I'm going to divide this into two parts to keep this entry from becoming too large. The next entry will cover the accessories.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Let's Joe! April 2015
This month, I decided to branch out a bit and use one of the open spots I left on my list of Let's Joe projects for this year. Our Joe for April is a Takara Combat Joe, one the many licensed versions of Hasbro's classic GI Joe produced and sold around the world. Takara is also one of the only companies to produce unique headsculpts not based on the "classic" original Joe head. To be honest, I don't know a great deal about these Joes except that this guy is a later production version from roughly the mid-to-late 1980s. He represents a WW2 US soldier and comes with a full complement of gear. I've decided to leave his gear on the card for now and I'll probably substitute some vintage repro Joe gear or items from Cotswold or even older Dragon figures instead. Meanwhile, I'm leaving him in just his basic uniform and boots as you see here. The history of GI Joe in Japan is pretty interesting in and of itself and includes forays in to Henshin Cyborg, Microman (US-Micronauts) and eventually Transformers! Yeah, imagine that. The early Takara Henshin Cyborgs also inspired the initial Medicom figures, which used a modified version of this guy's body, licensed from Takara which was in turn licensed by Hasbro. An interesting aside is that Tsukuda, another Japanese toy and model company, produced a licensed version of Action Man, again licensed by Hasbro etc. etc.... *WHEW*
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He's a very rugged looking fellow, but smartly dressed. :)
ReplyDeleteHugs,
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Glad you like him! I've always had an appreciation for the early WW2 US field uniforms. The Parsons jacket this guy is wearing apparently proved a bit impractical in combat use but it does look good and has a timeless style.
ReplyDeleteA handsome fellow indeed! :) I really like this one~ The head sculpt reminds me more of a British person than an American, idk why, though. :'D
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that they had GI Joes in Japan too! And with unique head sculpts at that! That's interesting, I'd love to learn more about these Japanese Joes. I'll definitely see if I can find some Japanese GI Joes when I go to Tokyo and raid some of those retro-toyshops~