Japanese Toy Shop Videos pt 1

During my last trip/toy excursion to Japan, in October, 2011, I filmed a number of the toy shops and stores that I went into. For the most part I used my Veho Muvi mini spy camera, a pretty neat little piece of equipment. I just snapped it onto the left hand arm strap off my backpack and hit record. No one knew any better.

A big shout out must go to the guys at Super 7 and their essential book 'Tokyo Underground (1 and 2)'...pretty much a must if you intend to find any of the more hard to find toy shops scattered around Tokyo.

Here are the first two videos, from Third Uncle/Characters in Koiwa and Toys Golden Age, in Akihabara.

I'll be adding more in the coming days and weeks. You can always check my YouTube channel (Kamenliter) for updates.

As the Super 7 book says, the prices at Third Uncle were pretty crazy, but to their defense, the toys they had were in great shape, in nice boxes..but still, many high prices. Since it was one of the last stops, money was dwindling, and the exorbitant prices didn't help matters, but I finally decided on a nice Kamen Rider Stronger Popy vinyl (w/ removable helmet) and a smaller Popy Red Baron vinyl. Even just those two items set me back 30,000 yen. That transaction is documented on the video.

I didn't record my purchases at Toys Golden Age, but for the record, I picked up a cool Henshin Cyborg style purple horned cyclops figure...don't know who he is, but it was only 2100 yen for the figure and costume.

All the photos below, btw,  are from Third Uncle/Characters.

Ray Harryhausen:Special Effects Exhibit at MOMA, NYC 1981

These photos were taken by my dad during the Summer of 1981, at an exhibit of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion figures and drawings (not pictured here, but which can be seen in his various books) at the Museum of Modern Art, in NYC. The show was entitled Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects and ran from May 28–September 1, 1981, coinciding with the Summer release of Clash of the Titans.

Dark Crystal Exhibit pics - c. 1982/83

I took these photos at an exhibit for The Dark Crystal, the great Jim Henson puppet film, at the Astoria Motion Picture Studios in 1982 or '83.

Robot 6 - Shelf Porn and Figure.Fm Toy Pics!

I've been featured this week on Comic Book Resources weekly ode to people's stuff. It's 'Shelf Porn' - a section of the Robot 6 site. You can read a little about me there and see a bunch of pics from my collection. Here's the link:

Robot 6 - Shelf Porn

I'm also on the very cool Otaku site Figure.Fm. You can see some of my stuff there as well:

My Studio Room Shelves

My Basement Toy Shelves

The Amazing Spider-Man Issues 31-40

Over time, I'll post the covers to the first two hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man. Here are the covers to #'s 31-40, December 1965 - September, 1966. Artwork on #'s 31-38 by Steve Ditko, #'s 39 and 40 by John Romita, Sr.

Toys I Have Known

This is me with a friend from my 2nd grade class at ASIJ (American School In Japan), at my family's apartment in Tokyo, in March 1975. On the floor you can see a bunch of my old Japanese toys, some of which I still have. The red robot in front of my friend is Robocon, a Popy die-cast figure from 1974. He was able to switch his legs for wheels, and you can see those off to the left. I still have that part, as well as the legs, but not the rest of him. Bandai did make an exact reissue of him, though, in 1999, and I've got that.

Check out the intro to his crazy TV show here:

Robocon Intro

Right next to Robocon is my Getta Robo base - I think the box for it is off to the right. I've still got that, as well, but I've only got one of the few small spaceships that you could shoot off the spring-loaded launch pad (and were stored in a secret compartment on the side) and maybe another piece or two. A few inches away is my Denzin Zaboga die-cast figure by Grip. I've still got him, but he's missing a few pieces, including his fist, at the end of a chain. I was able to find one in great shape, along with the box, on Ebay a number of years ago and you can see those pics below. Conspicuously absent is my Popy Kamen Rider Amazon figure, which you can see me holding, along with my Zaboga in the pics below. There's a few other items in this photo I haven't been able to identify, mainly the cars behind me and the boxes in the far background. I guess they could be for the stuff out in front of us. You'll also notice in this pic, my bangs cut rather short and unevenly. One day, my parents had left the apartment and I was left on my own. I guess my bangs were bugging me, and I picked up a small handheld mirror that came on a base, put it on the floor and found a pair of scissors and just started cutting away. I think this photo was taken after my father tried to even it out a bit more.

Here I am with my Kamen Rider Amazon and Denzin Zaboga figures, in March 1974. I think I had just had a chocolate bar before I took these pics.

The Kamen Rider suffered a broken leg, which at one point was Krazy Glued on, but I did wind up getting a nice condition one, with the original box on Ebay a number of years ago. Here we've got the box and figure for that one, along with my original one missing his leg, and a mini die-cast Gashapon version by Bandai from a few years ago. Here's the intro to his TV show:

Kamen Rider Amazon Intro

Here are the Ebay pickups along with my original Getta Robo base in the foreground.

These are pics of the Ebay Denzin Zaboga figure, made by Grip. It's a weighty die-cast figure. You can see in the pic above that you could add on wheels to the removable chest piece and make him into a motorcycle. His back compartment also opened up and you could store his handlebars in there. I've got a small die-cast version of Zaboga in motorcycle form as well. Check out the intro to an episode here:

Denzin Zaboga Intro

Micropainter and my Atari 800

Ahh, my good old Atari 800. How I loved it. Enough that I took a few pics to remember, probably sometime in 1981 or 1982. I loved the artwork and design of the video game boxes. Most of the packaging was totally unneccesary, as the cartridge the game came on, was a fraction of the size of the box. Other than that, just a booklet and the rest was empty space. But they looked great! The last I saw of my system was when it was given away to my Uncle Jack in Mississippi, dozens of games included. Not exactly sure what I was thinking then, but I surely wasn't expecting it to be a collectors item. Strange, even if it was sometime in the early 90's. I normally would have had a collectors mentality about it, and I'm sure I had a bit of feeling of sadness giving it up, but it was a gift for my cousins, who didn't have a video game system. I wonder if my Uncle still has it, considering he's a pack rack to an even greater extent than myself.

Micropainter was the first true computer graphics drawing program I ever used. Released in 1982, you could draw on the screen, in 21 colors, using the joystick. Over on my Drawing On My Youth blog, you can see a couple of the drawings I created with it. I still own the box and contents, aside from the actual game, though! I just took these pics of it for the blog.