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Jun Planning Gizmo and Bandit
Exclusive Gangster Gremlin
"The
following is a guest review. The review
and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford
or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the
guest author."
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Nathan DeWitt is back tonight
with a look at some very cool new Gremlins items...take it away Nathan!
It’s been some time since I posted a review here and after I look at
all the great reviews Michael and others have posted since—I realize
why this is—I’m too busy buying great toys! I’ve been
collecting figures since 1991 and it is interesting how one’s
collection goes through many cycles over time; my recent focus has been
heavily 1/6 scale—more specifically film-based figures from Hot Toys
and Sideshow and those reviews are expertly handled here by Michael and
Jeff Parker, so almost all the figures that they review usually end up
on my shelf. But I recently found some great toys outside of
the buying-grip Hot Toys has me in and they are really becoming two of
my favorites. They’re two characters from one of my favorite
movies as a child—and since I am an 80’s baby and I love all the toys
and movies from that decade, one of my favorite films is Gremlins. |
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We’ve seen
many Gremlins toys over the years. LJN handled the toys
in the 1980’s—making everything from small, rubber toys to plush Gizmos
and Stripes. NECA recently did some figures in different
sizes
too—smaller, true to their style plastic figures and also a nice 7-inch
plush Gizmo. Many Japanese companies have done Gremlin
figures also
and my favorites are from a company called JUN Planning Inc.
The
first note I need to mention is that these figures are essentially
vinyl toys. The lack of articulation anywhere but in the
shoulders,
hips, and head is a trademark vinyl toy characteristic. Plus
the
figures are made of very hard plastic and lack minor details in sculpt
and paint—another big sign that the intent of the figure maker was to
keep these figures movie accurate in size and look, but also to keep
them on the inexpensive side.
Packaging
- Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***
The packaging for these
figures is quite similar in the front, which takes directly from the
movie poster and wraps the design around the window. The art is vibrant
and recognizable right down to the red font style. I think
the package works great for Gizmo, which is why I gave him a half star
more. He fits in the box snugly and the box itself doesn’t
take up much room if you would prefer to keep him MIP. Both
figures are very visible inside and would sit nicely boxed on a shelf,
but Gangster Gremlin would take up a lot of room. Once you
get inside the boxes, there are only a few twisty-ties, but for the
most part the boxes are collector friendly. The Gremlin’s box
is only a little different due to his large size. The
Gremlin’s all clock-in around 19-inches, so that’s a lot of box coming
through the mail and a lot of space to store something of it’s
size. I’m keeping my boxes for now, mostly because of the
Gangster Gremlin being limited to 200, so now I have the tough job of
finding storage for it.
Sculpting-
Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
The sculpting on both these figures is very good—although a bit soft,
but that is expected for a vinyl figure. Things like texture
around Gizmo’s mouth and a higher quality, glassier eye are lacking
here, but the figure does shine in this category. Gizmo is
proportioned very well; the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth are all in
proper distant from each other and his body is sized
correctly. Gizmo’s slight paunch gives him great
stature. His size is very close to what we see in the movie,
but I want to say that this Mogwai is a little too big—and only
slightly. The faux hair covering Gizmo is attached very close
to the vinyl underbody, so there are no “soft spots” on the figure and
the underbody gives Gizmo a little bit of girth. The legs and
torso are one piece and the head and two arms are separate.
The head sculpt is a very excellent likeness and capture a nice visage
of Gizmo. I was a little bummed by the decision to sculpt and
paint Gizmo’s eyes looking to his left the entire time, but when you
turn the head slightly, it’s not as noticeable and gives him a look of
wonder. This is due to the fact that the right side of
Gizmo’s head is slightly higher than on the left, which when combined
with the look in his eyes, it gives him some added realism.
The sculpt of the retina, cornea, and iris are all separated and they
have their own roundness to them, so they have more depth when
painted. The closed mouth has a slight grin to it and looks a
tad mischievous. The ears are very nicely textured and really
draw you to the figure at first glance. They are unpainted,
but they do have a slight glossier appearance to them—and the texturing
and the thinness of plastic gives them a very realistic glow in direct
light. Gizmo’s hands are also proportioned properly and do
have some lighter paint on the nails. I would have liked a
little bit more life in the hands—one of them sculpted to hold
something would have been nice—or at least one that was a bit more
open. His three little figures are pretty stiff and he really
can’t hold anything larger than 2 quarters in thickness. This
was one factor that hurts the larger Gremlin figures in my opinion
because their hands are so big and unarticulated.
