Jumbo Machinder Neo: Mazinger Z
Bandai relaunches the classic Jumbo Machinder line with their flagship character, Mazinger Z!
Mazinger Z stands 60cm tall and is fully articulated. Features removable Hover Pilder, and comes with an extra set of rocket punch fists that actually fire.
Due December 2009 for 23,750 yen.
Comments
19 comments postedNow that's what I call very good news!!!!
Knowing Bandai I'm sure it will be a very cool offering. Every serious Mazinger Z fan should have this model and proudly put it next to High Dream's 60cm releases.
There's a big difference between this and High Dreams jumbo Mazingers: $160.
High Dream is one of those companies which I really love. They were wise enough to have an Italian distributor and a professional French graphic artist to do their box art. And so as a European I get the characters/mecha I love, high quality products throughout, exquisite boxart and all this at an affordable price! Besides, they even have a Forum and my ideas were always welcome and even put into practice!!!!! I am proud to have been the first to suggest to High Dream a clear visor for their Duke Fleed figure and they did it!!!! Sometimes I wish I were their offical toy consultant. They are very much loved here in Europe because they produce the items we fans want. As for the Bandai offering I think it is quite expensive but I admit it looks very high quality.
this is a bold move in a world recession
As bold as Bandai.
Despite the high price-point, this thing looks pretty sick to me. It's good to hear that it has firing fists. There's not enough of that in toys these days...
That is precisely why this Mazinger is so appealing to me. It is not another Marmit/High Dream Mazinger - this thing really fires its fists. Although it is quite expensive, I think I'm gonna buy this one and eat bread and drink tap water for a month or two.
This may sound weird,and keep in mind I'm a machinder noob,but this looks too good. I mean,when I think of a machinder,I think of a toy that only comes maybe 80% close to how the robot looks on screen,and big foil stickers with the name of the robot.
We call this Toytech! And yes, Toytech has reached Jumbo Machinders, too. As a Super Robot fan, I want the toys of yesterday with the technology of today. When we were young, we grumbled that the toys were not accurate and needed a change. Now we have grown up, the toys are perfect and we grumble because they look too good or are very expensive. What a funny world this is!!!
Great point toytech. The $350 price tag is just about as proportional as the $35.00 was to me at age 7 for an original jumbo.
I really do hope Bandai considers doing some Evil Machinders in this form in the very near future! This one is for sure going under the tree for myself this year! ha ha
Grandzinga....
I'm sorry, grendizer1975, but you're wrong: High Dream and Bandai cannot both rule simultaneously. It is logically impossible. :P
Your praise of High Dream is totally justified. I've been a big fan of theirs for a LONG time. As a total Grendizer maniac, I had to get some of their earliest offerings, and while they were kinda plain, I never regretted those purchases! My favorite is the PVC/vinyl Grendizer-in-Spazer they did. Zero articulation...just gorgeous looking...and almost perfectly in-scale with Max Factory's ~10-inch (~20cm) soft vinyl figure.
Anyway, that's really awesome that they listen to your feedback on their forums! I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Jammy at NYTF08...and he seemed really cool and receptive to my comments. That's what's amazing about small toy companies: they do what they do out of love (simply because, after all, if pure profit is your goal, there are MUCH better hustles out there!). As real fans, they are receptive to what other fans think! Very cool.
Bandai? Not so much. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate their products because of any potential dislike for their business practices...but you can't discount the fact that they're a megalithic international corporation. Their primary goal is profit and there are no creative, enthusiastic fans designing stuff over there that we can easily interface with on a personal level.
Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Afterall, with their size/resources, they can achieve amazingly complex designs with excellent QC for products fans would otherwise only be able to dream about.
So, as for "toytech", I think it's a little more complicated an issue than you imply. Sure, the raw technology and design resources available today blow away what was around during the 70's and 80's...but there is a balance that needs to be struck.
I look at it this way: my toy collecting/appreciating has evolved such that I only buy things I would have really loved as a kid. Now, I never actually had any Jumbo's as a kid, but I always wanted them. I mean, their awesome size and blocky, titanic proportions are the whole draw there. Now, if you were to offer me THIS new JM Neo Mazinger instead of the original Shogun Mazinga Jumbo, then I probably would've picked the Neo. Granted, the colors on the original JM are much more exciting and much cooler gimmicks were available...but I'm guessing the articulation, finish, and beefy ("realistic") proportions would've won me over.
The balancing act isn't that straight forward. I had only a few Popy chogokin (the Shogun Warrior and Godaikin diecasts) growing up, but as a kid, would I have chosen a Popy ST or DX over its Soul of Chogokin counterpart? Most likely no. Yes, better articulation and cartoon-accurate looks can be nice advantages, but they're not worth the loose/poorly-designed joints, fragile parts, precarious balance, and the headache of having to keep track of all the tiny accessories.
When I was a kid, I had this incredible thing called an "imagination". It meant that I didn't have to have toys that mirrored what I saw in the cartoon perfectly. Instead, I could play with toys that were designed to be fun, with cool toy-gimmicks, not soulless, precise, static 3D representations of what was on my tv. And with those *real* toys, I would be totally happy.
So the moral of my story is that, with all the "toytech" that's available today, I'd like to see toy designers come up with toys that are just as fun and robust as those from the 70's and 80's, and still capture the looks and articulation I would've loved as a kid.
I definitely think it's possible (the Beagle 1/10 Mospeada bikes and the 1/60 Yamato 2.0 VF-1 Valks immediately come to mind)...but far from an automatic given...
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Sanjeev
What???? imagination ??? ;)
Do kids even have that any more
it seems they don't want any thing that isnt in a videogame or on a tv show
I remember having many of the robots on this site growing up & not even knowing their name back then but we (my freinds & I) created names & back stories based on the shows we did watch (Starblazers, Battle Of The Planets & Force Five)
Truth!
Most of my friends' kids/nieces/nephews are hopelessly addicted to videogames and whatnot. I'm saying this to rag on videogames, but I just see too many kids utterly lacking interpersonal skills. Without actual social play, you're not going to grow up knowing how to relate to other humans...
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Sanjeev
What does playing with a toy robot have to do with interpersonal skills? You can do that completely alone just fine.
Well, the point is not just playing with toys, obviously: it's playing with others--face-to-face in the real world...not through the internet.
From pop guns a hundred years ago to the latest Star Trek tricorder, role play toys are *extremely* instrumental in groups of kids learning how to socialize with one another. They allow kids to act out, directly, their fantasy interactions and see how such behavior plays out when bumping up against other actual human intelligences.
Action figures and whatnot (non-role play toys) work very similarly. They act as an avatar of sorts for the child's ego. Instead of *directly* acting, the kid acts through the figure. This opens up an even wider range of (fantasy) behavior (flying for instance).
This kind of critical learning simply CANNOT come from video games.
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Sanjeev
Sanjeev- it appears you have missed your calling in life as an adolescent counselor!!
That was very insightful and quite deep indeed.
Grandzinga....
hey guys,
where can i buy a NEO Mazinger Z ?
After over a full year + months on pre-order, they still cannot deliver the goods. I just got too pissed seeing the update emails stating : product delay from Mnfr. - I just now canceled the damn thing.