Not to be outdone by Bandai, Marusan brings out a new Giant Mechagodzilla

Not to be outdone by Bandai, Marusan brings out a new Giant Mechagodzilla. This is Soft Vinyl, 42cm tall, 21000 yen. Due 12/2008

Devilman, Mazinger Z, and Getter 1,2,3!

Made by Marusan, distributed by Organic. This Trading Figure box figures 2 of each character - One regular, one alternate color. The box will sell for 5250 yen, due December 08.

I love Gamera, but was never a big fan of his enemy kaiju. But I just couldn't pass up a good deal on a nice clear vinyl.

This is one of those toys that I tried really hard not to buy. I saw it on Yahoo!Japan auctions for what I thought was a very reasonable price (3,000yen), but just didn't want to spend any money. I even tried to talk Sanjeev into buying it instead of me, but he wasn't having it. But a couple months later I was ordering some other stuff, and it was still there so I took the plunge. And I'm glad I did. This isn't exactly one of my favorite characters, but this particular vinyl is pretty neat.

Guiron is from the 1969 Toho film "Gamera vs. Guiron", released in the US as "Attack of the Monsters".

This toy was made by Marusan and stands the standard 9 inches tall. It's articulated at the shoulders and neck only. Of course, it's real appeal is that it is made out of clear soft vinyl. Adorned with light blue spray and highlighted in yellow and purple, I thought this was the best looking Guiron vinyl I'd ever seen. Really, my one and only gripe with it is that the teeth are not painted. I think that detail would have really made for a nice touch.

Guiron comes packaged in a bag with a header card.

40 cm tall from Marusan, 14,000 yen, due December.

40 cm tall from Marusan, 14,000 yen, due December.

FRAN is an alien from Marusan’s TEDEROS line of vinyl robot and monster toys.

FRAN is an alien from Marusan’s TEDEROS line of vinyl robot and monster toys. The designs in TEDEROS are an original Marusan creation, but they have gone to great lengths to provide back story for the characters. Marusan has made comics and videos that tell the story of TEDEROS

Despite Roger’s constant whoring of TEDEROS, I had managed to resist the temptation of these things But when he had the alien FRAN for sale, I took the chance.

Now I am not so sure that this was the right move.

It is not that FRAN is a bad toy, it is just not what I expected. For some reason I thought that the smaller FRAN (the one with legs) docked into the bottom of the saucer. This is not the case; the saucer FRAN and the alien FRAN are two, smaller vinyl pieces.

Don’t get me wrong, the quality on these is top notch – expertly crafted vinyl toys of really cool designs. They are a bit on the small side, with FRAN alien at about 4 inches tall and Flying FRAN about 4.5 inches around. They are supposed to represent the same character in different forms.

Both items are packaged together in a bag with TEDEROS header card.

Perhaps they will grow on me. I put them on the vinyl shelf and the kids seem to have taken a liking to them.