Kanegon

Review by JoshB

Kanegon is one of the most iconic Ultra Kaiju. But what is his story?

Kanegon first appeared in Episode 15 of UltraQ, the predecessor of Ultraman. In it, A small greedy boy named Kaneo finds a change purse which is actually a cocoon. It sucks him up, and when he wakes up, he turns into Kanegon! The physical form of Kanegon is a monster with a change purse for a head (notice the zipper on the mouth) and a counter on his chest. Kanegon now needs to eat money to live (3,510 yen a day, to be exact), and if the change counter on his chest reaches zero, he dies.

The story is more of a fable than anything else. Despite making very few appearances in the Ultraman Saga, Kanegon has become a very popular kaiju and is one of the series most iconic characters.

Here's a modern Kanegon appearance:

The toy is a basic Bandai modern soft vinyl, sold on with a tag and card. This, like other recent Ultra Monster releases, comes with a card for use with the DataCardass game system.

The figure is soft vinyl, with articulation in the head and arms. Cast in Brown vinyl, paint decoration is minimal with gold and black paint.

The details are sharp, with the nice accents on the zipper mouth and the chest counter. It's really nicely done.

It's a cheap way to get a figure that got in trouble for obsessing about money. I'm not sure if Kanegon's lesson is lost on us....