New painted version of Marusan Garamon

Sorry, small pic is all that seems to be available at the moment.
I have a strong like of this sculpt, and I'm sure I'd be more impressed by seeing one in person (at 29cm, this is a BIG, chunktacular Garamon), but something has kept me from loving it... and I'm still not sure what that something is. 

Marusan Garamon

Yeah, it took me way too long to post on this guy... but here you go, some shots of Marusan's great new Garamon sculpt (which, right off the bat, I like a lot better than their Pygmon sculpt from a few years back).  Here we've got the original clay sculpt, the red first-release version, and the upcoming gold and pink glow releases:

Choice Garaflickrings...

... from some of my favorite photostreams...

PK (an oldie but a goodie!):

REdYOdA:

six7777:

bbbbfish:

kurumonz:

redchicken:

kist!!:

COOP666:

Gara-smashed

In November of 2007, renaissance man Matt Alt took a Marusan Garamon out on the town.

Our hapless meteorite monster first had his (already shaky) equilibrium challenged by being waved aloft amidst the lanterns; then he was induced to drink way too much sake for a toy his size, which of course resulted in his feeling like he was being pummeled by Bruce Lee.

Pygmonic Coming-Soonz

Marusan Pygmon rainbow set (now avail-a-bule for pre-order from Super7):


X-Plus does Pygmon, due to drop in March:


Much more right-on than their take on Garamon, IMHO.

Round-up: The Softer Side of Garamon

Let me kick this post off by letting my preference-cat outta the bag: I tend, greatly, to prefer suit-faithful, highly detailed sculpts of Garamon and Pygmon to softer, more interpretive pieces. Softer sculpts are a very hit-or-miss affair for me, and I can say within a second or five of looking at them whether they do anything at all for me (there are rare exceptions to this; I didn't think much of the US Toys minis when I first saw them, but eventually came around to be crazy about them). Speaking just in terms of what I'll actually put in my collection (it probably goes without saying at this point that I get a kick out of looking at any and all Gara-sculpts), I can say that I dig interpretive sculpts which boast detailed, very thoughtful designs that capture some essence of the character (the Yamanaya or the Marmits featured in earlier posts are perfect examples), or those that fall somewhere in the general realm of super-deformed. As they get further afield of those qualifiers, my interest wanes.

The wee duo below is a good example of nicely detailed sd-type Gara-sculpting. The in-the-garadama guy on the right is a one-piece resin kit; I’m not sure who makes it, but several fully-painted copies have popped up on YJA of late. I believe that the full-figure version on the left may actually be a conversion of the standard kit, with the garadama cut away and the lower body sculpted from scratch. Mebbe.

A couple o’ super-strange takes on Gary, here…first, we have the offspring of Garamon and a lemur:


Kawaii. I could actually see this one on my shelf.

Continuing the blank-eyed motif, we have an even more Harold Gray-ish interpretation from M1-GO:

Really does look like a Gary that might have been featured in some early 20th century advertisement for fruit or tires. An entertainingly curious piece, but not one I’d chase.

Here’s a vintage Popy Kingzaurus* piece, currently up on evilBay. I kinda like this sculpt, with its weird paint and its non-spiny, hairy-puffball look…and dig those soles, dad! If I ever ended up with one of these, I’d be tempted to display him lying down, soles-out, as in the second pic…


This one...what the hell’s mounted on Gary’s shoulder?
An oscillation overthruster?
The baby from Eraserhead?


Lastly…and, oh yes, very much leastly…there’s this utter mess (sorry for the imprint on the photo, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time hunting pics of this abomination):


Blecchhh.
I rebuke thee, sculptor!

*UPDATE: Alex Wald swoops in to make up for my rather lazy research...just shows to go ya how lax my focus gets when dealing with the Softer Side...thanks, AW!

"The "evilBay Marusan" is actually a Popy Kingzaurus (a Bandai company) and hails fromn 1978. All the figures in this series have sculpted kaiju ashiato (footprints). Each figure came with a black and white sticker of the footprint which one would add to a brochure-like coupon; a completed set of the stickers when mailed to Popy headquarters would win you a special edition monster cast in clear glitter vinyl! Peguila, Garamon, RedKing, Icarus and King Joe comprised the special edition set. The green keshigomu is actually of "Pygu"--a Pygmon-like monster from the 1979 animated "The Ultraman" series.

Last, the "utter mess" is by Nostalgic Heroes (Ed: Ah, yes...I kinda knew that, at some point...but I was made too queasy from the pic to do any verification...) and that's their company logo. I believe--though not certain--that this is a repro of a vintage bootleg from long ago. Nostalgic Heroes does many excellent new and truly obscure repro figures."

