Saturday, November 1, 2008

Splendid Japanese Sonic plush toy of 1991

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After my last plush toy find at a car boot sale led to this abomination, I was convinced that finding some of the nicer, older Japanese toys would be quite a long stretch (although I did mange to find a small Japanese one a while back with a SegaSonic tag on it which wasn't too bad). To my surprise the other week I found this one sitting amongst someones junk. I recognized it from one of Rhia's many photos of her collection and it was only a quid. An over abundance of photos ahoy (after the jump)!

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The first thing you notice about this one is it's eyes. They stare into your soul. They kind of remind me of Bomberman's eyes, actually. Kind of odd, but charming at the same time. Other features are rather nicely done, like he's pointy ears and big old nose. The mouth is a string and the face is a nice shape. It's very distinctively retro, even more so than the Retro range by Impact Innovations, although that is to be expected when the toy came out around 1991/92, which you can tell by it's "SEGASONIC THE HEDGEHOG" tag. Why Sega and Sonic are the same word is beyond me, but a lot of early Sonic stuff from japan says that.

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One of my favorite things about this toy compared to my other ones is how they've built it so it can be sit on the edge of something without falling over. It's legs are thick and sturdy enough to hold the toy up, and they curve over the edge of a shelf perfectly. He also has quite a fat arse which looks odd from the side but means it can sit well. Most other sonic toys have short flimsy legs and fall over a lot.

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In general this toy is really nicely made. He even has some nice golden buckles on his shoes, although the bottom of the shoes are brown for some reason. Was there a mud hill zone we never knew about? Either way, there's not a lot to fault with this one, especially when it cost me a quid. I'm not sure how hard to find this is, but I'd imagine it doesn't pop up all too often, so that's a bonus.

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EDIT: I found a piece of Sonic CD artwork that features Sonic with the same eyes as this toy. It's the new logo side art for the moment. =)