Ryotsu Kankichi SWAT officer.

Oh, so that "thing" I found on eBay and mentioned in my previous post is a Ryotsu Kankichi figure that Bandai produced in the late '90s. Right now, he's hanging out in my bathroom, enjoy a bit of a "spa treatment" to deal with some minor staining on his face and neck (10% Benzoyl Peroxide zit cream will fade stains on soft vinyl). The culprit appears to be his stretchy black balaclava but this is simply the nature of these materials. I don't blame the seller I bought it from since, if you display the figure as intended, it's almost guaranteed to happen. Anyway, I snapped a couple of photos the other day before sending him off for a bath and stain treatment.

I really like this little dude and he's been on my "want list" for a number of years. I'd still like to add the "winter police uniform" and "fighter pilot" versions of Ryo-san but the SWAT team guy is the one I'd really been after.

I think he'll soon be joined on some adventure or the other by a couple of GI Joes and maybe one of my Obitsu 27 cm girls. I just need to dig up some Police/SWAT type gear from my collection-o-parts and find the time to do some serious "kit bashing" of the other figures.

Speaking of kit bashing.... I do have a small fire team of GI Joes in the works. I mentioned this in passing in my last post but there will hopefully be actual photos one day soon. The squad leader is basically done and I've assembled most of the gear for the SAW gunner. Next up will be a grenadier but I'm just waiting on the pouches for his 40mm grenades to arrive. For the rifleman, I haven't yet decided if I'll just go with the standard "grunt" (with M4 rifle) or upgrade him to a designated marksman. For now, I've decided to limit my "team building" projects to smaller groups and the common US Army-USMC fire team configuration of four members (two riflemen or one rifleman and one designated marksman, a SAW gunner and a grenadier) seems to be a nice size to work with. Full squads are a cool idea in theory but they can get tedious to assemble and cumbersome to work with in 1/6 scale. They can also be enormous resource hogs in that you have buy and store enough items for a group of similarly attired and equipped figures. That can be 8-10-12 of the same pair of boots or the same uniform and similarly with body armor, helmets and load bearing gear. Weapons can vary a bit but most of your guys will need the same type of rifle with all the nifty bells and whistles (optics, etc.). In the end, you have a large group of similar looking guys on the shelf or in photos where the individuals tend to get lost in the crowd.

I'll probably delve more in to that last bit in a future post and, knowing me, I'll occasionally return to it. It's been a constant theme of mine for the last few years and a source of a frequent internal "tug of war" when planning my collecting strategy and hobby budget.

See 'ya next time!