Toy Review: Bandai Ultra Monsters Bemular and King Joe

It's been a while since my last post, and I apologise for this, if only to myself.  I had wanted to try to put up a couple reviews a week, but a rather large project at work has taken up most of my time and energy lately.  Things should begin to settle down now to allow me some ability to focus on t-o-y-s!

Today's post is something of a continuation of my Ultra Monsters Zetton and Dada review in that the two toys I'm reviewing are from the same line, and also gifted to me on my birthday by my other brother and his wonderful wife.  These are not vintage vinyl toys, though they represent characters from a television show that is now nearly fifty years old.  Please see the above review for a description of the Ultraman show(s) from which the monsters Bemular and King Joe originate.

First up is Bemular, a giant monster from the very first episode of Ultraman.  Bemular is basically the wall-eyed dumb cousin of Godzilla.  He's supposedly more than a 160 feet tall and has fiery breath, though that seems to be about the extent of his unique attributes.  The toy does represent what I remember from the show pretty well, even down to the baggy underbelly and spindly arms of what is clearly a "guy-in-a-suit" monster. 

This figure really does have quite a bit of sculpted detail and nice paint accents.  There are a mixture of different metallic paint sprays over his surface that help pick out the various protrusions and scales, and the mouth and eyes have been precisely painted as well.

Bemular's lower parts are mostly awash in gold.

The paint spray on his back is a metallic greenish-blue that just looks fantastic.

Bemular really looks like he's been in the ring one time too many with his enemy Ultraman.  The tongue lolls and his eyes point in opposite directions.  These sort of vinyl figures are usually simple constructions with little articulation, and Bemular can just barely move his head and arms.  Anyone want a hug?

Similarly metallic and bereft of posability is another of Ultraman's enemies, King Joe.  Old Joe comes from the Ultra Seven show that aired a year after Ultraman.  King Joe is a conglomerate being made up of four smaller spaceships that merge into a giant robot.  His coloration is a pale gold, with rainbow panels on his chest, and some darker gold accents.

Just look at that face!  Does he seem the least bit menacing?

Joe's birthing hips don't help engender any greater sense of danger.

Really, neither do his stiff C-3PO arms.

Joe's got a look that could be pulled straight from the days of the Solid Gold Dancers.  He does have an appearance of maybe being just about to break into a song and dance routine.

King Joe has the sort of articulation that might make for good disco dancing.  His arms can swivel at the shoulder and his hips can turn slightly.  He's no John Travolta, but he tries.

"Boogie down, Bemular!"

"You were looking especially lovely on the dance floor, Bems.  Wanna get a drink?"  Don't fall for that swindler's lines, Bemular!  

Well, that's all for today folks.  Bemular and King Joe are perfect representations of just how goofy the monsters were in the various Ultraman shows.  I personally think they're awfully cool, and I do love the fact that these are just toys made for kids.  Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for their supercool gift!

Toy Review: Bandai Ultra Monsters Zetton and Dada

Today's review features a couple vintage Japanese monster characters (or kaiju).  The toys themselves aren't vintage, having been released in 2008, but the television show they come from is.  Ultraman was a show first aired in 1966 in Japan, and later shown in the United States.  The show featured the Science Patrol, a high-tech (for the time) group of agents dedicated to the purpose of protecting the earth from invaders and investigating strange circumstances.  Shin Hayata, one of the group's members, is accidentally killed in a crash with Ultraman's spaceship during the first episode.  Before Hayata's life fully expires, Ultraman fuses his life force with Hayata, giving him the power to transform himself into Ultraman.  After this point, whenever the Science Patrol is overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their abilities, Hayata (unbeknownst to the rest of the team) becomes Ultraman and defeats the monster of the week.

Fans of Ultraman and the various subsequent shows have long been fans of the weird and wacky kaiju featured each week.  Zetton and Dada were two such from the original Ultraman show.  These two toys were recently gifted to me on my birthday by my supercool brother and his likewise supercool wife.

Firstly, we have Zetton, a beetle-like monster who is supposed to be the most powerful of Ultraman's many enemies.  The toy is between six and seven inches tall, and made of painted hollow vinyl.  Such toys have been around for quite a long time (see my other reviews of Godzilla's Gang toys), and Zetton is just a modern take.  Zetton's "head" includes eye-like and antenna-like sensory organs that give him a form of sonar/radar.  The two yellow bulbs on his chest are supposed to act like compound eyes.

Zetton is a great example of the lengths the show's designers went to in order to create a truly alien creature costume.  That is, outside of the fact that it still had to fit over an actor, and therefore conform to a human shape.

