herbiehancock

Here's an old entry I started and never got around to finishing-- There have been several Mekaru Kuns made by Bounty Hunter in silver, black and even blue, but the two huge Mekaru Kuns that came out are just awesome, standout pieces of vinyl! I had a smaller, silver Mekarukun and let it go, but I see this one staying with me for quite some time. It is impressive. This is another BxH on the Skull Kun which is based sort of on Frankenberry. Just as Godzilla and King Kong both at one point had mechanical versions of themselves in Japanese movies, I imagine this is what a giant Kun would look like if he was a robot..... and his skin was removed somehow... :) Header //N/A//: Not sure what this figure came in as it is so large. I imagine it would have been a BxH bag just like the rest of the Bounty Hunter toys I have seen. Sculpt //4.5 out of 5//: This is a solid, clean, mean looking machine. It takes elements of the original Kun and does a great job at making them look vintage robot sty...

http://www.toypunks.com/ I was finally able to sit down and watch this new DVD recently, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. At a runtime of about 45 minutes, it is full of clipped interviews from various influential figures in the street fashion and vinyl toy industry. There is a lot with Hikaru Iwanaga, the founder of Bounty Hunter, which is fitting as it was his toy, the Kid Hunter, that essentially started the designer toy surge way back in 1997. There is a lot of interesting insight from the different interviews about their influences from overseas, old cartoons, etc. I enjoyed seeing the bits with various collectors too... hearing why people like certain toys and why they collect the things they do. Seeing the sweet collections was nice too. One thing that bothered me about the movie was not actually something with the movie, but rather with Frank Kozik's interview clips in the extra features about the "underground"... or in his opinion the lack thereof. I don...

I'm moving this article from late November until now to better match up with my Hedoro Kun blog I tried out the new Iwata airbrush on a vinyl toy for the first time on this toy. It's nothing special by any means... I took a my purple Hedoro Kun by Bounty Hunter and made it gloss black. I like how it turned out - I decided not to try anything else since the solid color looks like a Bounty Hunter style color scheme anyway. This was mainly a chance for me to see how the airbrush works on a 3-dimensional surface and to see how v-color paint lays down and dries and stuff like that.

This is actually the first Bounty Hunter figure I purchased. There is no real reason for it other than it was the first one that became available to me when I went on my BxH buying spree, but it is fitting because Hedorah was in fact the creature that got me hooked on all these Japanese toys in the first place. What I found appealing about Hedorah was the way that different companies would approach his sculpt. It is a free flowing form essentially that has been presented in many different shapes and colors.  As far as I know, there is no story behind this figure other than it is jsut paying homage to the classic smog monster Hedorah from the 70s Toho Godzilla movie. Many Bounty Hunter toys do just that... they aren't trying to be witty and out there... just cool, simple toys that work and show respect to things that Hikaru Iwanaga holds dear. Header //N/A//: The same Bounty Hunter clear plastic bag. Sculpt //4 out of 5//: This figure looks like what you would get if you took the O...

This is one of my favorite Bounty Hunter toys. I don't know much of the background of this particular sculpt, although evidently it was made in reaction to a bootlegging problem in China. The Bounty Hunter Kuns were pretty popular, and pirated versions of them were popping up... some of which had been changed. This pissed off guy was designed and his hands were made to look like one of the bootlegged pieces. Then again, this could all be incorrect, and it could just be another toy in my strange little collection with no story other than it's more shit to buy. Header //N/A//: The same Bounty Hunter clear plastic bag. Sculpt //3.75 out of 5//: While having is obvious similarities with the Bounty Hunter Kun character, this piece has some definite differences, as you can probably see. There is a departure here from as cartoony a form, as this Kun goes for a more streamlined body so to speak. There are no ribs, but rather a Punisher like X-skull icon on his chest and hands.I'm ...

