Those 'Sega Gals' Return

Oh the humanity!

Waaaaay back before I read or wrote for this blog, Gagaman wrote about some awesome Sega Gals capsule toys. Since finding and reading that post, I knew I had to get me some Sega gals! So, after a few months of occasionally checking ebay, I found the first series of six for a cool $24. As Gagaman already covered Ulala and Arle, I'll share the other four famous gals.

First up is one of my favorites from the first series of gals, Sarah Bryant of Virtua Fighter fame, specifically Virtua Fighter 4. I'm not an expert on action figures, but the paintjob is very nice. The gloss used for her body suit makes for a great feux leather.

"Better run home to Mama now."

The next gal is a classic, the female newman Nei from Phantasy Star II. Nei was easy to assemble, until it came to cutting her tiny claw weapons from a little model mold. One wrong move and she would have broken a nail!
Behind Nei's thigh, in the photo above, is a concept drawing of her. While you can't see it, the resemblance is uncanny. Almost as though she were ripped from the game and placed into a capsule toy machine.


Our third gal (yeesh, I feel like I'm hosting a Miss America pagent) is a lesser known from the 1992 Sega arcade game Arabian Fight (did you catch the cheesy thing they did with the title?). Ramaya isn't my favorite of the series, mostly because I have no clue who she is outisde a breif mention in a Wikipedia article and a few screen shots. Also, her feet were hell to get on. You can still see that they're not fully attached. Poor gal...


Finally we come to a Sega gal who had such a strong presence in her game, yet appeared for only a brief few seconds. It's Red Ring Rico of the Dreamcast's Phantasy Star Online! Rico mostly appears in text form throughout the game, speaking to the player via old journal entries. It isn't until the final boss that [SPOILERS] Rico's soul escapes from the defeated Dark Falz. As one who played PSO, I have to admit that I rarely read the optional journal entries from Rico. So once I reached the final boss, I assumed Rico was actually the villian of the game and not a victim. Watch Rico in her blink and you'll miss her appearance.


Here are all the gals, happy on a shelf together.


Overall, the 'Sega Gals' capsule collection is excellent. Very few duds, if any, and it can be found at decent prices. Even individual figures only sell for $5 to $8 each.

Magical Flying Turbo hat Adventure: The More you Know!

Image from Segagagadomain

I'm sure you've all heard of the original Japanese version of the Mega Drive game Decap Attack, known over there under the crazy name of 'Magical Flying Turbo Hat Adventure', but it seems there was more to this than just a game.




I had a feeling it was probably based on an anime based on the copyright to Studio Pierrot on the title screen and box art, and from seraching for the game by it's Japanese name I came across a few things, like this opening to the anime:

There's a more colorful clip of this intro over at Nico Video, though you have to be registered to the site to view that. You might even recognize the music from the title screen of the game, makes sense. Pierrot still have a small official website set up for the anime, and there is an ending credits clip here. Yes, that is a 'Bye Bye Baby' cover you're hearing. According to some anime database website it was only running between the years of 1989 and 1990, so it can't of really took off.

What I was quite surprised to find is this anime had quite the merchindise push that it appaers was also led by Sega. They do have a toys department after all, that gave Japan the Zillion Laser tag game and the Pico pre-school console. There's lots of images of the boxes to toys of the robots from it on a website called Mandarake, as well as odd bits and bobs like keychains and small toys below, all with Sega's logo slapped on it.


There is also manga books to be found on Yahoo Auctions, and a DVD box set of the anime floating about. Would I want to watch it? Probably not, but it's just a fascinating sort of alternate dimension to me, growing up with the Decap Attack comic rather than this. The fact that main main bad guy in both versions is more or less just a different colour from the other links the two together in a funny kind of way (ok, they don't look exactly the same in the below pics, but in game they did), and it gives more context to an otherwise very odd (and fun) import Sega platformer.

None of this explains why Fantastic Dizzy is in the game, though.

Oh, and while I'm talking about Decap Attack, check out this amazing fan made figure of Chuck D. Head!