Robo-Gary! ROBO-GARY!!!

SEE the fabulous step-by-step build-up of this classic Marusan model/toy!!!
READ the Japanese text (or be CONFUSED by a web-based translation)!!!
THRILL to the sight of Robo-Gary locked in battery-powered combat with Gojira and Gamera!!!



And please don’t forget to patronize our snack bar during intermission.

UPDATE: The venerable Alex Wald has checked in with a very thorough, informative skrying of the site's text- thank you, Alex!

"The translation really kicks my head--or does it kick my head's ass? The long strings of letters are occasionally intelligible: f'rinstance "NOSUTARUJIKKUHIROZU" is the toymaker "Nostalgic Heroes." "GIZAGIZAGOMURORA" believe it or not refers to the little rubber wheels; "Gizagiza" is a notched wheel like a mill and "gomurora" is "gum roller," --- "gum" being the colloquial term for any rubbery substance. And "RESUTOA" is simply "restore" meaning a restoration.

As for the "painting" section, I compared it to the Japanese and think I can come up with something less mysterious:

"Naturally it was in monochrome ( the real thing ) so not knowing the color is OK. There was a special issue of Terebi-kun with a color still and moreover in Uchusen, Mr. Ryosaku Takayama said of a newly built model "this is the way I felt it should be painted." He said the body was more like an orange (color) feeling but "that's the way it is."

Of course Terebi-kun and Uchusen are magazines your readers should be familiar with. So the deal is that Ultra Q was in B&W as we all know --"The real thing" is rendered parenthetically (hommono) which means "genuine" --- in this case the actual costume from Ultra Q. The auto-translation device rendered the name of the suit-maker "takayama, " which means "high mountain" as "alpine!" "This is the way I felt it should be painted" is a quote from Takayama. The wrap up is I believe a paraphrase and basically goes "ma --- kore wa kore de," which is "but--as for this--it's this."

I explored a little further in the original site--it's the "Karakuri Plamo Chushin," (karakuri is an ancient word for "mechanism, " plamo is "plastic model," chushin is "center," but also significant is that Chushin is a homonym for "one's true heart." So this guy--his name might be "mizuyon"--really LOVES wind up models (zenmai plamo) and the entire site is devoted to them.

As for me, I wanted to find any kaiju lurking about and was not too disappointed. There turns out to be one other kaiju-centric page I could find and that's here.

Here's the funky truth about auto-translations---they just don't have the capacity to get what's being written about! The translated header for this page is:
Mallon and monster moths Corps
--which turns out to be: GAMARON to Kaiju Gundan (Gamaron and the Monster Corps). The translation app don't know shit about model-maker Nitto Kagaku's 1970s Gamera-wannabe kaiju GAMARON so we get "monster moth Mallon," --- "moth" being "ga" in Japanese. In fact our Gamaron is a Behemoth Bufo--a frog monster--as "gama" is the frog word that indicates his lineage.

Then, still continuing in English, I came across the phrase "gimmick debauchery" which popped up in the GARAMON feature as well. Phrases like this fill me with conflict-- a battle between the desire for truth versus the preservation of a beautiful mystery; should I try for a more accurate rendering of the Japanese I run the risk of turning something sensationally weird into something merely mundane. The Japanese text shows "gimmick" written in katakana so it's clearly a loan-word. Gimmick means gimmick and that's that. The "debauchery" part turns out to be "douraku" which consists of the kanji for "street" and "pleasure." Cross-referencing one of my Japanese dictionaries I found that translations for douraku do in fact include "debauchery," also "dissipation." Reading on I found "passion," "hobby," and finally "mania." "Gimmick Mania!" Alright! Makes sense to me...

Original Japanese:
静岡ホビーショーのモデラーズクラブ合同作品展に参加する『ギミック道楽 』
さんでゼンマイ怪獣を展示するので、ガマロンも是非参加を！

Translation app:
"Tokyo Game Show MODERAZUKURABU participate in a joint exhibition of debauchery, gimmick Springs to display his monster, dark moth welcome to participate!"

Alex’s version:
"(I participated in)Tokyo Game Show MODELLER'S CLUB Joint Exhibition of Goods. "Mr. Gimmick Mania" springs to display his monster, GAMARON is also welcome to join."

So now it turns out that "Gimmick Douraku" is the nome-de-plamo of the modeler! Still not sure if Mr. Gimmick Mania is the correspondent or some other attendee."