The weird wonderful world of Korean bootlegs...
Reader "Jin" alerted me to this Collection DX page full of bootlegs from our favorite robot animation producer (snicker)...Korea!
http://www.collectiondx.com/gallery/Toys/Bootleg/Korean/
Due to the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, I won't post any pictures, but I'll highlight a few neat galleries:
Black Apache - a combining helicopter and drill tank with a Bio Robo head. The box art looks like the actual Bio Robo, all greebled up with drill shoulder and a chestplate.
Black Long Piston - Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai teams up with a little fellow with the chest of Jet Icarus (JETMAN). He's white, red and green, not black. I see no sign of a long piston anywhere on the toy, although he has long black guns (as all proper Prime toys do).
F-15 Supereagle - This fellow has very Dancougarish box art, although it only transforms into a jet. I can't figure out the identity of the two guys in the lower right of the box.
Mycal Z-Car - Powermaster Op's back in garish colors, sans his "trailer" and Icarian race car buddy.
Oversized Optimus - A bootleg of the original Battle Convoy (albeit the TF Generation 2 edition). Bootlegs of BC were probably much harder to producte that boots of the Powermaster Prime mold - the Powermaster toy is much simpler.
Robotech -Looks like 3 bad Valkyrie jets. A better idea would be to knock off a Valkyrie, a SOUTHERN CROSS mech, and a Mospeada LEGIOSS and package them as a three-pack. (Was ROBOTECH actually aired in Korea?)
Spiderman's Leopaldon - Also known as "the only one of these guys I have".
The toy is an ST Leopardon, doubled in size to be bigger than the DX transforming version. The full name of this toy is "Earth Defense Team Spider-Man". Thanks to "Jin" for the translation.
Trio Iron Man - A hideous Gordian bootleg. Trio Iron Man looks to be Duo Iron Man from the box.
Lots more at Collection DX, so go have a look. I'm off to write a solar adventure about Black Long Piston fighting aliens allied with Kim Jong Il...
Reader "Jin" alerted me to this Collection DX page full of bootlegs from our favorite robot animation producer (snicker)...Korea!
http://www.collectiondx.com/gallery/Toys/Bootleg/Korean/
Due to the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, I won't post any pictures, but I'll highlight a few neat galleries:
Black Apache - a combining helicopter and drill tank with a Bio Robo head. The box art looks like the actual Bio Robo, all greebled up with drill shoulder and a chestplate.
Black Long Piston - Powermaster Optimus Prime/Super Ginrai teams up with a little fellow with the chest of Jet Icarus (JETMAN). He's white, red and green, not black. I see no sign of a long piston anywhere on the toy, although he has long black guns (as all proper Prime toys do).
F-15 Supereagle - This fellow has very Dancougarish box art, although it only transforms into a jet. I can't figure out the identity of the two guys in the lower right of the box.
Mycal Z-Car - Powermaster Op's back in garish colors, sans his "trailer" and Icarian race car buddy.
Oversized Optimus - A bootleg of the original Battle Convoy (albeit the TF Generation 2 edition). Bootlegs of BC were probably much harder to producte that boots of the Powermaster Prime mold - the Powermaster toy is much simpler.
Robotech -Looks like 3 bad Valkyrie jets. A better idea would be to knock off a Valkyrie, a SOUTHERN CROSS mech, and a Mospeada LEGIOSS and package them as a three-pack. (Was ROBOTECH actually aired in Korea?)
Spiderman's Leopaldon - Also known as "the only one of these guys I have".
The toy is an ST Leopardon, doubled in size to be bigger than the DX transforming version. The full name of this toy is "Earth Defense Team Spider-Man". Thanks to "Jin" for the translation.Trio Iron Man - A hideous Gordian bootleg. Trio Iron Man looks to be Duo Iron Man from the box.
Lots more at Collection DX, so go have a look. I'm off to write a solar adventure about Black Long Piston fighting aliens allied with Kim Jong Il...
1 Comments:
Great, I just spent 20 minutes writing a comment that was lost when MSIE crashed when viewing ... you'll see.
Nice selection of ... bootlegs and ... I don't know, 'localized' versions? Technically I don't think some of these are bootlegs. See below.
Black Apache - what a PC name! :) I don't know why the Biorobo head was used, since the rest of the design is original. Did the manufacturer make a few hundred heads by mistake?
Black Long Piston - "Prince of the Earth".
F-15 Super Eagleman (that's its Korean name) - This looks totally original to me, and the guys on the box also appear to be original, even if they are airbrushed sentai members. The absence of any references on the box to a movie or TV show make me doubt this is a tie-in. (For all we know, there could be GOLDWING toys out there.)
Mycal Z-Car - the Korean name is "Michael".
Oversized Optimus - This appears to be legal. There is copyright information in English on the box, which also announces that TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 2 "is planned to be broadcast". It's not clear whether this refers to GALACTIC HEROES CYBERTRON, the Korean title for TRANSFORMERS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Broadcasting_System
The Korean name for the toy is "Robot Trailer".
Robotech - Too bad Matchbox didn't use your three-in-one idea. According to the box, Robotech got an "extended broadcast" (meaning reruns? airing past the end of MACROSS?) on SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System; see above). I can't read the Korean names of the characters on the front, but they don't look like "Rick Hunter" or "Roy Fokker" (or "Ichijou Hikaru").
I just discovered that ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES (which I totally forgot about)
- has been completed (so why is it gathering dust?)
- was animated in Korea (so it's relevant to this comment)
- will be released in theatres and then video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech:_The_Shadow_Chronicles
http://www.theshadowchronicles.com/info.php?id=theaters
I just watched the trailer (which crashed MSIE the first time I tried to play it):
http://www.theshadowchronicles.com/trailer.php
It's nice to hear the voices of "Scott Bernard" and the "Regis" again. The visuals are OK. The Artmic mecha designs are still timeless after 24 years - no retroactive WAR IN THE POCKET-type restyling necessary.
Trio Iron Man - the Korean name is "Iron Man Three Musketeers". The box says "Another robot inside the body of the Iron Man! Open its chest and the Three Musketeers appear!" Um, no, there aren't three bots inside Gordian.
http://home.paran.com/yanus91/koani/sunsk.html
is ROBOT KING SUNSHARK.
The onscreen text in
http://home.paran.com/yanus91/koani/pic3/sunsk_2.jpg
says
"This movie is an anticommunist movie which opens your eyes to the importance of the freedom of producing a combination of actual people with cartoons."
Huh?
Is that a freedom not in North Korea? It's not in Japan, as I can't remember any show or movie featuring the same characters in both live-action and animated form, apart from an experimental Tsuburaya film whose name escapes me. Tsuburaya's mid-70s anime/TS series consistently used animated characters juxtaposed over actual backgrounds.
SUNSHARK was produced by "No. 3 Advertising". "Advertising" - Ooh, how capitalist!
The bad guy is "Leader Hok Buri" of North Korea who appears to be modelled after Kim Il Sung (since this movie was made in 1985). He has joined forces with a gang called "Spectre".
- Jin (?)
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