The oldest Sega Commercials Youtube can offer

You probably already knew this, but the infamous 'SEGA!' voice wasn't first used at the start of Sonic 1, but in fact many years earlier in commercials on Japanese TV as far back as 1983! Hunting around Youtube you can find plenty of just-about watchable recording of some of these relics of Sega advertising, starting with this collection of ads selling Sega's first ever console the SG-1000. Oh, and you may want to watch this with your fingers in your ears at the start, as they may hurt otherwise.

Apparently the girl goes by the name of Saito Yuko and was quite the popular TV type person at the time. I guess you could call her the first member of G.L.O.S: The Gorgeous Ladies of Sega (As Classic Game Room revealed in their Daytona USA review) as Sega have since had a whole string of girls as their advertising mascots over the years. There is also apparently an extremely nerdy pun in that last ad that will go over most people's heads even if they know Japanese. I'm only going by what people in the comments are saying, mind you.

Now this one is for the SG-3000, which was a sort of home computer version of the SG-1000 I guess, much like the Tera Drive which was a PC combined with a Mega Drive (that we got in the UK as the Amstrad Mega PC). What's with the giant teeth/brushes? Why do they light up like Christmas decorations? I have no idea what in the hell is going on but it's hilarious!Just look at that guys face about 10 seconds in!

Remember, Sega have made toys too! This rather elaborate commercial is for the Zillion laser tag game from 1987. A similar toy was released here in 1992 called the Sega Lock-On, though they changed the gun design which in Japan is the same as that of the Mark III/Master System light gun. There is another ad for it here. Zillion was quite a big deal for Sega in the eighties, with two games and even an anime by Tatsunoko.

Finally, I really couldn't resist posting this one just because of the voice. WEELEE! JAAAMP! TUNAAP! You should really check out Nazca88's channel, he has a pile of old Sega commercials and interesting Sonic videos from Japan.

No, really, Japan still likes Sega Pt. 2

One thing I didn’t mention in the previous article is there is actually more than one Sega Joypolis. I believe nowadays there are only three left open, but there used to be more. We actually encountered one of other the open ones elsewhere in our travels in the city Okayama. However, we didn’t give it a visit unfortunately due to our time in Okayama being cut short (thanks to a certain “closed” hostel, but I won’t get in to that).

So other than the Joypolis centres, what kind of Sega stuff did Japan hold? Well, actually, not all that much. However, there is a ridiculously prevalent chain of ‘Club Sega’ arcades throughout the entire country. Occasionally, they are titled ‘Sega Park’ or ‘Sega World’, but ‘Club Sega’ was definitely the more common of these titles. Usually, these were just your average Japanese arcade – dark, incredibly noisy, filled with smoke, weird but spectacular arcade machines and a bunch of angry looking people playing fighting games with ridiculous precision. Oh and lots of gambling. And I mean lots.

^ If you’re a nerd and find yourself in Tokyo, it is almost unquestionable that at some point you’ll end up in Akihabara, Tokyo’s ‘Electric Town’. This isn’t far from the station at all. I'm also a bad photographer.

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of Club Sega’s dotted around Japan, which we stumbled upon frequently. However, most of them were pretty uncharacteristic. However, there was a slightly more unique one I stumbled upon in Fukuoka.

More after the jump..

^ It looked slightly more unique than the other Club Sega buildings at least

Inside, it contained all the normal stuff – video games, gambling (which I actually won a spot of money from!) and prize machines (which I squandered said earnings on). But it had a bit of a special mural on this wall;

^ Serious point, this blog should just be renamed “Sonic Fans Anonymous” because we’re clearly obsessed.

