First, the naming of things. The series name is "Uchu Buraku Robo," which translates to the "Space Black Robot" series. I thought that was kind of weird, since it says "Space Convoy Series" at the top of the header, but anyway just passing on what I was told first-hand. So the Space Black Robot series it is.
The first figure, Vader, is "Garumaya Soutoku," which translates to "Governor General Garumaya." Since "Garumaya" is presumably a name, it could be "Galmayer" in English. Plus, that is the spelling used in the recent Japanese magazine article that covered the series. But until I've got that nailed down 100%, I'll stick with Governor General Garumaya.
So there are a couple of mysteries (mostly) solved. Whew.
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| Original GGG prototype sculpt |
Next, some behind the scenes info. Above is the original sculpt for GG Garumaya. It was made with Fando, a self-drying modeling clay. That's the same material used by Grody Shogun and a lot of other toy makers.
Now, more about the making of things. A team of five people are involved in the project. As I wrote in my last report, the series is based on ARII's plastic model kits from 1980. ARII no longer exists under that name, but the Star Case team has received permission to make a sofubi series based on the ARII line.
Onto the numbering of things. I told Star Case that there is demand for the figures from overseas sofubi collectors. It's been a long time since I've hung out at Rebelscum, so I'm not sure if Star Wars collectors know about the series. Once they do, I'm sure some SW bootleg fiends will also be into the line.
Anyway, one reason for the low run numbers is that the assembly, packaging, shipping, etc, is all done by one person. Considering the number of parts that each figure has, as well as everything that goes into handling each order, it isn't surprising that the numbers are what they are.
Well, that's all for now. I'm putting together a third report about the series, and that will go up in a few days.
Wow Andy, you are the man with these posts!! So great to get a bit of inside knowledge. I have not been able to garner too much from the SC forum about these, so this really adds to it. The guy(s) running it is definitely super nice. Can't believe there is someone in this "scene" who knows about Rebelscum - man, that takes me back to the early days of the web :)
ReplyDeleteDude, I go back to Sir Steve's Guide. ;-)
ReplyDeleteGlad some folks are digging the Star Case investigative reporting. Come to think of it, I remember one of the cornerstones of Star Wars collecting being 1) finding the dots, 2) figuring out how they connect, and 3) constructing a narrative going all the way back to concept sketches. (And maybe 4) playing spot the variants. ;-)
It's fun having a chance to do that with a sofubi line with such an interesting provenance.