Ironhaus X Imperfecz Chupacabra and Ushi-Oni Keshi Reveal!

Independant artists Ironhaus and Imperfecz are back at it again, this time with a couple new characters to add to their Doom Gotter kaiju keshi mini-figure line.

Chupacabra and Ushi-Oni add to the city-stomping mix, in a traditional rubber-like material, so if you like your monsters pocket-sized, you'll want to follow these two awesome dudes for upcoming news on their release and/or to catch up on previous Doom Gotter goodness.

Here are their links!  Check 'em!

http://ironhauspro.blogspot.com/

http://imperfecztoys.bigcartel.com/

Atomicron Micro Mini-figures!

I don't know if it's felt like it on your side, but on mine, it certainly feels like the last few days nothing has happened on the keshi front.  All the conventions wrapped up, all the toys were released and purchased, and now everyone is just relaxing and recuperating.

Despite all that, I really have been keeping an eye out for something to post about, and finally today I found something, by the way of Italy, I wanted to talk about.

They are called Atomicron and they are hitting European toy stores just now.  These figures are super small, maybe hanging around an inch, but if you have some chibi Kinnikuman, they might fit well with them, but what is particularly cool is how generous they are with the portion.

Granted they are too small for purists' liking and with some paint application, but you get a giant assortment in a single blister pack, with the option to grab extra in blind bag form.  If nothing else, think of it as a revamping of a bag of army men, but with an alien/monster vibe, and for them to throw so many little figures in the hands of kids and collectors, I can totally get behind that.

With even just a couple packages, you could be looking at +100 micro-figures to battle all across the floor.  That's really only a bad thing when you miss a couple and step on them sometime later that night.

So, if grading had to be given out, the keshi purist would give these guys four-hundred thumbs down, but the kid inside me gives it four-hundred and one thumbs up, so it's pretty much a wash.  If these guys ever find themselves in the States, pick some up.  Who knows, maybe other companies will take note and offer more figures as well?  How can that turn out bad for us?

http://www.atomicron.it/

C2E2 Evo:Goliath Hits MWOTR Webstore Tonight!

With C2E2 winding down, we were all very curious of what quantities of the latest Mystical Warriors of the Ring release would survive.  As the picture shows, and what I would have guessed, there is not a lot left.

I'm not sure exactly how many, maybe 30-40, but that's just a guess.  Either way, they are hitting the MWOTR web-store sometime very soon, so tonight is your night if you haven't had the chance to get one of these hot gators yet.  Remember, once this colorway is gone, it is gone, so don't let it pass you by.

As of the time I'm writing this, they have not reached the website, but I would hunker down and keep a close eye for the drop.  This figure is an absolute steal at $6 and could be one of the sexiest miniature releases this year.  Not to mention, you should look at all the other good finds MWOTR has to offer.

Decimate your F5 key here!

http://www.mystwarriors.com/shop.htm

Day Of The Slug Wave 2 Drop!

One toy series we unfairly overlook quite a lot here is the beloved classic Mini Boglins.  I have a few myself and nothing really captures that gross-factor and silliness like those classics, but the throwback homage Day of the Slug by BigManToys certainly fits the bill as well.

If you like your keshi short and stout, to possibly pair with your favorite Mini Boglin, I suggest you drop by BigManToys' website very soon.

Wave 2 of their Day of the Slug series is dropping April 25th at 11pm GMT in a great number of colorways and rubber/resin formats.  From glittered and neon solids, BigManToys has your slug needs covered.  Also, there are sale packages of Wave 1 still available to catch you up as well.

Check it out!

http://bigmantoys.bigcartel.com/

Presale Monochrome HIMP Hit Auction?!

If you too are getting a little too confused and overwhelmed by all this relaunched Monster In My Pocket stuff over on French Ebay, well, you certainly won't be alone.

I've been covering what feels like every step of the process, even down to speculation when deadlines were being missed on a consistantly.  Then things just randomly started hitting auctions overseas and the dam of strangeness just blew and released a flood of weird happenings over the course of maybe a month or two now.

We've seen them transformed into what we can expect to be NFC videogame figures, like Skylanders/Amiibos, and even renamed to Heroes In My Pocket.  Now, it looks like they are coming in some form of monochromatic minifigure, as well.