Sure, it’s all stock art, but if you look to the left wall, there was a rather hilarious ‘comic’ emblazoned on the wall. It basically amounts to the upstairs gambling arena being labelled as ‘Eggman’s World’, and in his evilness, Eggman is attempting to turn Sonic into a gambling-addicted, unsuccessful wash-up (…he might’ve succeeded to some extent). The gambling area itself used special Sega coins (which I took a few of back with me as they were worth nothing, but seem to have misplaced) which confused me at first, when I attempted to put real money in to the machines. Oh dear.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of what I found was Sonic related. In Tokyo’s Asakusa, once I checked out the rather awe-inspiring temple, I had a wander and recognised a rather smug mug amongst all the mascot-branded gambling machine posters outside of one arcade. I went in to investigate and look what I found;

^ See, I told you Sonic has a gambling addiction

Now you can play the slots whilst watching Sonic and co. rock out on stage. Everything around the slot bit itself was a video screen, unfortunately I couldn’t get a photo at a slightly more exciting point to come out right. It used graphics ripped from either Sonic Adventure 1 or 2, I can’t remember which now – I think the former – and was rather surreal.

As one of our last stops when travelling, we visisted Amanohashidate, which is famous for having a rather interesting tourist attraction where you take a hilarious chair lift up a rather large hill and then overlook this bridge of land surrounded by pine trees. Except, you’re meant to look at the land-bridge through your legs i.e. upside down, so that it looks like a floating island of sorts (no-one say it! Also, I've explained that rather badly, but just Google it if you're curious). Anyway, up on this hill / mountain thing was an arcade (unsurprising for Japan by this point) from which I heard some rather familiar music.

^ Look at all that classic Sonic goodness – that’s some art you don’t see very often

This prize giving machine was blasting out the Starlight Zone music from Sonic the Hedgehog, and was adorned with classic images of Sonic, Eggman and the various little animals trapped in badniks. Unfortunately, it was filled with non-Sonic goods, but it was a surprising thing to find, especially given the location. The machine must’ve been there for nigh on 15 years, judging by how retro the designs on it are. Crazy.

Other than arcade related shenanigans, and Sonic branded prize machines (which I found slightly different versions of later on back in Tokyo), the main thing on offer to the average Sega fan was retro-gaming. Go to any normal sized games shop and it’ll probably sell a ridiculous amount of Dreamcast games (such as the Guilty Gear X I picked up for £2 – score). Go to a slightly bigger one and it’ll be selling all kinds of retro rubbish, including and not limited to Mega Drive and Game Gear games. For about £1 I found Sonic 2 for the Game Gear, which I felt had to be bought on the strength of its crazy cover.

Really, it’s not that Sega is particularly prevalent in Japan (although they do seem to share an arcade monopoly along with the likes of Taito), it’s just that gaming related things are overtly prevelant (which is a stark contrast to what we have over here). Further to that, retro-gaming hasn’t been phased out in Japan like it has so ruthlessly over here, which is nice. I didn’t have to look particularly hard to find any of this stuff, as after all, my trip to Japan was about far more than Sega. Still, it’s nice to see that there’s a certain fondness for Sonic around the country.

Splendid Japanese Sonic plush toy of 1991

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)!



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.

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.

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.


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. =)

Tiny Sega keychains of awesome

As you may of noticed, I have managed to stumble upon quite a few bits of Japanese Sega junk in recent months, from Gashapon Sega gal toys to that art book and the little NiGHTS pre-order bonus. A little while ago (the last few posts have mostly been backlog) I also got my hands on this set of Japanese Sega keychains. They were quite cheap and there was two sets all selaed up amongst them, although one of the designs shown on the card (a white Sega Saturn) was missing. Even though they're keychains you could easily take the chain part off and keep them as little figures, which I've done by sitting them along my Dreamcast game shelfs. They're rather neat, I must say. Photos after the jump!

The whole set (except the Saturn) are based on some of Sega's biggest stars from the 80s. Would have been nice if a Alex Kidd or Wonder Boy was thrown in for good measure. They were made in 1997 so maybe they were made to advertise the Sega Ages Saturn releases. While we only got the one disc with three games on it, in Japan they released a whole bunch of Sega Ages discs, much like they do now for the Playstation 2.

The Opa-Opa of the set is fantastic. It looks just like it does in the games. Now if only it had a 500 Ton weight accessory to go with it.

I don't know how they managed to make a cute toy out of the biker from Super Hang-On, but they achieved it somehow by turning him into a kid sized biker with equally tiny bike and ballooned head. They've even managed to get a teeny Sega logo on his helmet.

