This is going to be one of those reviews that isn't so much of a review, rather a placeholder to say that this toy exists.

This is going to be one of those reviews that isn't so much of a review, rather a placeholder to say that this toy exists. I got this toy in a big box of toys that had been obviously played with by a Japanese kid sometime in the early 90s. With each piece there is kind of a feeling of history - these were toys that a child played with - possibly loved.

Kamen Rider BLACK RX (仮面ライダーＢＬＡＣＫ　ＲＸ) comes from the show of the same name, which aired on Japanese television from 1988 - 1989. The notable thing about this show, as far as the US is concerned, is that SABAN imported this series as Masked Rider in the USA. Unfortunately, the show was a flop.

This is just one in a series of low-cost toys bandai issues in the Rider Hero series. Each toy has similar packaging and proportions, making for a nice collection if you get a lot of them. Articulation is limited to the shoulders and waist.

This toy obviously has a lot of play wear, and the antenna are broken off, but that's the price you pay for play.

Following right on the heels of the final yokai review, comes the final Motion-ette review...the elusive Mummy!

It's not often that I lose my composure and make a purchase without reading the specifics of an auction, but the Telco Mummy Motion-ette made me do just that. I remember crawling out of bed on a lazy Sunday morning one day and heading on over to Ebay as usual. It was one week after I had already passed on a Dracula Motion-ette and I had been feeling a little bit of remorse about it. So even though I traditionally did not search for these items frequently, they were on my mind at the time. So I looked...and there it was. The Mummy.

Despite not having much experience in monster collecting, I remembered reading at the Gallery Of Monster Toys that the Mummy was "nearly impossible to find". And the fact that it was absent from nearly all the monster collections I'd seen to that point seemed to confirm the notion. And yet, there it was staring me in the face. And with a $35 Buy It Now, no less! "Click", "Confirm", "Bought". Now, time to read the item description!

Fortunately, there was nothing alarming about the auction and the seller was cool. In fact, he also had the Dracula I had passed on the week before, AND a set of Frankenstein and his bride. All 4 Motion-ettes I needed, including the rarest, all in one fell swoop to complete the set!

Like the rest of the previously reviewed Motion-ettes, The Mummy here is 17" from the bottom of the base to the tip of the head. Like the Creature, The Mummy is made mostly out of vinyl. Actual cloth wrappings might have been better, but I like the way this looks, too. Nothing new as far as features is concerned. Moving head and arms compliment the light and sound effects.

The Mummy was released in the second wave of 17" Motion-ettes, presumably in very small numbers. There was also a 24" version released and I think that is even rarer. He came packaged in the same box as the rest, with a clear cellophane window on the front. Although considered rare, I'd bet that this is exactly the kind of item that is out there, waiting to be found at a flea market or a yard sale of someone who doesn't know what they have. Keep your eyes open!

No series of Halloween decorations would be complete without the lord of the vampires!

Despite having a friendlier than normal look for a vampire, I like the Dracula Motion-ette. It might be one of my favorite Dracula items in my collection so far (next to my 42" lawn ornament of course!). In fact, I like it much better than the more popular 24" Dracula/Vampire motionettes that were released by Telco and other copycat companies. The costume is simple but elegant and does not restrict movement of the arms, which can be posed by bending the interior wire armature.

The hands seem a bit over-sized and each finger has black, pointy fingernails. The head sculpt is nice and there is a subtle touch of red on the otherwise purple lips. Perhaps his slight grin is a result of contentment after feeding.

Dracula actually measures about a half inch short of 17", making him the shortest of the smaller series of Motion-ettes. But it's a minor difference. Speaking of minor differences, I think the color of the skin is slightly different, more blue-ish, from the first release to the next. But I only have this series two specimen and haven't seen a series one up close. Either way, they are nearly identical and I can't say one looks better than the other.

As with all the 17" Motion-ettes, Dracula has a small compartment in the base that takes two C-size batteries and he features movement, light and sound.

While I didn't care too much for the Frankenstein Motionette, I think his Bride makes up for any of his shortcomings.

While I didn't care too much for the Frankenstein Motionette, I think his Bride makes up for any of his shortcomings. Much like the Wolf Man, the Bride Of Frankenstein captures more of the essence of the character than the actual look. And frankly, I'm surprised at how much I like the look of this one. It has a sort of faux gothic punk, "I got this at 'Hot Topics'" sort of vibe working. And yet, I like it anyway.

