The SWAG Entry

swag

n 1: valuable goods 2: goods or money obtained illegally 3: a bundle containing the personal belongings of a swagman

I could probably write a whole entry about the perks of being a SWAGMAN, but instead I'm going to tell you about the valuable goods or money I obtained illegally from Japan, which I brought back in several bundles.

Okay, so I actually obtained it all legally. But I'm still a swagman, all right?

Anyway. This is basically the entry where I show off all the stuff I got in Japan. Most of it's toys, but Japan's toys are cool, so bear with me, huh? I'll break it down into categories. Let's start with, mm,

KAIJU



Kaiju is simply Japanese for "scary monster," but if you go to a store and ask for kaiju movies, you'll definitely be directed to the Godzilla section (yes, those do exist in Japan). Kaiju toys are kind of similar to Beanie Babies in that they all come with a tag and become less valuable once it's removed. As you can see I devalued my whole lot of Kaiju. From left to right we have: 2005 Gigan; Dinosaur Tank (from Ultra Seven); Gomola (from Ultraman); Gomess (a monster from Ultra Q which was made from a recycled Godzilla suit); Showa Gamera (from the 60s); King Joe (from Ultra Seven); Heisei Godzilla (from the 90s); Eviltiga; Ultra Seven 21. The last two are not really Kaiju but are actually heroes. Well, Eviltiga is the evil version of a hero, so he's kind of a kaiju.

Gigan is my favorite. Gigan's always been my favorite. This particular Gigan is from the 2005 Godzilla Final Wars, where he got his head blown off by Godzilla and then came back with chainsaws for hands. In the past Gigan's teamed up with the infamous Megalon, and some stock footage of Ghidorah. Although he did on one occassion make Godzilla bleed rather spectacularly from the face, Gigan unfortunately always loses. I guess I root for the underdog, huh.


Regrets: I bought Ultra Seven 21 thinking he was really Ultra Seven, but it turns out he's a fake. Faker!

TRANSFORMERS



Yes, Transformers. All kids love Transformers! Most kids grow up and sell theirs, but here I am at almost 21 still buying them. A lot of collectors buy Transformers for their poseability or their aesthetic value, and so do I, but sometimes I find myself buying Transformers based on their personality. Yes, a tradition for Transformers is to have their personalities, goals, and mottos transcribed onto clip n' save cards on the back of the packages. I can't read Japanese, but some nice folks have translated many Japanese bio cards for me and whoever else reads them.

Most of the Transformers I got was from the Japan-only line "Robot Masters," which was kind of a filler line with mostly old molds repainted and a very thin storyline involving worm holes linking together a lot of characters from different universes. These were criminally discounted at my favorite Bellhouse, so I picked them all up from there.

R-Blade: This little guy was discounted at 245 yen, or about $2. He's also a self-proclaimed knight. How could I refuse.

Delta Seeker vs. X-Gunner: These were a two-pack, also discounted way more than half their price. X-Gunner is a former good guy who constantly wants to upgrade his body, so he goes after his former friend Delta Seeker to try to pilfer his useful body parts. You know, like missile launchers.

Reverse Convoy: Cruelly discounted to 500 yen, this guy was too complicated not to pick up. You see, he normally has an Optimus Prime-shaped head, but a few flips and you'll find that he's also Megatron. Despite having two identities, Reverse Convoy/Rebirth Megatron seems to be evil all around. You can tell by his narrow eyes.

Megalo Convoy: This was the largest toy I bought in Japan. He's from a different series than the others, and I found him discounted to 2000 yen at Tokyo's largest Toys R Us. Actually, he's supposed to be even larger than he is, indicated by the tiny Optimus Prime included with him. Megalo is said to be from the "Giant Planet," where the robots have grown so large they need to have cute little Minicons to do small tasks for them, like make sandwiches and cook brownies. He sits down to transform into a vaguely-named construction vehicle, which has been theorized to be a bucket wheel excavator.

Regrets: Megalo Convoy was a bit ungainly to transport, but other than that I think I did a pretty good job. I could have bought a lot more, too.

ZOIDS




I used to be kind of obsessed with Zoids. They're a form of model kit, but instead of becoming a shiny car or a brittle airplane, they become wind-up or motorized robot animals. Usually with large guns. Zoids was on its way out when I visited Japan, so their prices were under repeated attacks by invisible monsters with price-cutting swords. Price-cutting swords, I say!

The recent Zoids, while not wind-up, are cool because their parts are interchangeable, allowing for cool stuff like this and this. They're also kinda fragile, so at least one got damaged in-flight and is now undergoing repairs.

Regrets: Well Deathraser up there got damaged in-flight. I still haven't put him back together yet, so who knows.

GACHAPON and SMALL FIGURES




You know when you go to the Supermarket and right before you leave there's always a little rack of machines which churn out Sticky Hands or Disgusting Teeth or maybe little Racial Stereotype Figures? Well, naturally, in Japan to one us up they have machines which sell highly-detailed and sometimes poseable figurines from popular properties. To be fair to the cheaper Americans, Japanese Capsule Toys cost at a minimum 100 yen, usually more. So we get Radioactive Goo or Mile-High Bouncy Balls for 50 cents, and for 1~300 yen the Japanese get monsters and robots. Take your pick. I picked Godzilla, Gundam, and Ultraman.