It's hard to figure what is actually going on here.  They are listed only on French Ebay, with somewhat of a language barrier.  Communication is touch and go, to say the least.  Certainly nothing official from the company itself, that we can be sure of.  So it's difficult to say whether or not a "classic" line will see a release with the videogame figures or they are only here on auctions for die-hard collectors.  There is some sort of chase program going on here, with the little golden dragon character teasing the fact there are super-rares to collect of some determination.

Okay, that's all I got on the weirdness that is HIMP for now, but never worry, I'm sure more is on the way.

Keshi Drop Exclusive First Look: MWOTR Series Two!

Yes!  Finally!  After six-hundred failed attempts and a half-dozen lockouts, we shameless nerds at Keshi Drop have hacked the official Mystical Warriors of the Ring database and found all the good stuff we've been waiting for!  In retrospect, of course I should have tried 'NWO4LYFE' as the password much earlier, but you know what, hindsight is always 20/20.  Cut us some slack!

Of course, I am only joking.  Truth is, somehow without any underhanded tactics or chair shots to the brain pan, we have the opportunity to reveal the first look of the brand spanking new Mystical Warriors of the Ring Series Two mini-figures, here and only here first!  Booyah!  In yo' face, Internet!  Get steppin', I'm big time now, kid!

Whoa... I'd one terrible celebrity, wouldn't I?  Maybe it's good that I'm on this side of the computer doing the typing, just so my head doesn't inflate too large and I can't lift it off the V key.  Okay, past that though,  Mark of the MWOTR crew has been very kind to us once again and generously given us the first whack with his new wrestlers, so before we dig in and take a good look at all these new guys, I want to thank Mark again for yet another awesome solid.  Thanks!  You rule, dude!

Okay, first, a little back-story for those just hopping on.  It was revealed earlier that the second colorway for Goliath would be metallic black.  Aside from it being a popular variant, there was also a secret reason why, and now we know that it's because Goliath will also match the Series Two Warriors coming out as well.

Series Two is seeing the addition of three fan-favorite characters hitting the apron for the first time.  Introducing first, Sheldon Sabre's favorite punching bag, Ulric Wolfrom, in his Issue #1 ring gear.  It's about time we had the hero of the story come to PVC, and in shiny black, the lone wolf looks quite menacing.  Secondly, we have either Leo, Leander, or anyone else from the Corazon lion wrestling family, depending how you want to customize your miniatures.  I expect this proud guy will be a very popular one, because you know us keshi collectors, we're going to have to have one for every brother and cousin until we have our own Hart Dungeon of lions.  Last but not least, we have Ulric's sister, Yvonne Wolfrom.  She's the very first female character in MWOTR and in this series we see her in her manager gear that she wears working with Lapin Loco.

The new colorway for Evolution: Goliath and the new Series Two set will going sale first at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo April 24th-26th, with any extras that make it out alive hitting the MWOTR web-store shortly after.  If you're making it to C2E2 this year, there is a great reason to track down this drop.  Not only will you have the pleasure of snagging a bundle of all the new releases, including both Series Two and black Goliath, for a scant $15, but with that steal, you'll also see army building possibilities open up for you as well.  Corazon family, anyone?

And you know the crew from MWOTR, they will have much more than just these hot black keshis at their booth.  Teased from their website, they have a new sticker of Sheldon Sabre to plaster all over Chi Town as well as the new Issue #4 comic set in the MWOTR world.  The best course of action is just to drop by their booth, bright and early, and grab 'em while the grabbin' is good.

If you can't make it to C2E2, just understand it's going to be a battle royale in their web-store.  Bookmark their site and check regularly.  Once they announce when the convention extras drop, if there are any, you'll want to write on your calendar or enter it into your planner or whatever.  You'll want to be very aggressive getting these guys.  Goliath in metallic green sold out in hours of release, and I expect the very same with this new bunch.  You'll want to be there, smashing your F5 key into oblivion, at the exact time of the exact day, because these guys are the American-version of those insanely tough convention-only keshis we really only hear about from Japan.

Here are your links!

http://mystwarriors.com/blog/
http://mystwarriors.com/shop.htm

Baka Gaijin SpiderEarth Marvels At Inunakin Keshi!

You know, I advertise random insane ramblings, but I don't know, maybe I've fallen off the wagon with that one.  Maybe there was just so many other releases and stuffs going on, I just didn't have the time to be a weirdo on the Internet.  Let's fix that, at least for today.

