple will make it to either eBay or Yahoo Japan Auction. Unfortunately, expect to pay at least double to get your hands on one. An even rarer clear yellow unpainted version is being offered to Max Toy Company Subscribers.



From Max Toy Company: My favorite is back again ! Gargamel's mini soft vinyl Zagoran ! This second mini Zagoran , Max Toy Co. exclusive is limited to 70 painted pieces and 30 no paint, Max Toy Club only versions.First 15 pieces sold with print and toy combo, matching the numbers as well. These won't last long...so hurry ! And, don't forget we also have a nice giclee print of the header card for sale as well.Shipping end of Nov.



So this got me to thinking I need to join the Subscriber list. This will be the like the fifth Mini Zag that Mark has put out if you include all the Subcriber Exclusives and I only have one - which I also had to pay double the retail amount to get! So if you missed this Mini Zag, I would encourage you to join the Max Toy Company Subscriber List as well.



For $20, you get all the schwag: Max Toy Club membership kit for 2006. One year membership. Join this exclusive club and receive the following cool items: A Max Toy tee shirt, Exclusive Hand Signed Giclee art print( 6 X 7.5 inches size ),Official membership card with your name and unique number, One-10 point collectors tag, a Max Toy Co. pin. Plus belonging to the club allows you to purchase VERY limited versions of Max Toy Co toys and surprises to be revealed over the one year membership ! NOTE: Please indicate the Tee Shirt size you would like : Small, Medium, Large, Ex-Large, 2 Ex-Large.



What you should know before joining is that by being a Subscriber, you don't automatically get the exclusives. Since there are 80+ subcribers now, when you get a run of only 30 figures like the unpainted Mini Zag, Mark has to randomly choose out of those subscribers that want it. Still, it's a 1 in 3 shot. Not bad odds!

GET SMALL San Francisco Set Finally off the Bus!!!

The long awaited GET SMALL San Francisco Set from a trio of toy producers and a quartet of local artists has finally arrived. The set has been plagued with production issues getting the 3 inch mini figures just right. Were glad they took the extra time becaue they look really cool! From Ningyoushi:



Upperplayground, Fifty24SF and Ningyoushi, presents a new mini figures series, GET SMALL San Francisco. GET SMALL San Francisco features four recognized San Francisco street and fine art artists, Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, Coro, and David Choe. Each artist brings one of their original characters to life. Ortho by Coro, Billy Bronze by Sam Flores, Bunnyskull by Jeremy Fish, and Siamese Twin by David Choe. Each is packaged in a San Francisco city bus box.

Secret Base Masked Ranger: Pumpkin Head Preview!!!

This week Secret Base released it's final "official" figure in their Masked Ranger Series: Pumpkin Head. I looked around my old photos cause I was going to give Secret Base a little teasing by mentioning something about how they are getting a lot of mileage out of this clear orange Pumpkin Head. Many Japanese vinyl collectors are a bit played out on the clear orange as we are still recovering from the All Clear Halloween set and the Oil-stained Fan Club set both included a clear orange Pumpkin Head. Upon further inspection,you can see the subtle differences in color in this Masked Ranger Pumpkin Head. Unless it's just the picture, the vinyl looks to be a lighter shade of orange as opposed to the near flourescent orange in the all clear Halloween set. Since I don't own the Fan Club version, it's hard for me to say, but I think the guys on Skullbrain were saying it's not necessarily the same figure with just black paint on it. So as we might think Secret Base took shortcuts on the Pumpkin Head for these three different offerings, I don't think they did.



The Pumpkin Head is the fifth Official figure in the Masked Ranger series which includes the Blue Skullbrain, the White Damaged Brain, the Red Bagman and the Green Barbarian. If you include all the SB figures with plushies inside, you can add the Pink Obake Ghost from SDCC and the Silver Alien Mantis. A picture has already been released of a Gold Alien Mantis in the works and there will also be a Ghost Fighter added to the mix. In fact, all of the Secret Base characters will eventually be done with a plushie. I guess this would include the Madball, another Skullbee, perhaps a Frankenghost? It might be too hopeful to include a Skullwing or Skull Pirate as that would need Pushead's approval, but keep hope alive!!

Day in the Life of toybot studios!!

Thought you guys might get a kick out of a day in the life of toybot studios! It usually begins getting up, grabbing some coffee and then hitting the desktop for email, trying to get to the 8am commodity refresh on Mandarake, scanning any new listings in Yahoo! Japan Auctions and checking out the latest goin's on at Skullbrain. If my schedule permits, i'll usually stop by VinylPulse for the daily, but mostly western vinyl news. Then over to Kaiju Taro to see if anything new has been stocked. Reading this back, it must seem crazy to spend one's morning looking for Japanese toys. Of course, if you're reading this blog, you might understand. What you see above is repeated several times during the day (but usually on my Windows Smartphone) which allows me to browse the above websites pretty fast. I like to look like i'm very busy responding to important emails during meetings). I'm then off to work for the "man".





Hopefully when I get home, there is a package waiting for me. I might get 2-4 packages a week. If i'm really lucky, then I will get a box like this one from Celga Japan which has all of the stuff I "won" recently on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. This box was especially big and had maybe 25 pieces inside. This was a good day (although my wife was not very happy!)











Then since my wife is pissed at me for spending a ridiculous amount of money on toys, I will be banished downstairs to the "Studio" in toybot studios where I have a little set up for toy photography.







Also downstairs in another room is where some of the older collection is displayed. I'm going to have to buy a few more Detolf cases from Ikea to accommodate the recent purchases! If you check out the last picture, you can see on the bottom some early toybot studios toy photography!





So there it is. Welcome to toybot studios. Now get the fuck out! I gots to get back to Skullbrain and Yahoo! Japan Auctions!!!