These are some vinyl model kits made by Max Factory during the '90s. They're prepaints, so I didn't do much except assemble them and allow them to gather dust. They've been doing that since I built them (before this website) and prolly have 5 or 6 years' accumulation on them. I decided to show pics of them because they're neat looking and people seem to buy the kits and not assemble them-- it's some kind of collector's dementia, I think. I also was desperate to show something different, since my recent endless pictures of swords and shields are probably getting on the nerves.

As for "The Guyver"... It's from an old Japanese Manga (1985- Yoshiki Takaya), a story about a Japanese schoolboy (Sho Fukamachi) who becomes a superhero by merging with "Bio-Booster Armor", and fights baddie monsters called "Zoanoids", created by the evil shadow mega-corp, Cronos. A big creation story unfolds, proposing that we're created by aliens, blah, blah, woof, woof... I first saw it as a subtitled anime movie from 1986, "Guyver: Out of Control" (or something like that) and it was pretty good. Then I saw the 1989 serialized anime OVA versions dubbed in English, which seem to be an excuse for gratuitous gore and overusing the exclamation "Shit!" Interesting at first, but then really tedious. I think they ran out of interest before abandoning the 12-episode series. The subject has also been done as two English-language live action films, "The Guyver" (1991- slapschtick-ish, starring Mark "Luke" Hamill as the bug detective) and "Guyver 2: Dark Hero" (1994- not great drama, but I liked it). Steve Wang's costume and creature designs are the high point of these productions. If you don't have the perspective of history, they may seem like no big deal... Bizarre monsters are a dime a dozen nowadays. Bear in mind that these guys came out before Todd McFarlane flooded the toy aisles with his weird vision. Max Factory did a great job with these kits (approximately 6.5" tall).

These kits are based on the Guyvers and creatures in the Manga and serialized animated version. I haven't captioned any of the pictures because who cares what their names are? Zerebubus, Vamore, Enzyme, Gregole, Zektor, Droopy, Sleepy, Rudolph, Fabio... see what I mean? I prolly can't remember them all, and the English spelling of their names never matched the way they were pronounced in the videos. Anyway, if you want to see more of this stuff here, I've done a 12" version of the "Guyver Zoanoid" plus some small format articulated figures (4") made from castings of these guys.