More rare Marusan kaiju

Beautiful shop display of vintage Marusan kaiju.

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Rare Marusan Kaiju

Rare figures in beautiful condition. On display in Nakano.

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Interview with Marusan's boss: Eiji Kaminaga

At the recent Wonder Festival, I had a chance to talk with Marusan's boss Eiji Kaminaga for a few minutes. In this video, Kaminaga-san talks about Marusan's new Godzilla figures, Marusan's new mobile app, digital photo frame (with pics + video), and other sofubi and digital publishing plans.

Big news from Marusan

The other day at Super Festival 58, I had a chat with the owner of Marusan. He's a very nice, dapper gentleman, and he clued me in on some breaking news for Marusan. The company is in the process of finalizing a deal with a US distributor to have their figures sold overseas. That will hopefully be concluded within a number of months. As I understand it, the plan is for sales to be through the Marusan USA website, which currently has a few pages of information about the company.

So for all you fans of Marusan's Goji, Hedorah, and other figures - hang onto your hats, cuz the sofubi train is a rollin' westward! Wait, what? Problem with the metaphor? See, it's a hover train, so it will simply glide over the Pacific with its sofubi payload. Du-uh... ^_^

Marusan exhibit in Harajuku

 

This afternoon, I was this close to staying home - dry and warm and out of the cold, wet weather. I had read a blurb on the Amapro site about a Marusan photography exhibit in Harajuku. Hmm, sounded intriguing, but not much to go on. So I visited the gallery's site. Limited info there as well.

Not the best weather conditions for cruising Takeshita Street

So, on a whim, at 3:00 PM, I kicked myself in the butt and hot footed it to Harajuku. And am I glad I did! There was indeed outstanding photography by Kaminaga-san (Marusan's president), but that was just one component of this phenomenal exhibit. There were walls of vintage and recent toys cataloging Marusan's rich history; there were toys and books for sale; and to top it off, there was a three-man panel discussion about Ultraman and other toys! Luckily I had my camera in tow, and pics were allowed, so this fantastic event could be recorded and shared by all.

Panel discussion with three toy gurus.

A crowd was on hand, despite the weather.

 Marusan toy exhibit:

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