Rummaging through Instagram, as I sometimes do when work is a little slow, I found this impressive-looking guy.  This character is called Inunakin, and he appears to be some priest-dog-superhero-guy, and despite how ludicrous that sounds and looks, I have to give three thumbs up to Mokyunosuke, who I believe sculpted and/or produced this, for such a stunning piece.

Sadly, my information is very limited.  Certainly, when it comes to posting here, I am really of the mindset of a collector and fanboy of keshi, not a news reporter particularly.  I just wanted to show everyone here how well-made this miniature looked, despite really knowing nothing about it.

This mini-figure reminds me of my earlier posts where I kind of touched upon what I felt was the artistic simplicity of keshi miniatures.  I suggested that, because of such a large amount restrictions, artists have to be very creative and inventive, thinking outside the box, to pull off effects common in other toy formats.  I see how the cape allows the right arm to be posed the way it is, and how the stance of his feet perfectly center his balance away from his staff.

My only criticism would be the rings in the staff.  They are obviously not molded into the staff, and more that likely are made separately and glued in.  It's certainly not a deal-breaker, because this figure is still very nice, I just would have liked seeing how the artist would have solved that puzzle.

Heroes In My Pocket Prototypes Hit Auctions?!

As you might know, a Monster In My Pocket relaunch has been in the works for some times now.  We've even seen some strange happenings of speculated prototypes of the new series hitting the French Ebay.  Well, a couple more prototypes have found their way onto auctions, but still, there is something even odder.

Shown in the picture here, this new MIMP line of toys and toons might be going under a different name.  It looks like the people behind this project has secured the Heroes In My Pocket name, which is a little peculiar.  It's nothing something that really rolls off your tongue.  It surely doesn't give the same sort of image as Monster In My Pocket does or did.



The word 'hero' in HIMP coveys a larger than life sense of power and bravery.  I'm not sure that really meshes well with 'in my pocket'.  MIMP were actually indeed, tiny monsters with tiny adventures.  HIMP could be much of the same, if not more like a Gothic Pokemon, but I'm not sure Heroes is the right way to describe it.  Hopefully it's something of a translation error.

But, I suppose I don't really have any interest in the new relaunch, however you cut it, so the naming doesn't really bother me a whole lot.  They are painted and from these photos, the bases are back.  So they certainly look to be aimed at the Skylander crowd, like we first thought.  I just hope they are successful in that crowd so HIMP or MIMP or PIMP or whatever else they call it can bring new people into the hobby someday.  That's the hope at least.

Toy Haul 04/02/15 Awesome Forum Member Edition

Here's a little bit larger of a haul for you, and really, for me, it's quite a special one.

The post I wrote about keeping your trading as low risk as possible wasn't inspired from events other than my own, and even ones pretty recently.

It's tough when a sale or a trade bottoms out, and at least how I feel about it, being left hanging about it all is the worst part.  It doesn't get lower than feeling you don't have any power in a situation, not even to find some sort of closure like the post office losing a package and moving on.  Always having to wonder and remain optimistic is torture, at least for me.  Having an ending is important, good or bad, just so it's done.

I had voiced some concern about a recent trade to moderators on a toy forum, and they were completely awesome about.  They were able to provide contact information I didn't have, and were able to help me resolve it pretty quickly.  And to go beyond what I needed a hand with, one of them, free of charge, sent me a care package of Track Pack minifigures from his own collection for the trouble someone else caused.

I have a hunch he'd like to remain anonymous, but hopefully he sees this and knows how awesome of a gesture it was for me and how much it really means.  Yeah, sure, the Trashies are awesome and a lot of them I don't have, but it's far beyond that.  It's not just the little gross toys, it's that someone knew and felt, maybe even related, to my situation and wanted to give me a hand.  It's rare in this world to have someone else's back like that, even if you know the person, let alone strangers over the Internet, but it's awesome to find them when you do.  People like this are rarer and more valuable than the hardest to find chase minifigure, and it's great to know they exist in the keshi community.

Again, thanks man!  I hope you enjoy the care package I sent back!

Transformers Tiny Titans Series 3 Leaks!

I don't have to tell you how legendary Transformers are in toy collecting, in general.  They've even forgone their transforming nature from time to time and did keshi figures, with Decoys being the most popular and collected.