There have been a few toys released, particularly lately, that pay homage to the old Waldar toys by Takara from the 1970s. The DX Sukeru Kun is a toy that pays homage to one character from the Henshin toyline. Before there was Microman and the precursor to Transformers, there were the clear Henshin Cyborgs. In the early 1970s, Takara of Japan obtained the rights to produce the GI Joe bodies that were so popular in the United States. Using this basic form, Takara created the Henshin ("transforming") Cyborg toy line basically by making the GI Joe body clear and adding robotic guts. The villain of this series was Waldar, a clear figure that had organic innards as opposed to the robotic guts of his rival Henshin Cyborg. (photo shown to the right here was lifted from tikitoys.com ) Also, unlike the cyborgs that had accessories and armor to attach, the Waldar villain had various sub-forms thanks to vinyl "costumes" that went on different bodies... There was the Plant Phan...

In my article about Bounty Hunter's Clear Skull Kun, I mentioned filling the figure with stuff, so I filled it with these small glow-in-the-dark tracer BBs from Dick's Sporting Goods. They are plastic and used for air rifles. You can get a canister of them for about 6 bucks. I bought two canisters, although you may be able to get by with one. I just stuffed as many as possible in there while still being able to get the figure back together. The figure itself is soft, so you do not really need to heat it up to get the waist separated and back together. It just takes some tucking in when you do put it back. I filled the legs and the torso/head as well as I could (with a bit more piled onto the torso because the toso's flashing has to fit inside the legs). I brought the two filled halves together, and slowly tilted them toward one another. I had to let a few fall out to allow room for the pieces to fit back together, but I think it filled nicely. Here's the effect:

This review will essentially be the same as the Original Skull Kun since they are essentially the same sculpt with a few minor differences. Header //N/A//: The same Bounty Hunter clear plastic bag. Sculpt //4.5 out of 5//: Again, simple yet effective. The stylized skeleton of Frankenberry, with clean lines, good balance, and small elements sculpted into the surface to add detail.This is important here, obviously, since there is no paint to create detail otherwise. The vinyl used on this figure is different than I have felt before. It is soft and smooth yet almost sticky feeling (but not to the point where things actually stick to it) ... perhaps this is because it was produced in Japan and the vinyl quality is higher, or it is an effect of properly producing the clear vinyl. Lots more solvents to kill the environment! The difference with the original Sukeru Kun are pretty subtle. For one, the arms come out a bit from the belly. This allows more range in the movement of thew, which ai...

Next up, also from 1997, we have the Sukeru Kun by Bounty Hunter. I won't go into all the Bounty Hunter detail again like on the Kid Hunter blog, but since then I did read in Super7 magazine that the Sukeru Kun is supposed to be the skeleton of the famous cereal mascot Frankenberry! Very cool idea. I wonder how this Kun would look with the long spindly limbs like Frankenberry has. I believe the Skull Kun was a toy before the character was featured on a shirt unlike Kid Hunter. Header //N/A//: The same Bounty Hunter clear plastic bag. Sculpt //4 out of 5//: Simple yet effective. Knowing the inspiration behind the figure adds a lot to the sculpt in my opinion. The form is great for it... it is obviously the Frankenberry form while being different enough to not have ripped it off. I love the long slender arms and the hands that rest across the big pot belly. The teeth and protruding lower jaw look great I think. The lines are clean and the figure is very well balanced with a low ...

Now we take it to where it all began. The whole designer toy craze that we all know and love now was started with this figure: Kid Hunter by Bounty Hunter! Bounty Hunter started in 1995 in the Harajuku district of Tokyo as a store with a punk sensibility selling various things from clothing to older toys that owner Hikaru Iwanaga would pick up on frequent trips to the United States (Spawn toys, Star Wars, old cereal mascots...). Iwanaga says that the name Bounty Hunter pays homage to the Star Wars character Boba Fett and also that the name comes from the actual hunting of these things (the bounty). In the upcoming Toypunks documentary ( www.toypunks.com ), Iwanaga talks about discovering toys and punk rock music when he was growing up, comparing the two as similar experiences. Be it a talking GI Joe or the Sex Pistols, it all blew him away. He was very interested in the punk rock music and lifestyle as well as the American commercial culture such as cereal mascots. As the shop expand...