The Gangster Gremlin’s sculpting is much more exposed than
Gizmo’s—mostly because of Gizmo’s fur, which I’ll cover in the Outfit
section. The Gremlin sculpt is 1/1 at 19-inches.
He’s a very big, dense plastic toy. The skin’s texture is the
first thing I noticed that was a tad soft. The Gremlins
always looked very reptilian to me, very scaly and almost wet
looking. GG’s texturing is a little softer here, even when
compared to the texture of the rubber LJN Stripe from 1984.
The layered skin is a bit more prominent on the legs and torso and less
so on the two arms. Like with Gizmo, some more interesting
sculpting would have been nice for the hands—mostly because there is
such a missed opportunity here with fingers of this size. It
looks as though that the first 3 Gremlins from JUN Planning are the
same head sculpt and body type. The Stripe head sculpt is a
very accurate likeness of the creature—so I imagine that it’s the same
sculpt under the mask here, minus the hair and ears. The
sculpting of the eyes, jaw, and mouth are what really draw you into
these figures. The sculpt around both eyes is very menacing
and the open mouth jutting out of the ski mask is amazingly scary—and
when combined with the red and yellow eyes, the toy ends up looking
like a movie prop from a distance. It really is what sells
the figure and when combined with his size—Gangster Gremlin looks like
the real thing.
Paint
- Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
Gizmo doesn’t have much in
this department, but what he does have is solid. Like I said
before, his nails at painted a lighter color than his skin tone and
they are very clean. There is a light semi-gloss added to the
inside of his ears to give the texture a nice gleam. A little
highlight paint would have been nice here to pull out the detail of the
inner ear, but the little bit of gloss is effective. The eyes
are also cleanly painted with no slop and the white, brown, and black
are all separated nicely and give the figure a bit of life.
His nose also has a more reddish-brown paint added to the top of
Gizmo’s snout.
Gangster Gremlin by contrast is all painted detail and is also done
very well. The stripes on the arms and hands are very clear
and clean. There is some airbrush on the chest area around
the yellow paint of his mid-section. It blends the color into
his green skin very nicely. The paint on his upper legs seems
to have been lightened by a quick wipe-off technique and adds some
texture to lighten the yellow colored paint. There’s no slop
to be found on him and the paint is applied very realistically for
lizard-like creature. The best paint is in the eyes; the red,
black, yellow, and brown really set this figure off. Combined
with the sculpt, the paint on the eyes make this figure
frightening. The big, white pointed teeth help this also—on
the backdrop of a red mouth and pink gums. A little more
paint around the jaw below the mouth might have helped bring out the
sculpt more and been more accurate, but I don’t think it’s truly
necessary—especially since the mouth is open to show the
teeth. From a distance, I really think Gangster Gremlin and
Gizmo look like they’re right from the movie—a real testament to the
design of these figures.
Articulation - Gizmo **, GG **
This is really where the figures suffer, but I couldn’t be any harsher
than two stars because these again are vinyl-style figures. I
think articulation would have caused some bigger engineering problems,
which would have certainly raised the sticker price on both of these
toys.
Gizmo is articulated at the neck and shoulders, which limits
pose-ability, but the problem is that to make his legs more pose-able,
you’d have to cut the fur around them separate and attach the legs to
the torso WITHOUT making the new joint look like there isn’t a seam in
his fur. They accomplished that with the arms very well, but
the legs would be slightly more obvious because the fur on the head
covers the top of the seam on the shoulders. Plus you’d still
be getting very limited articulation of the legs anyway—Gizmo’s legs
would just bow out like a baby doll and all he’d be able to do is sit
spread eagle. And, again, forgoing this type of engineering
is what kept this figure at such a low price.
Gangster Gremlin has articulation at his neck, shoulders, and
hips. The hip articulation is rather pointless because GG’s
knees are bent almost at 45 degrees and he is hunched over slightly; so
any movement at the hips is going to either stand him on his heels or
on his toes. The arms and head are pretty standard cut joints
and again my biggest gripe is with his fingers. The gun still
fits in his hand with some futzing, but some sort of articulation here
would have knocked him up a notch or two, even if it just were just
bendy fingers on a rubber hand. There is a seam where the
hand meets the wrist and it is glued in place. An
interchangeable gun hand or flexible hands would have been nice, but
that’s not really how they make vinyl toys, so again, what we’re given
is slightly more acceptable when we look at what the vinyl market
produces.
