Jumbo Machinder Knockoffs
There are many knockoff jumbo machinders - mostly of Popy but I have seen a knockoff of the Clover Dunbine jumbo so it seems that nothing is sacred, which you would expect for knockoff toys. I typically refrain from purchasing the knockoffs, unless it fills some hole in my collection or I've been duped into buying one - my Jugarama Aquaman was bid, won and purchased with the thought that it was some Popy Kamen Rider X variant and it wasn't until some time later that I learned it was a knockoff made in Mexico. In any case, I wanted to provide some information on those that I've seen and in particular those that I own.
Here's a list of those that I know about:
Famosa
Famosa Robot Lanza Set |
Famosa information with links to all boxes
Jugarama
- Aquaman (Popy Kamen Rider X)
- Geta 1 (Popy Getta 1)
- Goro Goro (Popy Getta Poseidon)
- Ultraman (Popy Raideen)
Nacoral
- Robot Lanza Cohetes (Daimos)
- Robot Lanza Discos (Dragun)
- Robot Lanza Punos (Gaiking)
- Robot Lanzamisiles (Great Mazinga)
Others
- Argus (modded Raideen)
- Daitetsujin 17
- Peru Dangard Ace
- Giant Robo (Marmit Giant Robo)
- Gundan RX-78-2
- Starscream
- Trioplast (Peru) King of the Jungle (GoLion)
I'm fairly certain that Famosa and Nacoral are the same manufacturers only marketed under different regional names. Famosa seems to have been active in South America (Venezuela) while Nacoral marketed Spain. The figures, images and "checklist" on the end of the box are too similar to be coincidental - of course this may be a company knocking off another knockoff company - it's hard to confirm. I've also heard that Famosa and Nacoral both had licenses for their Jumbos but I'm not sure they would have changed the names if that were true.
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2 comments:
Hi
I´m from Venezuela, Famosa indeed had license to manufacture the jumbos and they were extremely popular (specially Mazinger Z) given there was a great anime fever during the 80s in here, the only reason they changed the names was something simple, marketing:
The original names were a bit difficult to palate for a "pre-globalized" Venezuelan kids also the popular tv cartoons were dubbed in spanish and the original japanese names of some characters were also changed to make them easier to understand. Mazinger (the main character & more profitable of the line) was the original reason this toys were produced here (the Mazinger fever was so big that kids skiped school just to watch reruns episodes in the morning) while Daimos & Gaiking were televised later they never were as popular as Maginger, but the real reason they were given generic names in the box (only discernibling figures by a ticking box to mark the character inside)was more interesting: The demand of the toyline was so great that year that Famosa decided to make only one box art which was more cost effective move but specially time effective since they had the rush to cover such huge demand.
Famosa used indeed the original molds from Popy (so did Nacoral in Spain) and of course so did Mattel in USA. Calling them Knock off is a bit harsh...if anything they are global markets variants. If you consider Famosa´s jumbos mere Knock offs i suppose you think the same about Mattel´s shogun warriors line since they were also a licensed product...Famosa also used original molds to produce Masters of The Universe & Barbie localy: both lines licensed by Mattel itself.
I invite you to check a bit of Venezuelan toy history by the wonderful toy collector and historian Juan Michelena, this is his blog :
http://figurasdeaccion.blogspot.com/
Greetings from Venezuela,
Manuel Valero
(Mecha enthusiast)
Hey Manuel,
I'm calling the Famosa jumbos knock-offs because it's pretty obvious that the DID NOT use the same molds as Popy and later Mattel - the issue I have is with the lack of copyrights on both the boxes and the figures - if these were licensed, even if Venezuala did not recognize international copyright laws, it would be very abnormal for any toys manufactured to be released without the appropriate references. If you do a side-by-side comparison of these toys they are slightly smaller (indicating that the molds were cast from original figures) and have many manufacturing defects (that no license holder would typically allow), in my opinion. These are trademarked toys and the original production companies still maintain those trademarks.
There's another matter with the carnival figures of Dangard Ace and Mazinger Z that crop up, anecdotally sourced from Venezuala or Argentina that also follow the same characteristics, smaller size, many defects, lack of copyrights, that seem to support the same idea.
All that being said/written, I welcome someone correcting me on the facts with some type of evidence from either Famosa or Nacoral (or Bandail or Mattel), for instance, showing the licensing agreement. I've reached out to Mattel and Bandai in the past to see if they had any information and they were either unwilling or unable to produce any information. I would love to be corrected?
-- John
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