The Bride of Frankenstein was added for the second series of 17" Motionettes along with the Mummy and so far as I've been able to tell, these seem like the two rarest of the set. While Frankenstein looks sad and weak, The Bride looks completely maniacal. She looks like she could kill you with one look of those wide, bloodshot eyes.

Telco could have easily taken the easy way out with her costume and just had one long cloth draped over her, but she does have a sort of gauze shirt on underneath that adds just that extra layer of depth. The hands have molded bandages on them and the left index finger is painted red at the tip. I'm not sure if this is supposed to depict blood or what, but it adds just the right drop of color to the otherwise all white ensemble.

Same gimmicks as the other Motionettes; moving arms and head, light up eyes and sound effects.

I think old Frank here is probably my least favorite of the Telco Motionettes.

Although he's arguably the greatest of the Universal Monsters, I think old Frank here is probably my least favorite of the Telco Motionettes. Although the character has much greater depth than just a shambling monster, the sculpt on this one strikes me as being more pathetic than sympathetic.

The one pictured here is the second series 17" version. The first series had a greener complexion and probably looks a bit better for it. I do like the costume though. It's a nice dark shade of moss green (although I just noticed my pics tend to make it look more brown-ish. Trust me, it's green) and there is some padding underneath to give the figure a bit more girth.

The arms are very poseable and the chain is an attractive feature, although it's a little bit silly since it's attached to his sleeves, not his arms. But hey, this is just a Halloween decoration and not exactly intended to be the world's greatest, most accurate Frankenstein figure.

Like the rest of the Motionettes, there is a housing for 2 C batteries in the base and the figure moves his head and arms when activated. His eyes light up and he makes noise as well. All the Motionettes, including Frankenstein, came packaged in cardboard boxes with clear plastic windows on the front.

Another Telco Halloween decoration, the Wolf Man is the closest thing in my collection to a Muppet!

Even though it's a far cry from looking anything like he does in the movie, I really like the look of this figure. Although the sculpt of the face is somewhat simple, it does have an elegance and personality to it that is appealing to me. I love that they added so much hair to this thing. It's got a really wild look on the one hand, but it also sort of reminds me of a Muppet, too!

Although some might consider it excessive, the hair protruding from his sleeves and pant legs is another nice touch. But honestly, it sort of makes me wish I had a nice, creepy looking scarecrow one. Telco did release a scarecrow in one of their earlier batches of Motionettes, but it's more cute looking than scary.

This Wolf Man figure has much more poseability in the arms than the Creature did. You can actually bend the arms to whatever pose you want basically, as beyond the vinyl hands the arms are just a flexible wire armature.

You know what else is great about this one? That bright yellow shirt! It's a welcome change in a genre dominated by gloomy blacks and greys. It's the closest thing to sunshine that the Wolf Man will ever get anyway...

You get the same features here as on the other Motionettes...light up eyes, moving arms/head and sound effects. The sound is much more appropriate to the character this time around, too. 17" tall to the top of the head, it actually looks more like 18" with all that hair standing up. The Wolf Man was included in both series' of 17" licensed Universal Monster Motionettes, but I don't think there's any significant difference between the two. My favorite part of this thing? I got it for a measly $5 on Ebay! When the last time you bought a Japanese robot for $5?* ;)

SEE! The Gill-Man move!

SEE! His eyes burn with fury!

HEAR! Godzilla's roar?!??!!

When I recently started focusing my collecting habits more on monsters than robots, one of the things that immediately captured my fancy were motionettes. Motionettes are basically moving statues that are usually released as holiday decorations. Naturally, I am focusing entirely on the Universal Monsters, but all sorts of characters have been made from generic witches to Santa Claus.

The original and most famous motionettes were made by a company called Telco. The first releases they made were unlicensed and were 24" tall. Later, Telco would release officially licensed Universal Monsters in both 24" and 17" sizes. All of the larger sizes are harder to get and much more expensive than their smaller counterparts. 24" Motionettes come with a power cord, while the 17" ones function using two C batteries that are stored in the bottom of the black circular base the figure stands on. The figure is permanently attached to the base.

Even the 17" Universal Motionettes were broken up into two releases. Among the first releases were Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and The Creature From The Black Lagoon. The Bride of Frankenstein and The Mummy were added for the second series. Each figures comes packaged in a cardboard box with clear cellophane on the front. I had the hardest time actually getting most of these back into the boxes for pictures, so here's Frankenstein instead of the Creature, just to give you a look at the box. Consider it a preview of a future review..