I quite like Zetton's floppy clown loafers.

His back is devoid of much in the way of color.

Like many other vinyl kaiju toys, Zetton has little articulation - just some rotation at the shoulders and neck.

"Zet-ton!!!"

Another fairly monochromatic monster, Dada was a sort of scout for a potential alien invasion force, capturing humans to experiment on.  In the show he can display three different faces, though the toy has only the one.  Believe it or not, this is pretty much Dada's best-looking of the three.

Fancy hairdo, there, Dada.

Dada's costume isn't really black and white, as the lighter color is more of a cream or pale tan.

Dada's got better than average articulation for a vinyl toy.  The head can swivel, as can the waist and arms.  "Would you care to dance, Ultraman?"

Better watch out or he might kiss you.

"Look, Dada, all of this will be yours someday."  OK, with such limited movement, sometimes you just have to be a bit creative about how you use it.  Still, these guys are a lot of fun, and really are toys that small children (such as my granddaughter) can play with.  A great birthday gift!

Toy Review: Godzilla's Gang Muruchi

Here's another nostalgic toy from my childhood.  My brothers and I had a few of Mattel's Godzilla's Gang figures when they were released in 1978.  These toys were actually manufactured by the Japanese toy-maker Popy, but Mattel did the distributing here in the States.  I suspect those that made it into our hands were purchased from the local five and dime store.  Selling for around a buck, these toys would have been particularly hard to resist for little monster-loving boys.

Despite being a member of Godzilla's Gang, Muruchi here was really a villainous monster from the Return of Ultraman show that aired in Japan in 1971.  

Muruchi seems to be suffering from some blobby paint application.  Yeah, these were cheap, but couldn't they have put a bit of care into this?

Muruchi is sort of the bizarre love-child of Godzilla and a kielbasa.  Unlike some robots I know, kaiju don't seem to suffer too much when viewed in profile.

Paint applications on toys like this aren't usually too complex, but there's a certain charm to the way vast swaths of color are applied, highlighting the sculpt's texture.

Muruchi gets a little mustard yellow for his bee-hive mitten hands.  Clearly, this was a much-used toy.

The yellow made its way only other body parts, including his toes.

Articulation was (and still is) extremely limited on vinyl kaiju toys.  In Muruchi's case, he's actually got quite a bit more than the normal.  His arms, legs, and tail are all moveable.  "Run, Muruchi, run!  See Muruchi run!"

Yup, he's a fun old toy, and one that I acquired very recently, having been gifted it by my younger brother on my birthday.  This is the actual toy we had as kids, and he graciously passed it on to me (along with a few other kaiju who may wind up getting the Geezer treatment).  Thanks for the assist into the WABAC Machine, APH!

Toy Review: Godzilla's Gang Bemustar

This is a very short toy review for a very cheap toy.  Mattel released a series of old Popy soft

vinyl toys in the USA in 1978, dubbing the line "Godzilla's Gang."  Outside of Godzilla himself, the rest were actually Ultraman villain monsters.  It was kind of a strange grouping, but at around a buck a piece, one wasn't going to complain (not that I had any clue of who Ultraman was at the time).  I'm pretty sure that we had three of these toys, one of which was Bemustar.  I have no experience with the actual Ultraman show that Bemustar originated in, but I was able to locate this video of him doing his thing.

Anyway, all this is completely secondary to the fact that I'm here to post pics of a toy I knew virtually nothing about as a kid, but enjoyed mightily.  Here is Bemustar.

Sculpting on these old vinyl toys rarely were screen-accurate, but that's part of the charm.  He's got a joint at the neck.

I remember that the colors just enthralled me as a kid.  I believe the actual vinyl is a brown, but then there are varying sprays laid on top in metallic greens and magentas.

He's also got some joints that allow his arms to move up and down, but that's about it for such vinyl toys.  Still, having practically no articulation matters little when faced with such awesome paint.

Bemustar's got some really cool skin texture.  I love the silly tail.

"Oh, you think my tail is SILLY, huh?  I'll show you how silly it is next time I'm stomping around your downtown!"

There's the famous Popy stamp!

These old vinyls are great if you can get your hands on them.  Bemustar seems to be fairly easily acquired via venues such as Ebay, though the other Godzilla's Gang figures may be harder to come by.  He was a cheap thrill back in the day, and still seems to be today.  Thanks to Bemustar, I am in some small way able to reach back over the years to that little eight-year old me, breathing life into a small hunk of vinyl.