Accessories-
Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
Both of these figures come
with one accessory. Gizmo’s is a small ball of his asexually
reproduced self—basically some stitched up fur with the trademark tag
on it. It’s a nice addition, especially if you plan for more
Mogwai figures on the horizon. And beyond the 3D glasses, I
really couldn’t picture him with anything else, though the headband and
bow & arrow from the end would have been cool, as would have
been the pink convertible, but the little ball of fur is nice enough.
Gangster Gremlin’s one accessory is slightly cooler—a black Detective
Special .38. Anyone in the toy-collecting world knows that
real looking guns are a no-no in this country. As a “just in
case” measure, modern looking toy guns tend to be colored bright,
fluorescent colors or have an orange tip in the barrel signifying that
it’s not real. This Gremlin comes with a toy .38 Special
without a barrel plug, which in no means is anything outside of $2 drug
store toy, but it’s nice that it’s included and it needs no
modification. It does fit in both hands, but again some
flexible fingers or even a cut wrist joint would have helped make his
grip a little more realistic. The Gangster Gremlin also comes
with a very nice certificate of authenticity that verifies that this
version is only one of 200 made. This one is 175/200. The
certificate is nice to have considering that small number limited
editions always seem to just be rumored to be small, unless there is
some way of verifying it. I used to think 5,000 editions of
any collectable was small, but in the shrinking world collectables
market, under 500 seems to be the new rate for a limited
edition.
Outfit-
Gizmo ***1/2, GG ****
Gizmo’s outfit is a fur suit attached to the vinyl base figure, but it
definitely the best furry Gizmo I’ve seen yet. The faux fur
is stitched nicely into the figure and the lay and cut of the fur is
superb. The hairs are shaggy where they’re supposed to
be—around the base of the ears and eyes and at the bottom of the
leg—and cropped slightly on top of the head and chest area.
Like I said before, the fabric fits very well on the figure, with no
loose areas to speak off. The fur is very soft and you have
the urge to pet him a few times when you first pick him up.
The hairs lay nice on the body, especially from the upper chest to
Gizmo’s feet—they run vertically and are not sticking up in all
directions. After further inspection I realized that a cut
joint at the hip probably would have been possible because of how nice
the fabric fits the figure and how nicely the fur could have hidden the
joint. My only nit was that at close inspection you could see
some of the stitching around the eyes and mouth—but this was only after
futzing and pulling on it.
Gangster Gremlin’s outfit is one piece—a brown and tan 3-holed ski
mask, which essentially is the major feature of this
character. The likeness with the mask from the film is
dean-on and it really flashes you back to that memorable scene with
Gremlins in the bar. I’ve always wondered why Phoebe Cates
stayed there and kept serving them—were the Gremlins holding her there
at gunpoint? Well, if anyone was, it was this guy!
The mask is not meant to be removed and when I began to remove it, the
first thing I noticed was the dried glue on the back of the mask near
his snout, so I stopped right there. It also feels as though
that there is glue around the eyes to keep the mask in place.
Fun
factor- Gizmo ****, GG ****
The
fun factor is another characteristic that really adds some value to
these figures. The Gizmo figure just screams, “Pick me up and
pet
me!” He’s certainly quite cuddly and looks right at home
wherever you
put him. I can’t keep him off my desk. He’s one of
those toys that
easily induces a “WOW” when you see him for the first time.
Just
never, ever feed him after midnight…
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The Gangster Gremlin’s fun
is in his large stature—you really can’t believe that a full-scale
Gremlin toy has been made. He looks like pure evil and
balances out
Gizmo’s cuteness quite nicely. Both figures would be slightly
more
interesting if they had better articulation, but I can accept the
decision to keep these toys simpler from both an engineering and price
standpoint. And now I’m realizing that I definitely need at
least a
Stripe, if not another Gremlin also, so it would be really fun to have
a bunch of these things around the house.
