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: Transformers Generation One Monsterbot Doublecross

At a certain point during my teen years, I had to finally, reluctantly, cease playing with toys.  Certainly, I did so much later than most other boys.  At the age of 17, 1987 may have marked the last time I bought a toy until around the mid 1990's.  The subject of this review could possibly have been the very last before my long, dark retreat from the joys of toy collecting.  I had sort of developed some idea that perhaps girls wouldn't think it so attractive.  Little would I know at the time that this was in its own way a small part of exactly what the right girl was looking for.

The Transformers are, of course, a hugely successful line of toys, comics, movies, cartoons, and whatnot.  The franchise was a joint project between Hasbro and Japanese toy-maker Takara.  Started in 1984, this line would initially reuse many of Takara's molds from their Diaclone and Microman lines.  The initial set of toys featured a lot of transforming vehicle toys, along with figures that changed from robot form into that of "household" objects such as handguns, microscopes, or cassette players.  Diecast metal and chrome were in abundance with these first toys.  Each toy additionally came with a "Tech Spec" printed on the back of the package which would briefly describe the disposition and statistical attributes of the character.  Even if your favorite Autobot (the good guys) or Decepticon (the baddies) never even appeared in the cartoon or comics, you knew what they were all about.  This era of Transformers toys is now known as Generation One (or G1), and the toys and characters from this time period have continued to influence every subsequent line of Transformers toys.

Hasbro and Takara did their best to reuse as many molds as possible, but eventually as the line prospered, it became necessary to create new ones to meet the demands of their ravenous Transformers fans.  Doublecross is a toy that comes from this period of new mold-making.  It was originally released in 1987, and like most of the other Transformers toys at the time, it was entirely made of plastic and featured no chrome accents at all.  As a kid, this always was a bit of a disappointment, even when you did still enjoy the toy immensely.

As noted, the Autobots were the good guys.  They pretty much were the archetypal heroes - bold, honorable, compassionate - complete with enough personality quirks to keep them interesting.  It was highly unusual then when Hasbro released three figures in a sub-group called the Monsterbots - Monsters not usually being known as heroes.  Doublecross was one of these, notable for his double-headed dragon-like alternate form.  Elements of this form are clearly visible in his robot mode.

Despite his monstrous beast mode, Doublecross has a pleasant, almost boyish face.  Paint application seems to have been somewhat sloppy on mine.

Multiple shades of gray, along with black and  a bright red comprise the color palette for Doublecross.

His shape is simplistically blocky as were the other Transformers toys of the time period.

His lone accessory, a light gray "rust ray" rifle, features the standard Takara five-millimeter peg.

In robot mode, Doublecross has very limited articulation.  The shoulders can rotate 360 degrees, arms can raise up and down, and elbows can bend.  The mouths on the dragon heads can open to simulate hands.

This is about as dynamic of a pose as you'll get out of Doublecross.  He still looks pretty sharp doing it, though.  His arms make nice clicky noises as you bend the various joints.  Two heads equals two sets of thoughts, and Doublecross can't manage to get the two of them to agree on anything.

To begin transformation to his dragon mode, start by flipping down the head.

Then rotate the shoulders up like so.

Lay the arms out horizontally.

Bring the two dragon heads together.

Rotate the heads as shown.

Next flip up the black wings so that they click into place firmly.

Rotate the dragon's arms as desired.

Turn Doublecross around to begin changing his lower half.

Start to rotate the entire lower leg section up towards the torso.

The legs should fit snugly into place.

Bring the two tail halves together.

They will snap into each other nicely.

Rotate the dragon's feet out from within the black upper leg sections.

Position the dragon legs to allow the toy to stand in this mode.

The necks and heads can be moved as you like to fully form the monster mode. The colors still look striking here.

The heads have a simple, but effective sculpt.  Note the five-millimeter holes where the rifle can be placed in robot mode.

Some odd details of Doublecross's monster mode show what looks like hair/scales and muscle.  Was he meant to be partially organic?

More of the same detail covers the lower legs as well.  Everything else on him seems to be technological.

On the dragon's back you can see a large cylindrical gray button.  This activates a gimmick that is shared among all the Monsterbots.

Press the button and this chest-mounted saw blade moves slightly.

More importantly, like his Monsterbot brethren, Doublecross will shoot out sparks when the button is activated!  Luckily, mine still works after all this time.

His rifle can be awkwardly stowed on his back.  This is not an "official" method, but useful to keep the weapon with the toy when sitting on a shelf.

Articulation is much better in dragon mode, where the necks and heads can be moved around a lot, the shoulders and hips have rotation, as do the knee joints.

As usual for a Transformers toy of this era, additional detail is provided by labels.

These are still in very nice shape on mine.  Overall, the condition of this specimen is quite good.

Here is proof positive that Doublecross is a hero, despite his semi-horrific visage.

Transformers at the time were also released with a "rub symbol" which would reveal the allegiance of the character when one rubbed the label.  Similar to a mood ring, heat or friction would cause a color change to occur in the sticker.  Yup, he's still a good guy.

Doublecross is ready to defend and terrify all of humanity!

This was a really fun toy to own at the time, and also today.  I always appreciate a simple transformation that actually allows a kid to really play with the toy, rather than spend all day changing its form.  I love the color choices and the unique design as well.  The spark gimmick just seals the deal.  If you get a chance to pick up Doublecross and you like G1 Transformers toys, I highly recommend you do so.