I have to say, though, these Tiny Titans mini-figures for their Robots In Disguise cartoon series, have always caught my eye.  So, with the new bit of news floating about, there isn't really a better time to talk about them.

Tiny Titans are small, inarticulate, plastic mini-figures of characters from the cartoon series.  They are sold in blind bag form, for what I can gather, only a couple bucks a piece, so the price is certainly right.  What catches some collectors, and what has me on the fence, is, of course, the paint.  Keshi purists despise paint applications on a mini-figure probably more than anything else, but from what I can tell, there is actually, aside from Optimus Prime, only small paint applications.  So, that being that, has me interested.

I've had my eye on them, but never really pulled the trigger on them before, but with third set of mini-figures, it looks like they are releasing a Shockwave, who has always been a favorite of mine.  I think what I'll do is purchase the Shockwave I want in auction, check it out in person, and see if it's something I could continue to collect.  That way, I'm not buying a ton of blind bag toys I don't particularly want just to get the one awesome Decepticon.

What do you guys think?  Think they are far too removed from traditional keshi to collect?  Voice your opinions below!

New MWOTR Evolution: Goliath Colorway!

For those uninitiated, the guys at Mystical Warriors of the Ring released their first super-sized minifigure last January to much success.  Just as I warn in just about every drop, the first variant sold out quickly, the same day in fact, leaving a lot of collector's without a shiny green alligator.

But announced today, both off their website and their Instagram, Goliath is back and ready to rumble for round two, and this time, he's more sicker and twisted, with that ink black heart.

Well, maybe not that far, but this new metallic black colorway is very awesome indeed, especially if you have the other figures in the toy line metallic black as well, like the ones pictured.

Goliath's first release shocked a lot of people, but not me.  Despite the early criticism I gave it, I had a strong feeling this guy would fly out of the MWOTR webstore, and he did just that, maybe even faster than I expected.   I'm glad to see this variant allows collectors who missed the first drop to finally get in on some gator goodness, but like before, you have to be on point or else you're going to be watching this one sell out on you too.

Collectors were more than impressed with the metallic green colorway, which means there is a good possibility those same customers will be back for the new variant.  I know I will be, so people who missed the metallic green need to be extra aggressive, even to the minute, when the release day comes around.

The exact time and day for the drop is slated for sometime next month, April, with also a showing at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, so I'll post more exact info when I have it.  It certainly sounds though, if you want it before anyone else, the MWOTR booth at C2E2 might be the place to be.  If you're not around the Chicago area or not travelling to attend the convention, follow the links below for your share in a virtual blitzkrieg when this guy is released next month.

http://mystwarriors.com/blog/

http://mystwarriors.com/shop.htm

Scott Wilkowski Micro Mail-Away!

I admit, as much as I would enjoy be the first on a topic or even provide early drop news for readers, sometimes I'm just not anywhere that good.  It's hard, but a fun challenge, one I don't take extremely serious.

Today is different though!  Today I have a drop that is open for readers until the hot sweltering days of mid-summer.

Scott Wilkowski is throwing it back old-school.  You should already know him from his amazing see-through resin figures with his own skeletal sculpture inside, but he does all kinds of amazing work outside that too.  Right now, he's doing a classic send-away program, just like you'd see in the back of a comic book or cereal box.  Send him some greenbacks in the mail and expect a goodie sometime later.

This is not just radical, but a pretty good deal as well.  I can't resist the opportunity to do a mail-away like this, even with the thoughts of my parents saying I shouldn't send cash through the mail.  I mean, sure, I could write a check, but that's too safe.  Nope, I'm shoveling driveways and doing chores until I score that ten spot and shoving every last crinkled bill in an envelope, just for old times sake!

PayPal is an ingenious system, and makes hobbying a thousand times easier and safer.  99% of the time I swear by it, but this certainly falls in the one percent, and I suggest everyone gives it some consideration too.

Like I said before, this is also a gnarly deal.  Ten bucks, an envelope, and a stamp gets you a minifigure of this King Kong looking character, possibly handmade and hand-poured by the artist himself, with no shipping charge.  As you can see from the picture, there are many colors available and who knows what you'll find in your mailbox, but that's all part of the excitement too.  Even if you're a hardcore collector, you can't imagine there are too many around of each variant.

The link below is for Scott's website, so please check out what other fine work he has, and after that, go in on the mail-away.  It'll be fun and I'd love to see what everyone gets.

www.scottwilkowski.com

Cure Ukkari-man Keshi Prize Drop!

