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| Mandarake |
Out of the two of us, Jas was really into the Collectible Toys/Figures/Die Cast aspect of it (I was more into the Posters, books, 45's and Albums) and spend a good deal of his time perusing collectible platforms online (Mandarake and the like), and generally had a good handle of the stuff that was out there, where to look for them, and what it might cost! Sometimes I'd remember some random toy or book and he'd almost always know what it was and locate photos of it for me to see and purchase.
One time we were talking about those cardboard tokusatsu books that were so popular in the 70's, and I mentioned I had one of Kikaider 0-1 "with a huge pic of Kikaider 0-1 and the four Hakaidas lined up in front". That night, Jas shot back an email with a picture , saying "This it?" and I had to laugh 'cause of course it was!
After he solved my Kikaider 0-1 mystery, I also mentioned that I had another tokusatsu cardboard book, but had no idea who it was. Thinking back, I believe it was missing its cover, (not that could have read the Japanese back then anyway) and maybe that's why I only had a vague idea of the series it was based on. I wracked my brain:
"This hero was like Ultraman- he fought monsters like the size of buildings. In my memory, I think it was a hero like that Ryuusei Ningen Zone Fighter guy with the three bug family in that Poster set we had," to which Jas said, "Are you sure it wasn't Ultraman?"
I told him that I would have recognized Ultraman and didn't know the hero in the book. What I DID remember, however, was one of the monsters, so i tried to draw him from my fading memory banks. "From What I recall, he looked like this," I said, sketching out this doodle:
Are you SURE it wasn't Ultraman?" Jas asked again, scratching his head. "Cause this looks like an Ultraman monster."
"Nah," I said, "The hero looked like Thunder Mask or something."
"Nah," I said, "The hero looked like Thunder Mask or something."
Jas jumped on the computer and scrolled through Ultraman monsters anyway, but didn't come up with anything right away. "I'll look again later." he said, and we went for lunch.
That evening, he once again emailed me, saying, "Is THIS the monster you were remembering?"
WHOA! That looked a LOT like the monster in the book I had, and confirmed excitedly, "Holy Crap, that totally looks like him! Who is He? What super hero is it from?"
"If it's him, his name is Takkong. And the series is...ULTRAMAN!"
"Whaaaa???? It WAS Ultraman???"
"Yeah, the "Return of Ultraman" series, actually. Ultraman Jack."
Me; "D'OH!"
Jas added, "And funny, speaking of Kikaider 0-1, Shunsuke Ikeda is in this series as an Ultraman Agent, LOL!"
AHAHAHA, It's all connected!
I will say that there is still a 1 percent chance there's some OTHER monster out there that matches my drawing and maybe it ISN'T Ultraman, but so far Takkong is the closest I've ever got to finally identifying the Monster and series, anyway!!!
