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I'm a kid of the 80s, grew up with the usual suspects of heman, transformers, thundercats and gijoe. I loved animation of all sorts. Since I was overseas and not in North America certain toys were harder to find, but I was also exposed to more shows that I guess were shown in the British or European market.
Toywise heman, thundercats and gijoe were my thing. Though I loved those shows I would also get exposed to great shows like Robotech ( Macross ), Spiral Zone, Galaxy Rangers and so forth.
I'm really into mech / robots and when I was younger one of my friends cousins had this toy from Hong Kong it was the Transformers Jetfire in a Macross like box setup with armor. I was so amazed at the clicky sounds and the decent amount of transforming and just the amount of detail in it.
Came to Canada when I was starting High School and was always reminiscing about how cool it would be to track down all my old childhood toys and thanks to ebay I did just that like i think most collectors did.
Also I was collecting comics at the time and Silver Snail also opened my eyes to a lot of older toys and japanese imports.
I think this hobby is not so much how many items you accumulate, but the joy and honesty of a time in your life when things werent as complicated as life now.
It started in 1977.
I went over to a friend's house. His mother was Japanese, and his dad was Dutch. I had the Kenner Star Wars Early Bird kit still in its package, and was beyond excited to show him what I got. We both pored over the documents included in the package, and wondered what the final designs would look like. However, my eyes drifted over to the other side of the room where a giant black and silver robot stood, with a sleek fighter plane nestled in its "crown". Beside this, were toys of strange, multicoloured robots I had never seen. I was fascinated by their weight and dangerous eye-gouging gimmicks. We played for hours. In fact, due to the absence of Star Wars figures, oppotunistic toy companies, like Empire Toys sated my pangs with Star Wars-esque robots like Brain III from UFO Commander 7. As I saved up my allowance to get Valcan-1, my Early Bird figures arrived, and the focus was Star Wars for a good seven years.
However, anime had sneakily crept onto the scene with Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers, cleverly disguised as North American shows. And slowly, I began to take notice again. While walking in a fleamarket, I kept coming accross really cool, but expensive import toys from something called "Macross" and "Orguss". I loved the designs and they greatly influenced my budding artistic efforts at the time. I was able to pick up a small plastic transforming jet-robot (later to be identified as a cheap version of Hikaru's VF 1J from Macross).The suspicion that something cool was out there beyond my realm of experience became tangible when a toy called "Jetfire" appeared in the Transformers line. "He" was unlike any of the previous transformers, and looked, curiously, alot like that jet robot I had a few years previously.
And then, one day, in 1984, I walked in to the Silver Snail and saw a huge box - the VF-1S 1/55 Strike Valkyrie. It was Jetfire... but about ten times cooler.
I went nuts. I begged my parents for it. With birthday money firmly in hand, I started down a long road of toy design appreciation, and an affinity for Japanese aesthetics.
Much of my artistic work is strongly influenced by the designs in Orguss, Gatchaman and Macross, and to see those designs in the third dimension has been a constant thrill.
I'm collecting Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers DX Toys since 2005. I found an old Dragonzord on a garage sell, i bought it and remembered the fun I had when i was 5 years old, back in 1993. I'm trying to get my hand on any DX (mega)zord, but I am kind of "specialized" in the MMPR Era (season 1-2-3) even if i recently got into the Super Sentai Magiranger serie.
I am a BIG fan of Grendizer (Goldorak in Quebec) and Mazinger and I like the Soul of Chogokin series. I started my collection in 2004.
I collect mainly Action Figures & Comics (Variant Covers especially!)
For Figures I collect Darth Vader and Storm/Clone Troopers, Super-Heroes/Villians, and Horror/Sci-Fi - but I'm all over the map, if I see something that I think looks cool, I buy it!
I am Meagan King, 17 years old from Winnipeg Manitoba. I use to collect Japanese toys and anime characters like Naruto, Death Note, Fushigi Yugi, Pom Poko, and many more. I like mangas too.. I use to write ">custom essays about these toys. The essays contain the name of the toy, its origin, and where you can buy these in just a cheap price. I also add comments and opinions to it. You will never regret about the money you will lend for buying collections like this.
