Interest

Design Your Own Kamen Rider OOO & Gundam AGE Toys

Starting this Saturday, the Japanese toy conglomerate Bandai will allow people to mix and match parts to create one of 119 different Kamen Rider OOO figures, which Bandai will ship directly from the factory. At this week's Tokyo Toy Show, Bandai also showcased how people can buy torso, arm, and leg parts separately to create their own action figure from this fall's Gundam AGE anime series.

The "OOO Soft Vinyl Factory" is the first project in the "OrderMade Bandai" effort. On a special Bandai website, people can choose different heads, body, leg, and arm parts to assemble their own custom-order figure from the ongoing live-action special-effect show Kamen Rider OOO. (119 theoretical combinations are possible.) Bandai will then manufacture the actual figure and ship it to the buyer's doorstep about two weeks later for 1,050 yen (about US$13).

For the ultimate collector, Bandai will sell all 119 different action figures (pictured above) in one 124,950-yen (US$1,548) set, complete with an autograph "signed" by the character Kōsei Kōgami. Only 100 such sets will be sold.

In other news, Bandai displayed its Gage-ing Builder series of action figures for Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, the latest entry in the Gundam robot anime franchise, at the Tokyo Toy Show. In a departure from most previous Gundam action figure lines, Bandai will sell the 1,050-yen (US$13) Core torsos separately from the 1,260-yen (US$15.60) Arms and 1,360-yen (US$16.90) Legs. People can then mix and match body parts to create their action figure. In the anime itself, the Gundam AGE mobile suit features the AGE System, an innovation that allows it to evolve depending on the next mission.

[Via Gigazine, Yaraon!]

Images © 2010 Ishinomori Pro, TV Asahi, ADK, Toei
© Sotsu, Sunrise, MBS