Japanese toy and graphic designer, Cure, held something of a raffle or a contest late last year.  Like the one pictured here on the side, they sold monster sticker packs to their customers, with each sticker pack essentially putting your name in the drawing.

A drawing for what you ask?  I'll give you one guess.

Leaked on their Instagram just recently, it seems like the prizes of the lottery have been made and are ready to be sent to their winners.

I gotta' say, these guys look ridiculously good.  I'm not sure if this is their first go at keshi or they had outside help, but either way, all around thumbs up from me.  The only thumbs down, of course, being how insanely rare these must be.

I'm not sure how many are going out to winners, but I'd have to guess it's not truck loads.  Cure generally does sofubi vinyl, not keshi.  This is likely a cool little treat to go along with the release of their Ukkari-man stickers and not much more.  If I had to guess these guys are going to be nearly impossible to find without coughing up a pretty penny, but you never know, one could sneak into a keshi lot auction somewhere and you could get a great deal.  That's why it's always worth the look.

I wish I had known about this when the stickers and contest was released, I would have loved to try to score one of these awesome guys.  I'll certainly keep my eye out for them as they travel to their new homes, and I suggest the same to you too.  Check out the link below for all kinds of awesome Cure stuff!

http://www.cure-toys.com/

MIMP 2016 Prototype Leak and Auction?!

Mondays are a bummer, or so cartoon cats would have you believe, but it certainly softens the blow when enormous news hits the social media outlets and causes a storm in discussion and interest.  But let me step back and change that.  It's potential enormous news, because the details of which is a bit strange.

As if I was lucky enough to plan it just a few days ago, news about the rumored Monsters In My Pocket minifigure line rocketed to the hottest topic today.  Dubbed with the nickname MIMP 2016 by collectors now, although it was originally planned to be a lot earlier than that, these images found themselves on a French Ebay auction, claiming to be resin prototypes of the rumored series.

But the question remains.  Is this the real deal or a hoax done by someone looking to make a quick buck at the expense of the keshi community.

If you're a talented artist, in all honesty, it's not a hard thing to hoax.  However, looking at the sketches, 3D models, and resin prototypes, you'd be surprised an artist or a team of artists would waste this much effort and talent on a few Ebay auctions to dupe collectors.

If a studio out there had the ability to produce something to the level of Monster In My Pocket, making a competing product will pay ten-fold what dishonest auctions could possibly bank.  Plus, the community isn't very large.  You can't imagine you can go to the well with fake prototypes too many times, before you're without an audience for all that talent and ability.  That is why, despite the decent chance I'm wrong, I think these guys are 100% legit.

As real as I believe these are, how did they ever find themselves on auction?  And why now when the series hasn't officially launched already?  I had to take a double-check and look over some extra details.

Evolution, the marketing and design company behind the new series, or at least as we knew it, has three offices:  China, South Africa, and their head office in California.  The auction was listed under the French version of Ebay, so it makes me think they outsourced some heavy-lifting to another studio, maybe even a French one that was only commissioned for this set.

Even with all these assumptions, it's hard to think this can exist without legal strangeness, but I'm a larger law novice than I am a keshi novice, so I can't say that much.  Let's just take a look at the figures, as if they are a look into the future, and see if there's anything worth looking forward to.

There's a lot to look over for sure, from the chunky centaur character to the nimble goblin, but there are some common threads from the bunch we can guess will be in the final product.

Firstly, it looks like they will be painted, if not fully, than in a metallic rare variation, however that just might be the sort of resin used for the prototypes.

Secondly, the ogre character's 3D model was rendered with a base.  In  my previous post about the rumored set, I guessed the new franchise would take inspiration from NFC video game toys like Skylanders, Amiibo, and Disney Infinity.  Although he's the only one given one, they obviously gave it some thought, which is suspicious, and the base certainly wouldn't be part of the figure's mold, which is why it's nowhere else.

Lastly, but quickly, the figures look too large to be considered anything related to keshi, but at least at first-glance, perfect size to hang out with your Skylanders and Amiibos.

If this really is what we can expect the new Monster In My Pocket will become, I'm excited for it, but much in the way I described in my previous post about it.  These weren't designed with me in mind, but that's completely OK.  I had the chance to grow up with some really amazing MIMP minifigures, and if I am lucky, this set will be really successful and bring knowledge of those old-school amazing toys to the kids of today.  Maybe some will even want to collect them.