The left picture is mostly figures from capsule machines (gachapon) or from convenient store toy aisles. The right picture is a huge herd of small figures I bought in one bag for 800 yen. I think there's something like 60 figures total, about half being heroes and half being monsters and a small portion being absolutely unidentifiable weirdness. They're also hollow so you can put them all on the ends of your fingers if you're feeling extra wacky.

Regrets: Cheap stuff, so yeah, it's all good.

SD Gundam Force




Something about me initially hated SD Gundam Force, a semi-spoof Gundam cartoon featuring cel-shaded graphics and a lot of cutesy stuff. But, like athlete's foot, the show grew on me, and so did the toys. Especially the ones unreleased in America, from the unaired second part. Knight Zero Custom and Bakushinmaru here are a couple of representatives of those unreleased figures.

Regrets: Well these two were kinda impulse buys, to be honest. I think they were the last figures I bought in Japan.

AMDRIVER




I have a curse. It's a curse of hunting. See, I can't seem to take interest in anything which is readily available. Take Amdriver Dark here. I saw pictures of Amdriver figures at a couple different Japanese toy review sites, and vowed to myself that when I went to Japan I would find as many of these figures as possible. As it happened, nobody had Amdriver. I had to dig through the depths of the used figures in the cavelike halls of hobby shops just to find a few specimens. Fortunately since it seems that Amdriver wasn't too hot, such specimens came a relatively low price.

Above is the only Amdriver figure I purchased, who goes by the name of Dark Kalhole. The toyline is supposed to be about a group of future-heroes who don the "Amjacket" equipment to fight an invading army known alternately as the Bugscene or the Bugchine. Anyway no bugscene/chine figures exist so he gets to fight whoever I decide he fights. I only bought Dark, but I also managed to find a couple of Amdriver "Bisar," which are their transforming vehicles/armor.




To the left, the Neoboard Bisar "Lindwurm Type S," and to the right the Lance Bisar "Unicorn." Part of Lindwurm Type S transforms into Brigandeer mode for Dark to kick even more butt in, and the rest of it transforms into an absolutely huge sword, which is appropriately named Excalibur. Besides making Dark the king of England, Excalibur also transforms even further into some kind of super-duper overcharge extra-mode stuff. When he's not swinging it through aliens or pirates, Excalibur can serve as Dark's cool flying surfboard. Unicorn also turns into armor with a big lance, but it's really not that exciting.

Regrets: Unicorn is a bit fragile in certain areas, but Excalibur makes up for all of that.

HIGH-END FIGURES

These are the figures I spent more money than usual on. There's three parts to this one.

MICROMAN



Microman is kind of the G.I. Joe of Japan. In fact his origins can be traced to G.I. Joe, but because of Japan's famous lack of space he got shrunk to the 3'' or so that he is now. He's been around since the middle 70s, and since then has enjoyed bumpy success. In the current days Microman has been revived more for collectors, and now has something like 4,000 points of articulation and usually comes with 45,000 tiny accessories. They also tend to come with a ton of extra hands.

In the first picture, from left to right, we have Military Force "Techno Wave," who is a robot with very interchangeable and shiny weapons; Microsister El, the leader of the Microsisters who is armed with very feminine accessories; and finally Acroyear Xado's Acromuzan. Acromuzan is the lone villain from the trio. These are the kind of figures who look cool even if they're just sprawling on the floor, and it seems like even if you just haphazardly move their limbs around they still somehow end up in a martial arts pose. Except El, she just looks more and more like she needs to be rescued by strong, masculine arms.

Regrets: None.

HYBRID STYLE CONVOY



I don't know what makes him a Hybrid, but this is, quite simply, the best Optimus Prime ever made. He's very, very small, but he actually comes with more stuff, weapons, and features than the much more high-falootin' 20th Anniversary Prime, often considered to be the cream of the crop. He has everything a Prime needs and more, including die-cast metal parts and rubber tires, and cost a very reasonable 4000 yen (about $40). He doesn't do windows, though.

Regrets: No.

GUNDAM FIX FIGURATION



FIX Figuration is probably the highest-end kinda Gundam figure you can get without going over to Model Kits. The deal with these figures is they usually come with an insane amount of accessories, in fact they come with so many accessories that they can be assembled into a completely different Gundam if your fingers are feeling up to it. Mine weren't, so I left this Gundam NT-1 in the package for this photo shoot. I've removed it and played with it, but the tips of my fingers were raw for days. Just so you can see, here is NT-1 "Alex" and here is what it turns into after a few hours of tweaking and armor-shifting (both pictures from the back of the box).

Regrets: FIX Alex is almost too high end for me. I like my figures to at least have a little play value, but this one falls apart at the merest mention of "battle damage." Still, it does look good on its little white stand.

OTHER

Not too much to be put here, I did buy a couple of
souvenir chopstick sets from the Daibutsu and Mount Fuji, respectively; as well as that whole Famicom thing. I think I'll save the latter for another entry, as this one has gone long enough already. So, until next time, sayonara from the SWAGMAN.

And the comic makes its return.