Gamera Plastic Models are 1/700 Scale!　X-plus "Shonen Rick" Aims for an Ideal World of Plastic Model Monsters [Hobby Industry Inside Vol. 79

Last year, a 1/8 scale plastic model of the sexy female vampire "Vampirella" was released and quickly sold out. The company behind this release was X-plus Corporation, which has released many monster figures under the brand name "Shonen Rick.
X-plus has also released a plastic model of the beautiful android from "Metropolis" following the "Vampirella" model. Orders have already begun. Not only that, the company is also planning to release "Shin Ultraman" and Heisei "Gamera" as assembled plastic model kits. What is the purpose behind this bold and unique product lineup?　Why plastic models?　We interviewed Mr. Gee Okamoto, X-plus's executive director, to find out.

With respect for the monsters of Marusan, Aurora, and Billiken Shokai

─ Is "Shonen Rick" a division within X-Plus?

Gee It's kind of a trade name. X-Plus is a general apparel trading company. I joined the company in 1998, and at that time, X-Plus happened to be trying to make entertainment a new theme. I thought that a trading company that did business overseas would have an advantage in producing figures. Of course, since the company is in the textile business, we had no contacts in figure factories. Therefore, I traveled around Korea, China, Vietnam, and other countries looking for a production factory.

─ Then, did Okamoto-san start planning and developing monster figures all by himself?

Gee When I first joined the company, I printed "Sculptor" on my business card (laughs).


(laughs) ─ Then, did you make the prototype of the monster yourself?

Gee Yes, because in the beginning I didn't know who to ask to make prototypes. I had experienced a time when garage kit makers such as Kaiyodo, Volks, General Products, and Inoue Arts were all competing in the Kansai region, so I was modeling monsters in clay just as I saw fit.
I made my own prototypes of the first Godzilla model version released by X-plus and the next Godzilla (Roland Emmerich's version of "GODZILLA"). Since that time, I have been particular about the packaging, and for the first Godzilla, the model version, I made the box the same size as Marusan's tin Godzilla. The box was made to look as if it were a tin toy made in Japan for the U.S. market, with a nonsensical English text. We also put the logo "Always Fun Toho Pictures" on the accompanying plate. It is a play on the fantasy that if this product had been lined up at the movie theater where "Godzilla" was released in 1954, it would have been .......

Gee, that was such a geeky product.

Gee I am of the generation that watched "Ultra Q" and "Ultraman" in real time when I was 3 years old, so I have strong memories of Marusan and Brumaak soft vinyl dolls. More than a decade later, I was very shocked when Billiken Shokai released soft vinyl kits of Metaluna Mutant from "Space Hydrogen Bomb Battle" and Eema Dragon from "20 Million Miles to Earth. Therefore, I have always wanted to make my own ideal soft vinyl monster kits someday.
There was another motivation: I realized that while there are companies that have a long history of making high-end die-cast miniature cars, there are no such manufacturers in the field of monsters. I wanted to be a company that continues to produce collectible and realistic monsters and creatures.

─ ─ That was your motivation for releasing the Cyclops from "The Seventh Voyage of Simbad" as a plastic model, wasn't it?

Gee We have commercialized many creatures created by Ray Harryhausen in the past in a series called the "Chess Piece Collection. So why a plastic model this time? The basis of the idea is Aurora's monster series.

Aurora is an American model manufacturer that dominated the market until the 1970s.

Gee When I was a child, I used to see packages of werewolves, Draculas, half-fishmen, and the like on the top shelf of model stores, and I used to wonder, "What in the world is that? I was curious. Later, when I got it, I found that the parts do not fit well, but each gill of the half-fish man is a separate part. I groaned at the fact that it was an injection kit, but it was amazing that they were able to reproduce that much. Above all, I was in awe of the package art. All the elements were completed at a high dimension, and the Aurora Monster Series was the one that came to fruition as a single product. Therefore, the X-Plus plastic models are also in 1/8 scale and are the size of the royal road, like a combination of Aurora and Billiken.