My most recent collecting obsession comes direct from Japan, and by ‘direct from Japan’, I don’t mean ‘created in Japan and sold here in the US’. I mean paying ridiculous EMS shipping fees to get dusty boxes imported from Asia and hoping for the best.

I’m a big fan of miniature toys. If I can find a superhero or diorama or otherwise culturally significant thing in miniature, it’s probably flanking my computer at some point. An army of robots from all manner of places gathers below my monitor, while other significant portions of space are occupied by the deadly Cartoon Warrior Women armada. The battle shall be glorious, and probably have too many upskirt-underwear shots.

So when I came across a little thing called Demon’s Chronicle on Toyzz.com, I thought that they’d be fun. Little sculptural figures from world mythology, gracefully placed atop pillars, no more than 3.5 inches tall. I bought a half dozen boxes of the figures from them. Since they’re blind-packaged, you never know exactly what you’re going to get. It could be any one of the things pictured on the box (if there’s anything pictured on the box at all), or it could be something rare and mysterious that hasn’t been spoken of before.

What I ordered was the 6th incarnation of the Demon’s Chronicle series by Yanoman. I have no idea where demons play into this line of figures, but this set was a series of twelve eerie sculptures interpreting the typical signs of the zodiac. Each figure comes in two paint schemes - full color and a monochrome beige. In addition to that, there happens to be a bizarre Cthulhu-like guy surrounded by an albino serpent and mist, which you’ll pull from a box if you’re lucky, like me. My luck in toys, though, completely balances out the complete disaster that is the rest of my life. I’m wondering where I can go to trade some of this toy-luck in. You know, never find that rare Hydro-Man action figure, but not have my soul crushed. I think that’s a pretty fair trade.

Demon’s Chronicle figures come in bags of tiny, tiny pieces that need to be assembled, completely without instructions and only a small image to guide you. You fit round pegs into round holes, and L-shaped holes fill up with L-shaped pegs until you have a beautiful little figure. It’s not without difficulty, but that’s half of the fun. Parts fall off as you’re forcing others on, something flies into your eye, a whole herd of cows in Wisconsin suddenly vanishes. It’s all worth it.

Toyzz.com, which is based in the US, quickly sold out of the figures, and I was forced to search the wide world over for more pieces. They were inspiring, and they were beautiful, and some of ‘em were naked ladies! The acceptance of nudity into ‘toys’ is another fascinating part of Asian culture, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I found these figures available in only one place - Hobby Link Japan. And they were only available by the case. Could I possibly be crazy enough to import whole cases of toys? I managed to justify the expense by purchasing some toys for my niece’s birthday in the same order, because if you’re going to be a creature of avarice, you need to take countermeasures of generosity so that your soul doesn’t immediately blacken, shrivel up and find its way into blocking one of your more vital arteries.

Other series of Demon’s Chronicle figures include a set of Egyptian mythology, angels and an early version of Santa Claus, a unicorn with a penchant for trumpets, dragons and fairies. Santa, curiously, is the mystery figure in a series that also contains a figure that can only be Satan riding a serpent. You can see a full gallery of the figures on the Yanoman website, even though there’s no English translation. The paint quality and sculpting detail are excellent for things of this size, but all of that pales in comparison to the imagination that’s gone into these figures. I’ve set up a display of the ones I’ve managed to acquire right in front of where I paint, because they instantly became creative talismans to occasionally glance at and remember what’s possible.

And that’s your daily slice of something that you probably didn’t know about before.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 1:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.