JoJo's Bizarre Keshi Adventure!

Probably by today's standards, I wouldn't really be called much of an anime fan.  I still watch it from time to time, but nothing like I had in the past.  Back in the day, as some may agree, anime was a rarity of a sort and getting it was often tricky.  Now, you can trip over websites begging you to watch their free streams of 24 hour anime, but that's not to say it's a bad thing.  It's just a long way from where it was with Akira, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam, Evangelion, and all that.

I still keep up from time to time, but with only so many hours in the day, and only so many hobbies to dedicate time to, I have to be a bit more picky on what to watch.  Not to make this an anime review so much, but one of the series I have actually been getting into and really enjoying is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, so you must guess the sort of curiosity and excitement I've had when I've see pictures of a gorgeous Japanese vending machine keshi line find themselves all over social media.  So much so I think I'm going to flood this post with like six pictures or something!  That much!

I'll be honest, so please anyone that has more information about this set than I do, please comment below, I don't know much about this set yet.  It appears by the copyright information in the photos, they are done in some regard by Bandai, but I have no idea if they outsourced any studio for the actual sculpts.  I would love to find out more on this, because I find these miniatures really amazing and capture that over-the-top wildness and style the anime has.

What's notable about this set, up front, are two things.  One is that the set is rather large, which is a pleasant surprise.  I am unaware of a previous line to traditionally build up to a large set like this, but the anime has been around for quite some time now.  The second thing is it's combination of clear plastics and traditional keshi plastics that seem to really make this series stand out.

I'm really excited to see these guys find their way to the States, but from what I've read from a couple auctions, they seem to be coming single-file in gumball capsules.  If this is true, it's going to be difficult seeing these guys travel in complete sets, but who knows.  I'll certainly love to get whatever I can, if not the full set.  They need a real review for sure.

MWOTR Prototypes At KCPCC!

If you're in the Kansas City area next weekend for the convention, the 13th, 14th, and 15th to be exact, of course you could to the same old routine and get your pictures taken by all your favorite sci-fi actors or whoever, but that's boring!  Plus, none of them make sweet miniatures!  So, instead, go see Mark and the rest of the Mystical Warriors of the Ring crew at their booth.  There actually might even be a surprise for those in store, going to the Kansas City Planet Comincon.

For sale there will be a good assortment of hand-cast resin prototypes of one of the new characters being worked on for a future MWOTR release.  They are in various color ways and sizes, like the picture on the left shows.  This is to assure the crew can see how it works in a few different sizes, as well as variants, and fix anything that may come up so the final release is as close to perfect as it can be.

These guys are virtually one-of-a-kind, so collectors of these awesome wrestlers need to chase these down while they are still around.  For more information check out the links below!

http://planetcomicon.com/
http://mystwarriors.com/blog/

It Came From a Vending Machine: Los Tremendos Luchadores!

So this, believe or not, was something I've wanted to do for a while.  I found these guys at a local supermarket and dumped as many quarters as I could, but as much as I enjoyed these cheap goobers,  I had lost them all during a move.  Or at least I thought I did.

Yeah, you heard me right, I really like these Los Tremendos Luchadores guys.  Sure, they are awful-looking, super tiny, and painted by a wild ape, but there is just something inherently special to me about finding micro wrestlers in vending machines.

I know I do my "It Came From a Vending Machine" posts to pick fun at the strange oddities inside these things, but I wonder if I owe this set for getting me back into collecting keshi, at least subconsciously.

You see, I was in the middle of a move.  All my things were packed up, and we were crammed in the back guest room of the parent's old place until our new place was ready for us.  Sure, actually playing with toys at this point is something I probably wouldn't feel inspired to do, but I love the stimulus of having them nearby and on display.  Yet, everything I had at that time was in boxes, and the old person decor wasn't really doing it for me.  However, after a random grocery run, I had a few ugly wrestlers in my possession for really no reason, and they filled a void.

Not did they just fill a void, I was reminded of the MUSCLES I had, or more likely the bootleg MUSCLES I had, and the Monster In My Pocket figures I begged to pick up at a department store.  Maybe I never considered running out and collecting the Los Tremendos set, but I think they caused me to put MUSCLE in a search engine some summer afternoon later.  And today, just rustling through some old bags, I find the most tremendous of strange vending machine wrestlers I thought I lost.

