I don’t know why, but Japan gets all the best Star Wars swag. From Real Action Heroes to Hot Toys to whatever awesome stuff Bandai’s putting out, the Land of the Rising Sun is a great place for merch from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
The most recognizable faces in Star Wars…aren’t.
Here’s a set of uniquely-Japanese Star Wars products. The Stamp Figure Collection. This set includes the upper-bodies of five Star Wars baddies atop decorative ink stamps. The figures look to be about 1/12 scale (similar to the Star Wars: Black Series figures).
Decorative stamps, or cosplayers that ran out of money halfway through?
The sculpting, textures, and paint applications on these things is all top-notch. From the Troopers’ armor to Vader’s shiny helmet, to every bit of General Grievous, this is attention to detail that’d normally be reserved for high-grade figures and statues.
Not including Darth Maul seems like a missed opportunity for some reason.
Each character has a unique design stamp featuring the character and some *really* cool phrases written in Japanese kanji.
Grievous: Menkyo kaiden- License Given/Full Mastership/Proficiency
Jango: Ikkitousen- Mighty Warrior
Clone Trooper: Tekizai Tekisho – Right Man in the Right Place/Right Person for the Right Job
Storm Trooper: Hyakusen Renma – A patron of many battles/Battle Hardened
Darth Vader: Yuiga Dokuson – (I’m the) Center of the Universe
Troop Builders
The character line-up is interesting. It’s limited to Star Wars villains without human features. So no Darth Maul, Count Dooku, or Emperor Palpatine. Instead, we get General Grievous and (head scratchingly) Jango Fett. Why Jango, rather than his far more popular son?
“So a bounty hunter, a clone, and the Darth Vader prototype walk into the Cantina…”
These were blind-packed and each one had a retail price of about 600 yen. And each of these more than justifies that price. No doubt. But if you’re like me, and have very little interest in the Prequel Trilogy, the odds aren’t in your favor of getting one you’d actually want. Fortunately, a convenience store near my place had sold exactly ZERO boxes since they were released in late 2014, so they dropped the price down to 270 yen each. And at that price, even though I wound up with quite a few doubles, I’d be hard pressed to call it anything other than Happy Hobbying.
Shumi Nagaremono: The Hobby Drifter 