Much like the Hang-On bike, they've given Mr.Space Harrier guy (does he have a name?) the super deformed treatment as well. However, the poor little bugger has had a Sega copyright cut into the full length of one of his legs. Both this and the hang-On toy do look remarkably like the in-game characters though, especially when seen from the back like they were in said games. Balloon sized head with standing, of course.

Finally, a toy of Pengo, the penguin that must of dipped into some tie dye to become those odd colours. Again a nice rendition of the character, although personally not one that means a great deal to me. The other three made the set well worth it though, as they were cheaper than most of the other Japanese toys I've picked up recently.

The Itty Bitty NiGHTS Toy from Japan

When that new NiGHTS game came out for the Wii in Japan last December, many of the first copies came with a little NiGHTS toy as a bonus of some sort (as seen in the commercial above). When the game popped up over here however, we weren't treated to this little extra gift, much in the same way that we don't get a lot of things Japan does, like expensive box sets for anime games full of spoons and pillows. If you look around on Ebay for long enough, however, you may just come across one of these little figures separate from the game. Considering I only paid £20 for the game itself, paying £11 for the toy didn't seem like too bad a deal. They weren't kidding about it being small though, but with the amount of shelf space I have left maybe that's not such a bad thing.



The toy has been designed by besidegames as part of their PaPETCH range of little figures all based around the same template (in fact, it appears to be the first one released) and ever since this NiGHTS design it looks like video game companies have been jumping at the chance of having their characters re-created in tiny figure forms. Have a look at their line up and you'll see characters from Exit, the Kunio series and Hammerin' Harry. They also show artwork of a Reala toy, although it's hard to tell if that one has been released or how you could get it, though. maybe it's a special one you only get in the box if you're lucky (if someone could translate the text in red under Reala, that would be great as it could explain).

So not a lot can really be said about the toy, really. It's about 6cm tall, made of some kind of vinyl and comes with a little plastic stand so it doesn't topple over from it's large head. It's obviously a simplified version of the character's design but still a good likeness.

But what did I think of the game? Well, at first, it doesn't give off the best of first impressions. The FMV scene is the usual top north stuff we've come to expect from Sega games, but the in game cut scenes run at a low frame rate, look washed out and features voice acting that seems to be mostly done by one very annoying voice actor/actress. At least Reala and Wiseman's voices do their job well enough, but story scenes are really quite embarrassing to sit through and on the first run unskippable. Even the cut scenes from Sonic Adventure were a bit more bearable. Much like those 3D Sonic games, they also make you play away from the main fun of the game sometimes, with tedious missions and clunky exploring levels where you play as the children.

The main stages and bosses, however, are great. The visuals for some reason looks far better than the rest of the game here, as if all the extra stuff was thrown in near the end of production, and the game play is just like the original, if you ignore the fact that they changed the aim of each lap a bit. One thing that also bugged me at first were the Wii remote controls: the remote pointer is a joke and completely broken, and the Nunchuck mode doesn't quite feel right either because the analouge stick isn't quite up to the accurately needed for flying in circles, but once I had a go at using the Gamecube controller I never turned back.


As I got further into the game I found myself warming up to it, and the final stage and boss redeemed the whole game for me, and there was more beautifully animated FMV scenes to boot. I'm rambling on here but if you decide to buy this game and get put off by the start keep at it, as it gets progressively better and once you have completed the story you can go back to beat your scores (without having to see those cut scenes again), as well as have a go at the online racing mode, which is pretty limited but a nice addition. It's not the perfect sequel, but it's defiantly one of Sega's better games in recent memory. At least it was more fun than Sonic and the Secret Rings which almost drove me to drink from frustration. If you liked the Saturn game and can excuse some imperfections, get it. If you didn't play the original...play that first.

Sega History Collection

This collection of consoles arrived in the post today. A member of the racketboy forums by the name of GrittyKitty sold me this whole lot for just $20 (about £10 in my money).

