Star Wars Japanese keshi gomu (rubber eraser) figures

 

A bunch of Star Wars keshi gomu figures were made in Japan in the late 70's, after the first Star Wars movie came out. Most were released in gachapon machines or at little candy shops which also sold toys.

The above batch of figures were made by Takara. Here are some up-close pics:

A lot of the early Takara keshi are fairly godawful to look at, but I just darn plum lub em, I do!

 More after the jump:

 Color variants:

These Hans would not be out of place in a Flashdance reunion movie.

These Takara keshi are super blocky and funky, but they're so darned endearing!

Takara's vehicles were more on point, but also less interesting.

Keshi figures by Maruka:

Maruka sculpts were much sharper.

Notice the puncture in R2? That's a feature of many Maruka keshi, presumably from the production process.

Large-sized Maruka keshi:

Finally, here are some bootleg keshi:

C3PO got a ton of bootleggy love back in the day!

Bootleg Star Wars keshi bunged together with a bunch of other random space-themed toys like circular space stations.

Here's an interesting comparison of a Cosmos keshi (on the left) with a licensed Meiji candy premium toy (on the right).

And that's a look at one of the more diminutive and overlooked - though colorful and appealing - aspects of Star Wars collecting from the Japan side of the collecting world.