So thank you, Los Tremendos Luchadores.  You're alright in my book.

Gargamel X Eric Nilla Micro Kaiju News!

If you're a Japanese vinyl collector, or Sofubi if you're in the know, you know all about Gargamel.

Gargamel is one of the more popular companies out there for your nostalgic fix of old-school Japanese kaiju figures.  You know the type:  hollow, semi-soft plastic, with maybe only waist movement.  If you haven't seen authentic sofubi, you have likely seen bargain bin knockoffs at the dollar store, trying to pass off as the real thing.  Emphasis on trying.

Traditional sofubi figures are rather larger, at least compared to keshi, but Gargamel has released micro versions of the figures they fans love.  They were shrunk down to what appeared to be three inches of kaiju awesomeness, and I imagine this perked the ears and interest of the keshi community.  Ditch the vinyl, we must have said.  Rubber is better.  And who better to do it than American independent keshi artist Eric Nilla?

It didn't go like that, I'm sure, but however it went, I'm glad it ended all the same with these amazing looking guys.  Gargamel makes some really amazing kaiju characters, but the sofubi format is just not for more.  I love Godzilla like everyone else, but I never was lucky enough to get too many large monster toys growing up, nor do I have the budget now for some limited-run throwbacks.  I did however drop many coins for knockoff MUSCLES and other strange wrestlers and monsters.  This sort of project looks like that perfect bridge between both worlds, and Eric's resume and work is quickly turning him into the top guy in America for keshi minifigures.

For more information, check out the links below!

http://gargamel.jp/

http://ericnilla.blogspot.com/

http://ericnilla.storenvy.com/

It Came From a Vending Machine: Panda Erasers!

If you didn't already know, my hometown of Keshiville U.S.A is experiencing some scary and rather chilly winter weather.  What will even send a chill down your spine is what you can find in a vending machine for a couple coins!

Today, let's take a look, if we dare, at Panda Erasers!  They are 'cute and buildable', if that's even a word, or at least that's what the vending machine header advertises.  Heck, if nothing else, these endangered little guys are best in my backpack than still imprisoned in the machine.  And as much as I joke about awful vending machine toys, I always try to throw coins in them and suggest everyone else should too.

That was my intention, knowing very well these guys weren't keshi figures as we know keshi figures nowadays.  Eraser figures, I thought,... close enough!  But really, if you look back into the past of keshi minifigures, you'll eventually start finding erasers.  Now granted these guys aren't really aimed for the collectible market, with all that building you can do with them.  I'm guessing they are meant to be customized.

I'm sure there are a thousand words that would better explain it, because 'buildable' is probably the last thing these cute pandas are able to do.  What they do, actually, is come in three pieces, the front half, back half, and the black middle part that holds it all together, through willpower alone.  I certainly wouldn't slap your pandas out of your hands if you wanted the front half pink and the back half blue, but I might just stand up and shout at you for calling it buildable.

And that's it!  Analysis over!  With a complete set of three: blue, pink, and white, you would be hard pressed to figure out a way to want more.  Sure, I suppose you could get dozens, so you can have every color combination, but that's probably a little much.  But at the end of the day, it's a fun little figure thing for fifty cents.  A lucky draw and a dollar and a half will get you all three, and then you're ready to erase your worries away. 

Tenacious Toys Exclusive Despair Drop!

Everyone favorite microphone-wielding comedy demon is back again, and this time he is exclusive to the Tenacious Toys web store!

That's right.  Just announced on their Instagram, Adam Quesnell's keshi piece from The Disarticulators and October Toys called Despair is getting a new color variant!

Matching Tenacious Toys' love for their shade of navy blue, this guy is dropping Sunday, March 8th, only off the Tenacious Toys online store.

For those following the runs of this character or just like their keshi a little larger than normal, this is a brilliant guy to get into.  As an added bonus, I wouldn't be surprised a digital download of his comedy album was also included with this colorway, like others were.  If I recall correctly, he asks for something in the range of $20-$30, but where that includes a CD, that's really not a bad deal at all.

Be there at Tenacious Toys March 8th, because we know this sort of stuff flies off the shelves quickly!  Follow the link below to get a head start!

http://www.tenacioustoys.com/