Front Of Box

Side Of Box

Side Of Box

So, what exactly do the Motionettes do? Well, nothing too exciting really. The base has a switch with three settings, "on", "off" and "sound". Setting the switch to "on" makes the head turn and the arms raise and lower. Move the switch over one more spot to "sound" and the character keeps moving but now the eyes light up red and it makes noise. Now, the noise it makes doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the character itself. For instance, the Creature here actually produces a roar that sounds almost exactly like that of GODZILLA!

The Creature is made primarily out of soft vinyl, cast in green with red, white and blue painted highlights. Naturally, vinyl is the best option for a character like this, but many of the others in the series have clothing much like a doll would, as you can see in the Frankenstein picture above.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon seems to be the easiest from this series to get. It's certainly the one I've seen most on Ebay.

The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known! A little late for Halloween, but I finally scored me a wind-up Dracula to complete the Universal Monsters set. Check it out!

Hey, people dig vampires. There's no doubt about it. Something about the tragic immortality they possess. Something about the obsession, the hunger. Something about the penetration and fluid transfer.

What?

The bite!!

Anyway, being a Romania native, it seems Bela Lugosi was born to play the titular Count in 1931's Dracula. Lugosi had a pretty solid resume under his belt by the time 1931 rolled around (including having previously played the grand daddy of all vampires on Broadway some years before), but it was Tod Browning's film that not only defined his career, but propelled him into a cental position with Univeral Studios.

Besides Dracula, Lugosi played some prominent and some not-so-prominent roles for Universal. In 1941's The Wolf Man, he made a marvelous cameo as the gypsy, "Bela", who delivered the warning of the dreaded werewolf. He played the more memorable of Frankenstein's hunchback assistants, "Ygor", in 1939's Son of Frankenstein across from Boris Karloff's last role as the monster, and 1942's The Ghost of Frankenstein across from Lon Chaney, Jr.'s monster. And, of course, Lugosi played the monster, itself, in 1943's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man across from Chaney's reprise of the Wolf Man!

Besides his work for Universal, Lugosi has had some impressive roles like the Sayer of the Law in 1932's Island of Lost Souls, and some...not-so-impressive roles like the ghoul in Plan 9 from Outer Space! Probably his most acclaimed parts were those paired with Karloff...films like RKO's The Body Snatcher (1945) or the Poe adaptations, The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935).

...But Lugosi's myriad roles aside, Dracula is the focus of this toy review!

The tin wind-up toy reviewed here was produced in 1992 by "Mike Company", a US-based Univeral Monsters licensee recently renamed a year earlier from "Robot House". I've been told by Jay at Robot Island, a dealer of fine tin wind-up toys, that Robot House was granted the license to the characters and then contracted Billiken Shokai of Japan to manufacture the toys. Billiken--perhaps more famous for their high-quality, realistic vinyl tokusatsu kits and figures--are NO slackers when it comes to tin. And that quality clearly shows in these toys.

Along with Dracula, Robot House produced tin wind-ups of Frankenstein's monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Gill-Man (the Creature from the Black Lagoon).

Killer box--though I miss the neat artwork from the previous releases.

Now, I have to make the disclaimer that I don't normally "collect" tin walkers. As I'm fond of saying, I "buy what I like"...and that tends to be a little bit of everything. I only have about 10 tins and I bought them simply because I thought they were beautiful toys--they're not vintage or anything...and I really don't know much about the tin "MARKET".

This box has a cool coffin motif and the cross on top is actually a cut-out, through which you can see the black nylon bag the figure is wrapped in.

I'm not too sure what constitutes an "outstanding" tin because I simply haven't seen enough to be able to judge what "outstanding" even is! The first four monsters will run you around $40-50 on the aftermarket. While the Mummy is becoming more and more scarce, the Gill-Man appears to be the most plentiful. Dracula, unfortunately, will run you around $125 easily. I don't know if that's a "lot" for a non-vintage (well...16 years old) tin walker, but I will say that based on the sheer quality of these pieces, it's worth it.

This piece is great, much like the others from this line. The lithography is top notch, even if a bit simple. It does a great job of conveying Dracula's dapper evening attire. The printing on the tin is flawless and works perfectly with the cape and vinyl parts.

And speaking of his cape, that's one part the other figures in the line obviously lack. And it happens to be gorgeous. It's made of two pieces of nylon (or some similar synthetic fabric): black on the outside and red on the inside. Toys with capes often turn me off because they're usually some awful fabric that is too stiff to drape realistically or has a fuzzy texture that otherwise makes the toy look like a toy. Alternatively, capes for toys are sometimes actually made from a piece of molded plastic or rubber...which admittedly looks great, but is obviously static and not very interesting.

