KidRobot X Street Fighter

Adding on to the last post, designer toys have gotten so popular in the last few years, that popular franchises have gotten in on the act. Futurama, The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy and now Street Fighter have all had lines designed for them. The Street Fighter line - debuted in early July - is especially impressive, representing all 12 of the original World Warriors sporting alternate colors for quite a few of the characters. My favorites of the bunch have to be Dhalsim (his necklace and yoga fire accessory are both awesome), Sagat and Balrog, who I have yet to get.

KidRobot Dunnys

Dunnys are a designer/art toy line created by KidRobot. Several collections of these are released every year, all designed by artists that usually contribute 1-2 designs per set. As designer toys have become a legit medium in the mid-part of the last decade, these toys and their designers have their own cult following, and some artists have really gotten a foothold designing for sets like these. The sets are usually themed, like Britain, or animals, or graffiti or somesuch design scheme that the artist has to adhere to. There are also sets that are numbered with a year, like "Dunny 2011" for example, where the artists do like a free design sorta thing. And as is the rule with blind box designer toys, these sets have "chase figures" which have a ratio of discovery of like 1/80 or less and can be quite valuable. In the latest sets they've even gone to things like "golden tickets" where, when you find one you can send it in for an ultra-rare handmade Dunny, some of which go for several hundred dollars on ebay.

A lot of these figures have crazy quality and are made of lots of different materials, thus making them quite varied and even though they're all based off of the same basic Dunny mini figure, they definitely don't look the same. For example, there's a design that looks like a gumball machine, the little plastic balls inside the head shake around inside, or with another one shaped like a cute lion, it has a furry mane, a Dunny from the Azteca line has a huge stone head and gems in its eyes. Another, shaped like a gorilla, is flocked and 100% fuzzy all over. They also sell blank Dunnys of different shapes and sizes, where you can make your own custom figure. If you Google "custom Dunnys", you'll find never ending galleries of creativity from budding designer toy artists everywhere, famous and non!

Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Watch 鋼の錬金術師フルメタルウォッチ

A watch from SquEnix's mail-in service via Shonen GanGan back in like 2006, I found an obi from an FMA manga the one day recently and never realized that it even existed back then. So I decided to hop on YJA and lo and behold, I found one for only like 5000yen (they were something like 8000 at retail). It runs on inertia, meaning you charge it up by swinging your arm while walking with it on, or shaking it or whatever. I know that tech has been around for a long time, but this is the first watch I've owned with it. It's fairly hefty, the design is really neat, like whenever something is transmuted in the series, with 2 Flamel crosses on either side, and you can't really see it well in the pic I took, but the back has a visible moving element when the watch is ticking. It came in a really neat embossed box with a case and a chain, wrapped around a pillow, all in all an amazing set up for a watch under $100.

Kotobukiya One Coin Figure Collection Megami Tensei Taira no Masakado ワンコインフィギュアコレクション女神転生「平 将門」

If you've ever played any of the Megami Tensei, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona or Devil Summoner series, you already know that you summon and use demons, kami, monsters, gods and spirits to do battle for you, and that these are usually based on real myths and legends. Some of these are well-known in the west like Thor, Beelzebub, Shiva, etc, but others like some of the Japanese kami are less known to western players. Back in 2005, Kotobukiya started the coolest collection of 6 sets or so of mini trading figures of popular and not-so-popular summons from various games in the MegaTen series. Taira no Masakado, along with Yoshitsune and Susanoo represent the kami section of the games very well in this series (Though Masakado and Yoshitsune fall more into the "real people" category). His name plate is unique in the series - in that, his is printed vertically (ala traditional Japanese writing) whereas the others are all printed horizontally. It gives him quite a unique feel.

The real Taira no Masakado (taken from Wikipedia) was a member of the Kammu Taira clan of Japan. He was the son of Taira no Yoshimochi, Chinjufu Shogun. His childhood name was Soma Kojiro. Taira no Masakado was a powerful landowner in the Kanto region. He is regarded as the first bushi because he was the first to lead a self-governing party.

Masakado killed his uncle Kunika who was part Taira. The central government in Kyoto responded by putting a bounty on his head, and fifty-nine days later his cousin Sadamori, whose father Masakado had attacked and killed, and Fujiwara no Hidesato, killed him at the Battle of Kojima in 940 and took his head to the capital.

The head found its way to Shibasaki, a small fishing village on the edge of the ocean and the future site of Edo, which later became Tokyo. It was buried. Masakado's grave, which is located in the present day Otemachi section of Tokyo, was on a hill rising out of Tokyo Bay at the time. Through land reclamation over the centuries, the bay has receded some three kilometers to the south.

Over the centuries, Masakado became a demigod to the locals who were impressed by his stand against the central government, while at the same time feeling the need to appease his malevolent spirit. The fortunes of Edo and Tokyo seemed to wax and wane correspondingly with the respect paid to the shrine built to him at the kubizuka — neglect would be followed by natural disasters and other misfortunes. Hence, to this day, the shrine is well maintained, occupying some of the most expensive land in the world in Tokyo’s financial district facing the Imperial Palace.


Other shrines which he is deity of include Kanda Shrine (神田明神) and Tsukudo Jinja (which has multiple locations.)

His tomb (which contains only a monument to his head) is near exit C5 of Tokyo's Otemachi subway station.

All that fits with the pretty imposing image that Atlus has given him in the game, ne?

Lotte Cool Mint Gum LCD Keychain Watch ロッテクールミントガムLCDキーチェーンウォッチ

Dancing penguins! Thus completes my set of 3, coming all the way from 1997. Most people know that Lotte is a candy company in Japan, but less people know that Lotte was actually started by a Korean, Shin Kyuk-Ho - also known as Shigemitsu Takeo - in Tokyo in 1948.