Xabungle Mini Gokin
Review by JoshB
I admit it, I went through a Xabungle phase. It's ok, it happens to everyone at some point. What can I say, it was college, I was experimental.
This toy was made by a Japanese toy company called Seven. Seven made mostly cheap toys of licensed characters.
Although they were probably cheap in price, they were actually sometimes nicely done. Take this Xabungle for instance.
The box is super nice, with die-cut windows, styrofoam tray, and even a little card that shows through the window.
Xabungle is only a few inches tall, but the body and legs are diecast metal.
There's articulation at the head, arms and the wings. That's it.
Perhaps as a child I would have thought this toy sucked. And as a toy, I guess it fails. But as a collector i think its a cool oddity to add to your collection. I love the fact that these little things that were meant as cheap throwaway toys were made with such great materials and great packaging.
Little. Metal. Different.
Comments
9 comments postedI quite like this little guy. A non-transforming Xabungle, but with wing articulation? Trippy. And why the Xabungle hate? Many of the designs are so awesomely real it's... well, awesome.
---
Where's mah DAITARN 3 SoC?
I'd kill for an Iron Gear like this.
--
Sanjeev
Wow, it's a non-transformable version of the one I've got! I thought it was the same one, at first. Xabungle has had a strange hand in my life, actually. I had that figure, but the transformable one, when I was very young. Didn't know what it was, and just about all the parts are missing now (I think he's a torso and legs). Then, sometime back in high school, a friend randomly buys me two cheap knockoff toys (cause I love knockoffs so much) and one just happened to be that exact Xabungle! From there I did the research to finally find out what that little robot was. (Oh yeah, the second one he got me turned out to be Iron Gear, which I managed to transform into the neat little airship).
You are probably thinking of this one:
http://www.collectiondx.com/review/1983/astroider
------------------------------
CollectionDX Admin
That's the one! Thanks! I've never seen my original without the stickers worn off. That one has to be my original, though, given the colors and what I remember of the stickers (dunno how I wore those stickers off so bad. I do know that I dropped the head down a drain, though!) The second one I got years later was actually a Xabungle, though, so it was cool that I at least found out the real name of it. If I had eventually found the Astroider name I wouldn't have gotten any answers!
I love this figure. Give it to me? :)
Your toys. Give them to me.
--
Sanjeev
I've got the cheap knock-offs in nearly identical packaging, and the HCM Walker Gallier (sp) was great. It's easy to admire this series old school charm.
Now I have to wonder how this toy stands next to a Mini-Godaikin.
The stickers rock.
nice, I thought this was the knockoff I had, but mine is the all plastic one. One of my first robots was a plasctic Irongear. My mom would go past chinatown and pick out a couple robots to bring home to me... I remember thinking Xabungle was such a strange name.
I love reading reviews here, sparks up so many memories