Enter the 36th Chamber of Chogokin

Attention, grownups: geek zone ahead.

Not so long ago, in an American suburb far, far away from Tokyo, I helped create a website by the name of ToyboxDX. It was intended for grown men with an inordinate fondness for Japanese toy robots. When Alen Yen founded it back in 1998, it was a grimy little corner of the Web devoted to an arcane sub-unit of the hobby of toy collecting. It still is, and I mean that with love. A friend of mine who "isn’t in the life" once described ToyboxDX as being a "snarling otaku pit." I think that was a compliment.

Little has changed in the eight intervening years save for the fact that Japanese pop culture is a lot less arcane than it used to be. American kids quote lines from their favorite anime and "cosplay" as their favorite characters. You can find Japanese toys on the shelves of Wal-Mart. There's at least two English language books out on the topic, one co-authored by yours truly. The "scene" gets coverage – even occasional cover stories -- in everything from ToyFare to Wired to Playboy. (Yes, Playboy. But that's another story for another time.) In the age of the Internet, no stone of childhood nostalgia remains unturned for long. And that goes double here in Japan, a place where even the government is starting to promote pop culture as the next "big thing."

Last year, Japanese toy company Bandai, never missing an opportunity to milk a few extra yen out of Japanese robot toy freaks, released a luxuriously large-format slipcased hardcover book by the title of Chogokin Chronicle. Chances are, if you're browsing this site, that you're already at least passingly familiar with what "Chogokin" means. (If you aren't and have even the slightest interest in toy robots, hither thee to the ToyboxDX Datafile on the subject.)

Chogokin Chronicle is absolutely killer stuff for robot junkies. Problem is, it's all in Japanese. That's why I decided to translate a handful of chapters and make 'em available here. There aren't a whole lot of "original source" materials on the subject of Japanese robot toys available in English, and I'm hoping to do some more sections when I get the free time… No promises on when that'll be, though. In the meantime, enjoy retired toy master Katsushi Murakami reminiscing about the robots he designed. A word of caution: these passages are from a book written for the sort of folks who engage in heated arguments about design similarities between Combattler V and Voltes V, people for whom words like "rocket punch," "Godbird mode," and "Super Alloy Z" are daily vocabulary. Consider yourself warned.

Awakening: The Introduction

Transformation: Designing "Brave Raideen"

Fusion: Designing "Future Robo Daltanias"

The Ultimate: Creating "Tetsujin 28"

Comments

[Pedro Edogawa]

This is very sweet shit. Is this part of the same series that the hardcover Star Wars, Gundam, and Godzilla Chronicles books came from, or is that a dumb question?

[rich]

Thanks for translating these -- I've seen you mention this book in the past, and I've been curious about it. The snippets make me wish a full translation were in the works, with pictures and all.

[Matt]

I wish there were an English version in the works too, although I suspect there's only a limited number of English speakers who would groove to stories of Murakami sitting on the tatami trying to come up with robot designs. One of the really fascinating things about this book is that it clearly shows just how much of an influence sponsors like Popy had on the great robot shows of the '70s and '80s: the toys came first and foremost, with the shows created more or less as marketing afterthoughts. (I suspect a lot of American anime fans think it works the other way around.)

[Matt]

Oh, and no -- in spite of the similar title, it isn't part of the Gundam/Godzilla/etc, etc. Chronicles series of books. This is a huge, heavy, hardcover tome that retailed for close to $100 when it came out last year.