DO YOU DARE GAZE UPON THE FACE OF MEDUSA?

Yamato USA Announces the Opening of Preorders for Its Fantasy Figure Gallery: Medusa’s Gaze Inspired by the Work of Luis Royo

TORRANCE, CA, October 28, 2008. Dare you gaze upon the face of Medusa? Legend has it that even a fleeting glance will turn a man to stone. But perhaps the real question is: Will you be able to resist?

Fear not! And feast your eyes upon the exquisite beauty of Yamato USA’s Fantasy Figure Gallery: Medusa's Gaze. Yamato USA’s Fantasy Figure Gallery is our very own groundbreaking collection of resin quality PVC statues, bringing together the unrivaled talent of Asia’s foremost portrait sculptors with the leading fantasy artists of Europe and the Americas. Featured here, Luis Royo’s stunning Medusa’s Gaze as interpreted by master sculptor Shungo Yazawa. The second piece in Yamato USA’s Fantasy Figure Gallery, Medusa’s Gaze stands approximately 11.80” tall, features amazingly intricate paint details, and comes complete with display base all packaged in a collector’s style window box.

Yamato USA and its distribution partners are pleased to accept preorders for its Fantasy Figure Gallery: Medusa’s Gaze now through November 21, 2008 with a Spring 2009 release. For more information, contact your local comic shop or visit us at www.YamatoToysUSA.com.

ABOUT LUIS ROYO

Luis Royo was born in 1954 in Olalla, a small town in Teruel. In 1972 he starts painting and exhibiting in various forums. In 1978 he begins his career as a comic-book artist. In 1983 he goes to illustration, where he will harvest his greatest successes.

In 1992 his first book, Women, appears, followed by Malefic (1994), Secrets (1996), III Millenium (1998), Dreams (1999), Prohibited Book (1999), Evolution (2001), Prohibition Book 2 (2001), Conceptions I (2002), Visions (2003), Prohibited Book 3 (2003), Conceptions II (2003), Prohibited Sketchbook (2004), Fantastic Art (2004), The Labyrinth Tarot (2004), and Conceptions III (2005). To these titles we must add the publication of six series of collector cards, six portfolios, posters, and two packs of Tarot cards, The Black Tarot and The Labyrinth Tarot.

The growing popularity of his pictures has allowed us to find them as well in postcards, calendars, packs of cards, T-shirts, CD jackets, videogames, and even on some sculptures.

With this large production, Royo becomes a true mass phenomenon. His books have been edited many times, being rendered into French, German, English, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Japanese. Magazines such as Stampa, Airbrush-Action, or Penthouse publish articles about him in their pages. Festivals, art galleries, or stores specializing in art and comic-books continuously organize exhibitions and tributes to him. He has received, among others, the following awards: Silver Award Spectrum (USA), CartooMics (Italy), and The Pilgrim (Russia).

Royo’s success is nothing but the acknowledgment of his original work which has come to revolutionize the world of illustration.

ABOUT YAMATO USA

Yamato USA is the wholly owned subsidiary of Yamato Co., Ltd with headquarters in the otaku capital of the world, the Akihabara district of Tokyo, Japan. For over ten years, Yamato USA has proudly served otaku on this side of the world with a wide offering of miniature collectible figures, PVC and die-cast action figures, as well as poly-resin and PVC statues inspired by the hottest titles in Japanese anime, manga, and video game properties. Yamato’s original collections include Story! Image! Figure! collectible miniatures and trading figures and Story! Image! Figure! EX PVC statues, as well as its newest lines, Creators’ Labo and Sculptors’ Originals, highlighting the talents of the leading artists and sculptors working in Japan; The GN-U, a tribute to transforming super robots; and the explosive Project Dynamite. Nor to be overlooked are Yamato’s Scopedog, Garland, and Motoslave engineering marvels from Armored Trooper Votoms, Megazone 23, and Bubblegum Crisis, some of the most impressive collectibles you will ever own! And now Yamato USA adds its own line of collectible figures with its Fantasy Figure Gallery, a groundbreaking union of East and West as the leading sculptors of Asia bring to life the vision of legendary fantasy artists from Europe and the America to create resin quality pieces at PVC prices.