Value
for money - Gizmo ****, GG ***1/2
The
Gizmo is a $50-$75 figure retail, but you still need to have him
imported from Japan—so that can make him slightly more
expensive. I
was lucky to grab mine off eBay for $62 shipped from Canada to Florida,
but I have seen him mostly at or around $49.99 plus
S&H. I think
he’s very worth it. What you essentially have is a fully
licensed
hybrid vinyl-style figure with way better than average plush fur and a
great likeness, but a typical lack of articulation. I could
see a
figure of this quality with slightly better articulation andsculpting
being twice as much from someone like Sideshow or even NECA.
The
Gangster Gremlin scores slightly lower here. Due to their
much larger
size, all the Gremlins from JUN Planning are at least $99.99 retail
and, again, they are from Japan, so shipping costs are substantially
more for such a large box. There have been 2 Bandit Selected
Toy
Limited Editions and they run slightly higher around $124.99.
The
first was a lighter, greener version of Stripe at 1000
pieces. The
second was the Bandit Selected Toys Gangster Gremlin at 200
pieces.
Shipping for such a large figure from Japan is around $75, but the good
news is that global express is the only choice for a box this big, so
you’ll have it in under a week. When you factor out the
shipping cost,
$125 for this figure is a little high when considering what you
get.
This figure is essentially a repainted large vinyl toy. If
you hack
off the ears and add a ski mask and a $2 toy gun, you have a Gangster
Gremlin, but for something this size to be at the $100 marker is still
a pretty good deal when you factor in things like licensing,
production, and the quality craftsmanship. Then if you go one
step
further and factor-in the decision to produce a few smaller run,
limited versions—the collector can see the money spent become a little
more worthwhile.
Another thing that I think keeps their price
down and their value high is that they’re “toys first” in all their
hard plastic glory. These Gremlin figures are most certainly
a toy
that could survive some tumbles of the shelf or rough play. I
wouldn’t
recommend these for someone really young because of some sharp parts,
but these things could hold up for a few years of abuse.
Things
to Watch Out For -
Your
Gizmo might need some trimming of the fur around his mouth or eyelids
where as few strands look out of place. It’s nothing
excessive, but
something I noticed while photographing him.
Gangster Gremlin is
a big cost shipping item, so that is a big chunk of the figure’s cost
and something you need to consider before you buy. When you
are buying
something this big from overseas, you really don’t want to return it,
so make sure you talk to the seller beforehand hand to get an exact
shipping quote and pictures of your figure. Good
communication can
help justify paying such expensive shipping. As for quality
control
issues with the Gangster Gremlin, I’d say just to be careful with the
.38 Special when weaving his fingers through the trigger guard—forcing
it into his hand could break the gun because it’s plastic is quite thin.
Overall
- Gizmo ***1/2, Gangster Gremlin ***1/2
These are two really great
figures. I think in the end you are
getting a set of very high quality licensed Gremlin toys that are both
movie accurate enough in size and design to be very satisfying
representations of the characters. They look great on the
shelf and
you get a good-sized figure for the price. They also are just
fun
toys. One of the things I noticed was right out of the box
they just
sprang to life. I couldn’t even get out of my kitchen with
them before
I started taking pictures. There were no tiny parts that
needed to be
put together or things that needed transformed or repainted—they were
just two great toys right from the start.
There were many
different Gremlins in the first and second film and I’m hoping JUN
Planning has some other versions on the horizon. They’ve made
a few
Gremlins from Gremlins 2 already and more look to be made—including the
Flasher Gremlin and Vegetable Gremlin. I would really like to
see a
little more articulation in the future, but only if it doesn’t
dumb-down the designs or raise the price exponentially. Also,
it would
be nice if someone picked these up to import into the states so it
would bring down their total cost. Sideshow has imported JUN
Planning
stuff before, so let’s hope they decide to bring these in
too.
Where to buy -
Vendors
on eBay seem to be the ones carrying these figures right now, but let’s
keep our fingers crossed—with more versions of characters from the
sequel being made, we may see someone import these to the
states. You
can use the sponsor MyAuctionLinks
to search ebay.
Scoring Recap:
Packaging - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***
Sculpting - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
Paint - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
Articulation - Gizmo **, GG **
Accessories - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
Outfit - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ****
Fun Factor - Gizmo ****, GG ****
Value - Gizmo ****, GG ***1/2
Overall - Gizmo ***1/2, GG ***1/2
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Figure from the collection of Nathan DeWitt.
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