This cape, however, succeeds: the nylon is cut to drape and wrinkle in the right ways to look realistic enough, while maintaining a nice smooth sheen. It's tough enough to be handled without worry, but supple enough to move freely when the toy is walking. The only thing static is the collar, which is painted vinyl.

Next, the vinyl parts, themselves, are nicely rendered. The head and hands seem to be cast black vinyl with the pale white skin color painted directly on with no priming (well, perhaps a black primer). You can just barely see some black showing through in some spots on the skin where the paint is thin. This effect is actually really cool! It's very subtle, but it lends to the "undead" look.

As for the sculpt of the face, itself, I dig it. It doesn't quite look exactly like Bela Lugosi, but it comes pretty close and looks good for a toy, in general. Lugosi's strong nose and wrinkes on his cheeks and chin come through nicely, but I think they could've done the eyes better. The eyebrows are a bit high (lending to a shocked sort of expression...rather than a menacing one). Also, I think the eyes should be darker and squintier...meaner-looking! Still, I'm not dissatisfied.

Next up are the hands. Just like all of the Robot House/Mike Company Univeral Monsters tin wind-ups, these are superb. Easily just as much care went into their sculpt as went into the faces. The detail is great and, again, in some spots where the paint is thin on the flesh, the black base starts to show through. This unevenness ends up looking very "realistic"...for a dead guy. Also, the ring on his left ring-finger is nicely-done.

Again, this toy looks great overall. The dark colors and overall design aesthetic flow nicely between the vinyl parts, the cape, and the tin body. The simple style of the artwork on the tin complements the basic shape of those parts, but doesn't clash at all with the realistic sculpt of the head and hands. I also like how the bright red on the inside of the cape contrasts well against the dark body, giving it some visually-interesting definition.

Anyway, not a whole lot more to say about this piece. I think a video review wouldn't help too much seeing as how it's a tin walker. You wind it up...and he walks as the arms swing back and forth. The winding action is nice and smooth and the movement is brisk--if a tad noisy.

Land Bison comes from the brave series: Legendary Brave Da Garn. Originally manufactured by Takara, this version is a licensed Korean version from Sonokong. The toy is identical in every way, only the packaging is different.

Land Bison is a combiner robot consisting of 4 robots. The four are plain and feature very basic transformations.

• Mach Lander
• Turbo Lander
• Big Lander
• Drill Lander

Each robot has a gun, and requires decals. All four guns can combine when you assemble Land Bison. Big lander's trailer can store the three other vehicles. The trailer can be applied to Land Bison's back and the rear door of the trailer becomes a shield. Once combined, Land Bison is an impressive cowboy-themed robot. Land Bison's head has a translucent vein on top that makes the eyes glow when there is a light source above it.

I really love the design of this robot. It is less blocky than most brave robots, and it almost crosses over into the super robot school of design. The chrome drills on the shoulders are a nice touch as well.

None of the robots, including the combined form, has any articulation to speak of. You have some range of movement in the arms with Land Bison, but that's about it. It's pretty solid, and fun to transform. The only real flaw with this one is that the stickers on Mach Lander do not like to stay on. You can find the Sonokong version for significantly less than the Takara Versions. Sonokong still manufactures many Brave Series robots that Takara stopped producing a long time ago.

This is a fantastic Tetsujin 28 FX by Korean Bootleg maker SEHO. It also has toy maker OLYMPUS's name on the box, but i'm pretty sure it is a SEHO product.

Iron Man 28 is about 12" inches tall and made out of a high quality plastic. He is quite articulated, and includes the trademark Korean arm bend (the arms only bend in to the the chest on Korean toys for some reason). Chrome and stickers really make this toy stand out. Tetsujin 28 FX also includes Tetsujin 17 Phoenix, a robot bird that attaches to Tetsujin's back to give him wings. With Tetsujin 17 Phoenix attached, Tetsujin 28 FX gets an insane 12 inch wingspan. Unfortunately, with the Phoenix attached, Tetsujin 28 FX gets too top heavy and does not like to stand. He also includes a gun that barely fits in his hand.

Tetsujin 28 FX also includes an electronic gimmick. Insert 3 AA batteries into a compartment on his back and lights will go on and he will begin yelling at you, non-stop, until you take the batteries out. What a great idea. See for yourself how loud and annoying this is:

To top off this wonderful package, SEHO included 2 miniature Land Lligers from Dancouga in the package, just in case you needed them. How insane is that? It's as if they couldn't let a perfectly normal toy out of the factory without adding their bizarre Korean touch to it.