You can Clearly see how awesome this Gavan toy is.

While I am not a huge Metal Hero fan, I have always had a soft spot for Gavan (ギャバン), the silver armored warrior from Space Sheriff Gavan (宇宙刑事ギャバン).

I spied this cheap little toy at Kimono My House, and knew I had to grab it. It’s a translucent PVC figure with hard plastic translucent plates that clip on to the body.

Gavan stands about 6” tall and separates into 8 pieces. The clear plastic has a green tint and has great mechanical details etched into it. The hard plastic shell parts snap onto it acting as armor plating. The two levels of plastic really adds a nice dimension to the toy. Also included with the toy is a sword and three small erasers. There are different versions of this toy with different color plating, background foils, and different erasers.

I absolutely LOVE the packaging on this toy. Victora is quickly becoming one of my favorite companies for vintage box art.

I bought my JAKQ Dia Jack at an IPMS Model kit show at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel in Buena Park about 1986. It was in a huge box full of blow out priced Japanese toys and I believe I paid $2.00 for it. Looking back all these years later I wonder what other toys were in that box that I failed to recognize! This was also the same show that I saw the Tetsujin 28 Godaikin for sale for only $100.00! Boy, have times changed!

The concept was real simple for this once 12-year-old kid in the mid 1980’s. If the toy looked Japanese…I bought it, regardless if I even knew what series it was from or not. Years later I had assembled a huge collection of Japanese toys and when it came to identifying some of these toys pre-internet days it was near next to impossible.

So I now introduce one of these toys that I haphazardly bought, JAKQ’s Dia Jack Blue. JAKQ was the second Super Sentai series from 1977. Although now considered a groundbreaking program, JAKQ only ran for 35 episodes and was cancelled about a third of the way through the series. The costume gimmick of JAKQ was that all colored hero’s wore card shapes on their helmet’s visors: Spade Ace, Dia Jack, Heart Queen, Clover King, Big One and Commander Joker. The subject of this review is Dia (Diamond) Jack.

I bought my JAKQ Dia Jack at an IPMS Model kit show at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel in Buena Park about 1986. It was in a huge box full of blow out priced Japanese toys and I believe I paid $2.00 for it. Looking back all these years later I wonder what other toys were in that box that I failed to recognize! This was also the same show that I saw the Tetsujin 28 Godaikin for sale for only $100.00! Boy, have times changed!

Dia (Diamond) Jack figure stands at 3 ¾ making it one of the few Japanese action figures lines next to microman in this scale that would later prove popular with Kenner and Hasbro with their respective lines. As my Dia Jack did not come with any packaging and was bought “as is” I do not have any photo reproduction of what the outer package looked like. My example came with: 1x Dia Jack Figure, 1x Strengthening Capsule.

Typical of many Japanese figures of this era, the figure is not a realistic depiction of a human body; I hate to see what the female Heart Queen figure looked like! Dia Jack bends at the knees, hips, elbow and shoulder. The gloves, head and waist also spin around. The figure comes with a cool yellow vinyl cape that adds a lot of character to the figure. I also love the look of the diamond visor helmet. In my opinion JAKQ helmets are the best looking in entire 30 year series and one of the most easily remembered.

One of my favorite features of Dia Jack is the strengthening capsule that is included with the figure. In the series each character henshin into their respective outfits in these strengthening capsules that was located in their ship, Sky Ace. It is a great carrying case for Dia Jack and it holds the figure securely inside the capsule. The capsule could also explain why my Dia Jack was in clean condition when I purchased it and why stayed in mint condition in my possession for so many years.

Over the last few years I have been clearing out many of my Japanese toys and focusing my collection on Chogokins, Macross, Robotech and 1980’s GI Joe related items and I have since sold this figure on Ebay to a local collector for $23.00.

If you are a fanatic about this classic Super Sentai series I would definitely try to assemble a complete set as it would be an impressive and unique display. But to be honest I’m going to patiently wait for a better and true to life toy depiction of JACQ’s characters, sadly something I do not see happening any time soon.

For More information on JAKQ: http://www.supersentai.com/database/1977_jakq/index.html

Leonardo Flores “Uplandmod”

Each arm has a firing fist, but if you notice they are both red. Victora was so cheap they didn’t even bother to mold the second fist in another color.

Victora (ビクトラー) was a sub-company of the famous toy company Popy. Popy wanted to move into the cheap toy market, but they didn’t want to associate their brand name with crappy toys. Thus the sub company called Victora  (or sometimes Victorer) was born.

Victora toys could mostly be found at train station kiosks, and near cash registers at stores. They were an affordable quick fix for kids, and for parents they wouldn’t break the bank. They were nothing compared to their parent company, Popy, but for what they are worth they are pretty cool.

This Golion toy was part of Victora’s “Victora Gokin (ビクトラー合金)” line. Basically, it was just cheap toys that had a little metal in them.

Of course, we all know Golion as Voltron III or Lion Voltron. Does this little toy look familiar to you? It might, it was highly bootlegged in the 80s, and showed up in America as carnival prizes, at flea markets and discount stores.

The toy stands just a few inches tall, and has a solid metal body. Articulation (if you want to call it that) is limited to the head and shoulders. Each arm has a firing fist, but if you notice they are both red. Victora was so cheap they didn’t even bother to mold the second fist in another color.

Golion comes with a shield but no sword. Also included are two wings that need to be attached.

The toy is packaged in a Styrofoam tray that sits inside a nice window box. The box art is really nice.

Victora toys are not essential pieces unless you are a fan of a particular character. I love Golion, so I had to have this as part of my collection.

The black Alpha robot is quickly becoming one of my “Holy Grails”, largely due to its inability to be found.

Beta Robo is one of three robots that combine to become Albegas, from the anime series Lightning Wind God Albegas (Kousoku Denshin Albegas 光速電神アルベガス).

This toy is relatively unknown amongst collectors. It is one of three small cheap Albegas robots that can combine to form the giant Albegas robot. Even though it is cheap and hollow, it appears the toy fully combines. Why do I say “appears”?  Well, I have never made the combination. I have only been able to locate the Beta and Gamma robots. I have never even seen a photograph of the Alpha robot in this line, never mind seen one for sale.

In addition to the combining features, Beta Robo comes with a metal gyro and a ripcord. This is known as the Gyro Mecha. All three toys in this line are labeled this way. You can take the individual robots apart and insert the gyro mechanism into them, pull the ripcord and watch the toy zoom off across the room. The package shows the combinations, and they make little sense.

The toys come packed in a Styrofoam tray inside a window box. The packaging is nice, and the toy comes with a small instruction sheet that shows how to assemble the robot.

The black Alpha robot is quickly becoming one of my “Holy Grails”, largely due to its inability to be found.