But no, I didn't just get the console bundle bargain of the century, as these are not the real consoles. Rather, they are miniature toys of them, about one 50th of the original size! Did I fool you? Nah, you probably already looked at the other photos and know I mainly post about stuff like toys at this blog. If I did get a stash of real consoles like this, though, you would probably hear about it anyway! More photos after the jump.

These are, much like the 'Sega Gals' I showed you all a while ago, toys that were sold in capsule machines in Japan, so when you bought one you would never know which one you're getting until you open it, and you have to build them up from many, many pieces. They were produced by a company called Yujin and 200 yen each. Because these were pre-owned, I did not have to do any fiddly sticker work as it was already done for me! Here is each system all set up in backwards order of their release.

First off, here is Sega's last console the Dreamcast, showed cased here by my Ulala toy.The little console, no bigger than a 2p coin, has a opening disc drive and all four controller ports, of which you can actually plug the tiny little controller into any of these just like the real thing! The set also comes with two VMUs, which even have their lids that can be taken off so you can plug the VMUs into the controller or into each other. If that isn't an insane attention to detail for something so small, I don't know what is. Each little system also comes with a replica game or two. Lucky for Ulala, in the case of the Dreamcast you get a tiny copy of Space Channel 5; both the box and the disc, which can be placed in the console if you wish!

Next up is the Sega Saturn in it's model 1 grey glory (I liked the white 2nd model more, but you can't have it all), shown off here by Fighting Viper's Honey. This console miniature comes with a controller, and a box and disc of Virtua Fighter 2. Like the others, you can plug in the controller and insert the disc. This one seems to come with the least pieces. A mini 4MB RAM cart would of been nice. It's still neat none the less, and a great likeness to the chunky old box of joy.

Now for the biggest behemoth of the collection when plugged together, the Mega Drive with both of it's add ons, the 32X and Mega CD. The Mega Drive, the first design with it's iconic gold '16-BIT' lovenly recreated, came with a Master System converter (see further below), a controller, and two game carts: Sonic 1 and Alien Solider. The 32X and Mega CD (Under the system design) were bundled together along with a six button controller, some Mega-CD game I have never heard of and a Virtua Fighter 32X cart. Above is all of these little toys when you plug them together. The disc drive of the Mega CD can slide out to slip a disc in, and the Mega Drive has it's flap of plastic at the bottom so it can plug into the Mega CD, again just like you would with the real deal. Good thing you don't have to sort out all the plugs for this miniature!

Here is where Sega started for many of us: the Master System (I started to get lazy with the photos here, so no character toy showing it off). This the first design of the 8-bit system we got, but the last in Japan. It came with two joypads, a Phantasy Star cart, and Teddy Boy on a 'Sega My Card'. Now if only I could plug it in and play a built in Alex Kidd game. =)

Now this system won't be familiar to everyone unless you lived in japan in the 80's or are a major console collector, as this is a Japanese equivalent of the Master System, the Sega Mark III. Released a couple years earlier, it is a smaller cuter design much like the Famicom compared to our NES. This system comes with two Joypads, a Fantasy Zone cart, some Ninja 'My Card' game and the FM sound unit which you attach to the top of the system (The FM Sound was built into the Master System, which maybe explains why that console was bulkier). This was the third design of the SG-1000, Sega's 2nd console in Japan after the SC-3000. I really dig the design of it.

GrittyKitty also threw in a spare Mega Drive set, which I have with it's Master system converter sitting on top here. The master system games can plug into that too! They have really thought of everything with these toys!

The obsessive attention to detail is quite amazing. Just look at all the games that come with each of the systems. To the untrained eye this photo below makes it look like I own an actual cartridge of Alien Solider! Even the Master System card games have fully detailed artwork on them despite being the size of a pin.

To get the best gist of the scale of these things, here are some comparisons with the real things. For example, see how the Saturn controller is the size of the real controllers start button, and the Dreamcast controller is smaller than the real VMU's screen! Crazy.

Next time: I just bought a Sonic 15th Anniversary statue from Ebay today, so when that arrives in a week or so I will be posting some photos for that! =)